Inspired Internet Ideas from the Baltic Sea

I had hit upon a great idea – make money online. Everyone was doing it, including my best friend’s husband. Of course, I had no idea what it was he actually did, and just as well. If people knew what he did, and it was easy to do, everyone would be doing it and he’d be making less money. I needed something original, with a huge market potential, and something I could do. I wasn’t the brightest of sparks when it came to the internet, so it couldn’t be something too difficult or something needing a lot of technical expertise. But I needed…. Something.

So I bought myself a laptop, registered a business name, and sat in my Baltic Sea apartment (Ferienwohnung Ostsee) waiting for inspiration to come to me like the soft ocean breezes that played with the potted plants lining my windowsills. I must have sat there for several days, staring at the blue calming ocean, sipping cup of tea after cup of tea. But nothing came. No inspiration. I needed a change of scenery. So I tried sitting in my lounge room, the vista of blue sea replaced by my fish tank with Larry and Harold swimming lazily around their plastic orange coral.

After a week, I decided to go on a holiday. I searched online (on my new laptop), and after several hours of visiting poorly arranged websites with nothing much of interest, eventually booked a nice Rügen hotel, and headed off for a week in the sun, on the beach, with a view to resuming my search for the perfect online business when I got home.

When I got to the hotel, I was pleasantly surprised. The website was not quite accurate, and what I thought was a reasonably priced three-star accommodation was actually a very inexpensive five star hotel. What’s more, it was almost empty. I was shocked, as the room was beautifully appointed and the views to the beach were breath-taking. When I popped downstairs for dinner I asked the receptionist where their guests were. She shrugged, and replied that people opted for the five start hotels that were marketed as such. But they had just undergone major renovations and management had not yet updated their website to reflect their new five-star status.

Sitting at the beach, it hit me. I would start a blog, reviewing hotels. Of course it would be a slow process and I knew it would be a long time before I made any money, but if I plugged away at it, and marketed it the right way, I’d surely be on a winner.

I made an appointment with the hotel’s manager the next morning, and we discussed my new plan. Being a relative unknown, she took a huge gamble when she shook my hand and said “I’d be pleased to be your first review. Let me know when you get home and set everything up, and we’ll advertise your services here, too.” I spent the rest of the day, full of bravado and hope, visiting other hotels in the area and making the same deal. I wasn’t successful with all of them, but about six in ten said they’d take up my offer. I returned home, refreshed and ready to tackle my new business venture!