Do you have a love for investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and other assets? If so, then the stock market is the best place for you. You will stay interested, active, and engaged in your buy and sell decisions. You can make money by trading stocks or being a buy and hold investor.

Maybe the Internet is more your cup of tea. You may be interested in working from home and making money using the Internet. There are absolutely millions of ways that you can make money using the Internet. You can blog, write ebooks, do consulting, and sell products. The list is endless of ways that you can make money using the Internet. Find the one that best fits you.

You may be sick and tired of your day job and want to start working for yourself.  Starting a business is a big risk but it also offers big rewards as well. Entrepreneurs are risk takers who see the potential that starting their own business has. You could start a LLC, corporation, partnership, or a sole proprietorship in a matter of days. Check with a legal advisor so that you know which entity works best for you.

So, I guess you could say that the key to building great wealth is to do the following:

1. Find your niche. Everybody has something that they are good at. You have to find that area and build on that. Once you find it, the learning just begins. You have to keep gaining knowledge so that you can become a better investor, entrepreneur, or Internet mogul.
2. Be passionate about whatever it is that you do. You can’t fake enthusiasm. If you hate what you are doing (even if it is making money for you), what’s the point?
3. Work hard. There is still no substitute for hard work. Whether they admit it or not; every successful person worked very hard in the early stages of building their enterprise.
4. Be persistent. Never give up on your goals. People often quit too early when they are right on the doorstep of success. (Imagine if Warren Buffett had quit when he made the mistake of buying a failing textile business). This blog would be call Buy Like _______ instead of Buy Like Buffett.
5. Give back. Once you have made it and reached your goals, you should take the time to help someone else. You can mentor someone else so that they achieve similar success. The great thing about money is that you can donate it to help improve the lives of other people. You want to leave a legacy so that future generations can profit from your hard work.
   

The good news is that this is not an either or proposition. You can combine a number of different strategies. My goal is to replicate Buffett’s investment returns, run a successful investment advisory business, and create a passive income stream from my blog and online projects.

Well enough about me, what are your goals?

©2012 BUY LIKE BUFFETT. All Rights Reserved.

BUY LIKE BUFFETT - Make Money Investing The Warren Buffett Way

Let’s take a look at  a few of the billionaires that have found success by starting their own entrepreneurial ventures.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg has been in the news recently because of the immensely popular movie The Social Network. Zuckerberg is credited with starting a popular media site in college known as Facebook. The site has allowed Zuckerberg to generate tremendous amounts of revenue by selling information to advertisers. Today, Zuckerberg has an estimated net worth of $4 billion dollars.

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban is famously known as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks but that is not how he built his fortune. Cuban became a billionaire by broadcasting sporting events live on the Internet. His investment in video and audio content turned out to be a rather profitable one. Cuban and his partner Todd Wagner sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion dollars.

Larry Page

Larry Page is one half of the brains behind the most popular company on the Internet. Page founded Google along with his business partner Sergey Brin at the age of 25. Today, Google is the most used web based search engine in the web. Page is estimated to have a net worth of $17.5 billion dollars. Brin has an equivalent net worth of $17.5 billion dollars.

Peter Thiel

If you have every sent a payment on the Internet then you are probably familiar with Paypal. Peter Thiel was one of the co-founders of Paypal. Ebay bought out the original Paypal investors for a sum of $1.5 billion dollars. Thiel has since invested in a number of different startups including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Friendster. Thiel’s net worth has ballooned to $1.2 billion dollars.

Follow The Example

The lesson that can be learned from these Internet billionaires is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to get wealthy. Your idea doesn’t have to be brand new. You can follow the example of these entrepreneurs and just build upon an existing concept. Before delving into the marketplace, ask yourself the following questions:

- What unmet need is their in the market place? (Paypal filled a need for a payment processor.)
- What product or service can you offer that customers want? (Broadcast.com brought NFL, MLB, NBA games direct to sports fans.)
- Are there any existing businesses whose business model can be improved upon? (Facebook is just a Much Much Much better version of Myspace.)
- Is your business model attractive to potential acquirers? (Many successful businesses like Zappos and Woot.com have been bought out by larger conglomerates.)

Ideas For Future Businesses

- Who will improve upon the terrestial and satellite radio concept? (XM/Sirius are only a launching pad.)
- Who will bring  3-D into the Internet, gaminng, and apps world? (Affordable 3-D apps, and games are the future.)
- Will there ever be a billionaire blogger? (Michael Arrington was the richest bringing in $200,000/month from Techcrunch.)

You never know what idea that you have that could transform you into the next great business mogul.

Photo by: Maria Reyes Davis

©2012 BUY LIKE BUFFETT. All Rights Reserved.

BUY LIKE BUFFETT - Make Money Investing The Warren Buffett Way

The goal for most people is to one day become a millionaire. Becoming a millionaire is not as difficult as you think. You just need to acquire a net worth of $1 million dollars. This means that the value of all of your assets together minus your liabilities should be equal to $1 million dollars.

Here are 5 steps that will put you on the road to becoming a millionaire.

5 Steps For How To Become A Millionaire

1. Buy a piece of property.

One of the easiest ways to increase your net worth is by investing in a home. The premise behind owning property is that the value should appreciate over time. Your balance owed decreases as you make payments and the equity in your home should increase. If you buy a home valued at $200,000 and make 10 years worth of payments, it’s reasonable to expect that the home could easily appreciate to a value of $250,000 and your loan balance could decrease to $150,000. This would give you equity of $100,000.

