What Can Modern .com Entrepreneurs Learn From Donkey Kong?

I came across a post today on Gary Conn’s blog about a web page he designed to make some money on the Internet using Google’s AdSense program. After reading the post, a not-so profound thought came to me that I figured would make a good blog post for wanna-be online .com moguls out there.

People who want to make money online often look into complex schemes or modifications of popular ideas that are already making money online because it is difficult to create a million dollar baby from scratch. Sometimes a fresh look at an old idea or combining two current simple ideas in a way that no one has thought of is all that is needed to earn a modest online income.

Gary created a web page that took an existing flash version of the 1980’s arcade hit Donkey Kong and combined it with an original picture of a Donkey Kong arcade machine. The result was a unique page that looked like you were playing the original arcade game, console and all, directly from your computer’s screen. He monetized the page with Google AdSense and made a few bucks off the deal.

The point here is that if you have the creativity to see beyond the systems that are in place and their current applications, you can find a money-making niche online. You don’t have to design the next eBay or found the next youTube (although if you are doing that, please cut me in).

I can honestly say that most of the money I make online is generated by taking established ideas and systems and applying them to my interests in a unique way. I am not a .com millionaire or anything, but I did manage to earn about the same income a college graduate would expect to earn in a year – all from online efforts.

I do have a couple large projects in the hopper, but they are not the juice that keeps me rolling day in and day out. Just like in baseball, you need a few base hits, maybe even a double here and there, to make a home run REALLY count. In fact, if you focus on the base hits and execute properly, you may never even need to have the home run.

Keep it simple when you are making money online, and you will find that suddenly you have the resources to do bigger things and do them right.