The Work From Home Blog

Ponoko offers some pretty cool services already which are worth investigating for the work from home crowd but now they have launched a new service called Photomake which I think is the most exciting so far. The great thing is you don’t need much technical knowledge or software to use it and anyone with an eye for design can create great products to resell at Etsy, Ebay, markets, etc.

Basically you can draw any design, either by hand or using software and Ponoko will turn it into a physical product for you with their laser cutting technology. You can watch a video of how it works and read a review at Mashable.

These are just some ideas on how to sell more with your direct sales business. If you have more ideas I would love to hear them so please leave them in the comments.

1) Set up a stall at craft shows and fairs
2) Hold more parties where people can buy your products
3) Always carry a product sample with you and work it into conversations with everyone you talk to
4) Fundraisers
5) Always follow up with your past customers. Read more…

StudentOfFourtune is a homework help site where some people are earning good money by answering students’ questions. The most popular question category is maths but there are many other categories too including art and business. Many people are generating decent revenue by simply selling the same answers over and over again.

Something you might at first find confusing is that the word “Answered” is written next to most open questions. This means you can still answer them however and the buyer will choose which answer he wants to buy. He decides which answer to buy based on a small preview of answers available. Student Of Fortune acts as the broker and handles payment.

While this is a fairly new and not yet a very busy site, it is one worth keeping an eye on.
Found via Mashable

I came across Twittad.com the other day which is a site where people can sell advertising space on their Twitter profile pages. Some of the people selling ad space have as little as 20 followers so there doesn’t seem to be minimum. While I saw one ad that was charging $1000 for 7 days of advertising (!), the average price seems to be around the $10-$20/month range.

If you run a web site or blog, you might be familiar with the work and effort involved in running a competition where there are prizes to award. ContestMachine is a new widget that hopes to solve this problem by automating much of the process. You can read what exactly it can do here. It is free to use for up to two contests per month. If you need to run more promotions then you will need to pay a fee.
Found via TechCrunch

Australia only
2vouch is a new job site where you can receive a finders fee for referring someone who is right for the particular job that was advertised. It seems to be mainly IT jobs so if you work in the IT field or know someone who does, this might be an opportunity for you. With many of the finder’s fees being close to the $2,000 mark per job it is definitely worth a try.

Tutoring students online is one option when thinking about working from home. There are many web sites which either hire tutors or let tutors promote their services. Each site differs in their requirements. I have tried to sort out the below links, starting from the ones which need the least qualifications right up to the hardest ones. Many of the opportunities are available to any country in the world.

No qualifications needed:
idapted.com – English Language Tutors. You can choose your own hours, Read more…

At Home Mom blog has a great post today on how to still get work done when you have a baby with you at home. There is some pretty handy advice there (I know I’ve been there) and it’s even broken down into age groups ie. working with a 0-3 months old etc. If you are expecting a baby and are wondering whether you will still be able to work from home, it is a good read.

Last week I was reminded how easily money can be made on Ebay by simply keeping an eye on what is selling in your favourite categories.
Around the time the Olympics began, McDonalds started offering BeiBei, the blue Olympic mascot as their promotional toy for the week (followed by all the other mascots in the following weeks). The toys cost $2 each or free with a Happy Meal.

This is how much BeiBei was selling for on Ebay within two weeks of McDonalds selling out. Read more…

Social lending on the internet (or peer to peer lending) is people lending and borrowing money from each other and a web site acting as a go between, managing all the administrative hassles of repayment, interest rates etc. You simply deposit your chosen amount to use for lending and earn interest. As well as making a return you are also helping out people who need it.

You can invest as little as $25 on some sites. Think of it as Read more…