2. Start investing.

Find an asset that you believe will increase in value over time and invest. Invest during the good times and the bad ones. The problem for most people is that they don’t invest heavily enough in their best ideas. Start investing with just $100 and see what happens. If you could invest $250/month for a ten year time period, you would have close to $50,000. If you invested $500/month for 10 years, you would have $93,000. I am assuming a return of 8% per year which is reasonably possibly. You could invest in REIT’s or MLP’s and easily earn 8% in dividend yield alone. You could also get a 5% to 6% dividend return on high yielding stocks (ex: Verizon) and would just need to generate 3% via capital appreciation.

3. Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate.

The first goal is to accrue $100,000 in capital. After that it gets a whole lot easier to get a net worth of $1,000,000. If you invest $100,000 and get a 5% return on your money, than you would have earned $5,000 in interest alone. Remember that every dollar that you have is either working for you or against you. Make your dollars work for you by maximizing the return. Get your money out of the big banks and place it in higher yielding FDIC insured accounts. You may have to sacrifice and make cuts to reach your goal but when you get there it will definitely be worth it.

4. Develop multiple streams of income.

Unless you are an athlete, high level corporate exec, or a trust fund baby; it’s unlikely that you will become a millionaire off of your job alone. Create a side income for yourself. Find a need and fill it. Start a business, develop a business idea, create a website or pick up freelance jobs. It is possible to pick up an extra $25k to $50k per year working from home in your spare time. Do something. Use your free time to generate extra money. Make productive use of every moment that you have. You never know which business venture will be the one that makes you your fortune.

5. Never lose sight of your goal.

Keep track of your progress by evaluating your goals monthly and determine if you are on track to reach your million dollar goal. Use financial calculators to gauge your progress. If you notice you are falling behind, change your plan. Increase your income, reduce an expense or change your investment strategy. Most people never achieve their financial goals because they are afraid to take risks. You will have to take some risk if you want to realize your dream. Never follow the crowd. If you do what everyone else has done, than you will get the exact same results as everyone else.

©2012 BUY LIKE BUFFETT. All Rights Reserved.

BUY LIKE BUFFETT - Make Money Investing The Warren Buffett Way

I posed the following question to 10 different people. “How much money would you need to have to consider yourself rich?” I wanted to get different peoples responses as to how they would describe wealth. The answers varied dramatically.

Here are some of the responses.

- 6 people said $1 million dollars is a sign of wealth.

- 1 person said $2-3 million dollars.

- 1 person said $5 million dollars.

- 1 person said $50 million dollars

- 1 person said enough money that they were financially comfortable. (bills paid, not stressing over money)

I have always thought about wealth in numerical terms. My personal goal for wealth has always been to acquire $1 billion dollars over a 25 year time period. Why such a lofty goal? My thinking was always that even if I fall short of the goal, I would be quite happy with $200 or $250 million dollars. However, the last response caused me to rethink my position. Being rich is about more than just acquiring a bunch of money. Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to be a billionaire but it is not all that matters. You should consider yourself financially rich if you live a comfortable lifestyle. Being rich is about financial peace. You no longer have to stress over mortgage payments, car notes, and college loans. You aren’t working yourself to death 50-60 hours a week just to make ends meet. You should have some time to enjoy your life. You cannot put a price on this kind of financial peace.

The main impetus for acquiring wealth is to improve lives. Once you have acquired significant financial resources then you can give back. You can help family, friends, charities, and the less fortunate. Remember the goal is to not just simply acquire money but to give back and help someone else. So, if you haven’t achieved all of your financial goals just yet, don’t stress out. Stick to your plan and remember that if you have a loving family and friends, you are already rich!

Photos by: AMagill

©2012 BUY LIKE BUFFETT. All Rights Reserved.

BUY LIKE BUFFETT - Make Money Investing The Warren Buffett Way

1) Innovators – These are the people that develop a new way of doing things. You don’t have to come up with the next great idea, just improve upon an existing one. Steve Jobs of Apple is one of the great innovators. From the ipod to the iphone to the imac, Apple is always on the cutting edge of innovation.

2) Inventors – These are the creators of a new good or service. You just have to see a need for a product that others do not see. James Dyson became a billionaire by developing the bagless vacuum cleaner. His idea was initially rejected because it was seen as hurting vacuum bag sales. Today the dyson vacuum is an international best seller.

3) Inheritors – This is the easiest path to wealth. You need rich relatives for this one though! Ask Jim Walton, S Robson Walton, Alice Walton and Christy Walton who are the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th richest Americans. They are the heirs of the Walmart fortune.

4) Investors – Investors commit money to an endeavor with the expectation of profit. This can be through saving or purchasing an asset for capital gains. Warren Buffett has built his fortune through stock investing. Donald Trump made his billions by investing in real estate. Jerry Jones got rich in oil and gas exploration.

5) Entrepreneurs – Entrepreneurs are the risk takers that start and manage a business. Entrepreneurship can take many forms from purchasing a franchise to creating a start up. Bill Gates of Microsoft and Larry Ellison of Oracle grew small technology firms into the world’s largest software companies. Oprah Winfrey began her career in local news and is now the CEO of a media empire.

I know. I know. Entrepreneurship doesn’t start with the letter I. But the 5 I’s sound a lot better than 4 I’s and an E.

©2012 BUY LIKE BUFFETT. All Rights Reserved.

BUY LIKE BUFFETT - Make Money Investing The Warren Buffett Way