A Bang On The Head, A Kangaroo And An Entrepreneur, What
Happened Next?
If you are always on the look out for a money spinner, sometimes
you'll find them pop up in the most unlikely of places.
A Herd Of 45,000 Website Visitors That Didn't Cost Anything...
In September 2003 an amazing turn of events led to a massive
flood of media coverage, which in turn sent a stampeding herd of
free visitors to a brand new website.
Leonard Richard is a 52 year old farmer living down under in
Victoria, Australia. He was out and about on his farm not too
far from his house, when a branch fell and hit him hard on his
head.
Leonard estimates that he must of been out cold for at least
half an hour and was in a really bad way.
As luck would have it, Leonard's pet kangaroo called Lulu,
discovered him and helped to raise the alarm. I didn't realize
this myself, but kangaroo's can make a kind of barking noise.
The persistent and somewhat out of character barks from Lulu
eventually managed to alert Leonard's family in his house nearby.
It's uncertain but Leonard thinks that Lulu may have also turned
him on his side to keep his airway clear, although I'm not sure
whether I believe that bit. Leonard was airlifted by helicopter
to the nearest hospital.
Lulu was credited with saving Leonard's life. The news of Lulu
the 'life saving' kangaroo soon spread. The RSPCA decided to
give Lulu a very rare bravery award which resulted in a lot of
media interest.
A Quick Thinking Entrepreneur...
On the other side of Australia, a quick thinking entrepreneur
and website designer by the name of John (sorry that's all I
could get), got in touch with the Richard's family and offered
to set up a website for them free of charge.
They would then be able to share their story across the globe.
The website didn't go live until April this year, just before
the RSPCA officially announced the award. This was when the
media frenzy whipped up a real pace and the website was
literally flooded with visitors. So many, that they had to shut
the site down and upgrade the servers. You can view the site
here:
http://www.luluthekangaroo.com.au/
An Opportunity To Bring In Some Cash
If you look at the site, they've managed to take advantage of
all this traffic by adding a few money spinners on the site.
- They've got a small banner for GoDaddy website hosting, and
they also adapted it to feature a picture of Lulu as part of the
banner animation (nice touch).
- They're selling T-shirts with a picture of Lulu on them
promoting world peace.
- They have put together an ebook detailing all the events up to
and after the accident.
- Finally, they have converted the ebook to a mini disk as well.
As another nice touch they are also donating a percentage of the
profits to charity.
They seem to have made a fair attempt at trying to make some
money from what could have otherwise been a family tragedy. Good
luck to them I say!
Keep Your Eye's Open For Potential Money Spinners
This sort of opportunity is nearly always going to be a
short-term money spinner. Obviously, most people are not going
to stumble on a life saving kangaroo like this one.
However, as an entrepreneur it may pay you to keep your eye out
for any unusual events, acts of bravery, etc. Basically anything
that has the potential for a lot of media interest.
Most people like the Richard's family would never even consider
building their own website after a situation like this. You can
get a domain name and some hosting for about $20. If you know
how to build a basic looking website, the only additional cost
will be your time.
As this story showed, having a website really helped to give
this tale of bravery worldwide recognition. If you type 'lulu
the kangaroo' into a search engine you will find loads of news
sites linking to Lulu's website. I very much doubt there would
have been as much interest if the news websites didn't have
Lulu's website to refer and link to.
Joint Venture Possibilities
If you have your own niche product already, you could go looking
for human interest stories that relate to your product.
Alternatively you could team up with a joint venture partner
that does have a related product.
Here's An Exaple...
Let's say that a story breaks in your area about a woman that
has given birth to 7 children all at once. With IVF treatment
this could happen. This sort of thing is usually very popular in
the media.
You could approach the woman and offer to build a website for
her. With all those children she is bound to get a lot of media
coverage, and she might be interested in trying to make a bit of
money from all the media interest. At the end of the day, all
those hungry mouths will need to be fed somehow.
You could propose a 50/50 split on any profits from displaying a
few ads and links to baby related products on the site.
Summary
This is not the sort of thing that you would be able to give up
your day job to pursue, but it could provide you with a nice
little cash boost.
Jason Lewis, Copyright 2004