The Business of Ideas

This is easier done online than offline.

In the new virtual economy, ideas are the goods. Whether in words, pictures, videos or animations, the visual embodiment of ideas will continue to be the main and foremost currency that will be exchanged in the online world.

Creative Commons Image via Flickr: ieshraq

That is the premise that you have to build on if you truly want to build a business using freelancers.

When you hire a freelancer to create your logo, you are not just hiring an artist who can put shapes, lines and colors together. You are hiring someone to impart the idea inspired by that logo. This idea should be able to paint a picture of a thought on the mind of the person who sees it.

When you hire a freelancer to design your web page, you want the theme to reflect the mood and the emotions that go along well with your message. It is your canvass waiting to be painted with words, pictures and videos.

When you hire someone to write, you expect that someone to believe in what he is writing. To successfully impart what you want your audience to feel, think and eventually, do. Writing is nothing but painting with words. Writing is a more difficult form of painting.

The Call To Action
What is your unique value proposition? Think about that first before you even conceive any kind of business. What is the new thing, process, thought or way of thinking that can revolutionize or at the very least alter both perception and physical reality to anyone who wishes to transact with you.

On the Internet, most of these are related to advertising because once upon a time somebody said that eyeballs glued to a monitor have value. The system has been built with the assumption that the visual manifestation of a 250x250 block of colorful pixels meaningfully arranged as an advertisement could somehow, later on transform into sales.

That somehow these colorful pixels would eventually lead a person in Sumatra, to chop off a piece of bamboo, craft it into a ladder and then ship it to a person in Taiwan who happened to see that block of pixels, click it and then take the action to actually buy it.

We all work under those assumptions which if I may add, have actually created a multibillion dollar industry.

We live in an age where pressing a button automatically makes someone earn virtual money that somehow could be turned into real money. Amazing huh?