While investigating SpacedEd’s site, I learned that they are seeking new courses.  In fact, they offer of a $100 royalty advance and 60-80% royalties for courses added to their site.  Conveniently, they also posted a list of the courses requested most often by subscribers.

I do not feel particularly interested in preparing such courses, but I am interested in hiring someone to write them for me.  So I threw together a quick job offer and posted it here on Craigslist Manila.  My hope is that in the next few days someone will respond with course proposals.  I will turn around and submit them to SpacedEd.  If SpacedEd accepts them, I will pay the proposer to complete the course, which I will then turn over to SpaceEd.  In the short run, I will net $75 per course, since I am offering $25 to the course writer.  In the long run, each course should become a small source of residual income that requires little effort to maintain.  I will continue to publish updates on this experiment as it progresses.

Initial investment:
Time: 1 hour
Money: $0

Current return:
$0

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I got engaged!

Just kidding. The real news is a bit more mundane, but still very exciting, for me at least. I contacted a large number of website owners with offers to purchase their websites. One of the owners was not ready to sell his website, but agreed to form a partnership with me in which I would improve the website (focusing on increasing revenue) and we would split the revenue 50/50.

That by itself is not so shabby, but I am an entrepreneur, so I am looking not only for income, but also equity. So I emailed him last night offering to become a partner not only for website development, but also for the business as a whole. It was a bit gutsy, but I believe my argument was sound. Now I am waiting for his response.

This is the most exciting thing I am doing right now. My classes and the New York nightlife are fun, too, but for the first time, I am actually BEING an entrepreneur and not only talking about it.

I would love to hear your comments!

Best course I am taking: Object-oriented programming with Java. Yay!

Worst course: Gateway engineering lab. Freshman have to endure this course almost as a rite of passage. I’ll try to make the best of it.

In other news, I have found an investor who is willing to provide capital (and assume the risk of losing it) for one of my business ideas: buying, renovating, and eventually reselling websites. Strictly speaking, I don’t need an investor, but I would rather have 0% chance of losing money that should be used for tuition, at the expense of 35% of the profit. After my first successful website sale, I will be able to provide my own capital.

So the real question is: Will I have the time during this semester to learn and do everything necessary to succeed at this? That is the question I am asking myself.

Any thoughts or comments? Please share them!