By Alyson Shontell, Business Insider
Scott DeLong. Dong Nguyen. Amanda Hocking. All those people found a way to create something and turn it into $1 million or more quickly.
Dong Nguyen created “Flappy Bird” last spring and claims he organically grew it to the top spot in the App Store. While “Flappy Bird” was at the top, Nguyen told The Verge’s Ellis Hamburger it was generating $50,000 a day. After about a month, Nguyen removed the app from the App Store and Google Play because he felt his game was “too addicting.” (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Inspired by their stories, we found 11 unusual ways to make a relatively quick million online.
Sell 477,000 apps in the App Store or 714,000 self-published books on the Kindle. Either could be the path to riches.
Launch a one-person blog, master Facebook’s algorithm, and make multiple millions in eight months.
Average payment from Google ads: $2 per thousand views ($1 for each ad on the page).
Million-dollar math: If a publisher generates 41,650,000 pageviews per month, they can generate about $83,000, or $1 million per year.
Who did it: ViralNova founder Scott DeLong was able to launch his site and get it to 200 million monthly pageviews just eight months later. DeLong uses remnant ads (cheap ads like Google AdSense). There are two ads on every page.
ViralNova’s AdSense rate might be $2 per thousand views, $1 for each ad on the page, which would earn Delong $400,000 every month he hits 200 million pageviews. DeLong told Business Insider’s Steve Kovach last January that he was indeed making six figures a month. That means his annual revenue run rate is between $1.2 million and $4.8 million a year, assuming ViralNova’s traffic stays high.
Be an UberX driver in NYC for 10 years.
Median income of an UberX driver in NYC: $90,000
Amount drivers keep per ride: 80%
Million-dollar math: According to Uber, the median wage for an UberX driver working at least 40 hours a week in New York City is $90,766 a year and $74,191 a year in San Francisco. That means 10 years of work in NYC could earn UberX drivers $1 million. It’d take 13.5 years in San Francisco. That’s without the cost of owning an operating a car built in, however.
Who did it: n/a; Uber the company is only a few years old.
… or a Lyft driver for life. It will take you twice as long to make a million dollars as UberX, according to Glassdoor reviews.
Hourly Rate: $22.20, according to four driver responses on Glassdoor. A Lyft driver also told Business Insider’s Megan Rose Dickey that he makes $800 a week, working five days a week. That’s about $42,000 a year.
Amount drivers keep per ride: 80%. Lyft keeps 20%, just like Uber, unless it’s during “prime (busy) time” on the app, in which case the drivers keep it all.
Million-dollar math: Assuming drivers work 40 hours a week, they’d have to work 21 or 22 years to make $1 million.
Who did it: n/a
Dog-sit for 6,667 pups on DogVacay.
Average amount made per dogsitting: According to DogVacay, the average host could expect to make about $150 for a five-day Vacay (the average length for a first-time booking). That’s after the 15% cut DogVacay takes per booking. The average payment varies from city to city, however.
You keep: 100% of that.
Million-dollar math: $150 x 6,667 dogsits = $1,000,000.
Who did it: n/a
Create a frustrating, viral app like ‘Flappy Bird’ and keep it in the App Store for at least 20 days.
Payment from mobile ads: At its peak, “Flappy Bird” creator Dong Nguyen says he was making $50,000 a day on his free app by running a tiny mobile ad banner at the top of the game.
Million-dollar math: $50,000 per day x 20 days = $1,000,000.
Who did it: Dong Nguyen created “Flappy Bird” last spring and claims he organically grew it to the top spot in the App Store. While “Flappy Bird” was at the top, Nguyen told The Verge’s Ellis Hamburger it was generating $50,000 a day. After about a month, Nguyen removed the app from the App Store and Google Play because he felt his game was “too addicting.”
Sell 714,286 self-published books on a Kindle.
Average cost of a book sold: $2
You keep: 70%
Million-dollar math: For every $2 book sold, you keep $1.40. $1.40 x 714,286 books = $1,000,000.40
Who did it: 29-year old Amanda Hocking was the best-selling “indie” writer on the Kindle store a few years ago. She was selling about 100,000 copies a month at $1 to $3 a pop, which set her on track to pocket a few million dollars.
Read the full article by Alyson Shontell from Business Insider.
