I like hime largely because he’s not in the overly saturated, overly ego rich publishing industry. And I find his content real and straight forward. He’s one guy leading the path towards the one man startups. Something I wish I had the guts to do.

I’m sure you guys have your own startup idols. Take a minute to put one here in the comments, also use this time to share your site if you want.

Have a great weekend.

The fact is that the web creates virtually unlimited possibilities and rewards those who have good ideas and work hard to implement them. So if you’re struggling to find a summer job, or just don’t like the idea of an 8-5 job all summer, why not work for yourself? Why not put the infrastructure in place for a job that allows you to go down to the beach any day of the week?

Here’s what you need to do. First take a gut check. Are you self-motivated? Or do you need people watching over your shoulder to get things done? If you’re self-motivated, then you’re off to a good start.

The next step is to ask what you want out of your summer job. What’s your time horizon for seeing profit? If you’d like some quick cash, then follow Ben’s strategies for buying, building and flipping websites. If you think you’d like to see your summer job turn into a full time job after college, in other words, if you’re really determined to be self-employed, then map out a three year plan. Determine what you’re going to do to get to a certain place three years later.

The next step is to ask yourself what you do well. Not everyone is a blog designer like Ben. You might have fabulous ideas, but not have the skill set to implement them. This is where you have to start networking with people. Some skills you can easily learn (like how to setup a new blog, how to backup a blog database, etc.). But some skills are hard to come buy (a great eye for blog design). If you meet the right people you might be able to barter for services. Or, you may need to be ready to shell out some cash. Running auctions at SitePoint for logo and design services can be some of the best money spent.

But site design isn’t the only profitable skill on the web. Let’s say you’re an expert at classical guitar and have this brilliant idea for teaching people how to learn classical guitar. Start a blog on classical guitar, but only give teaser information. Don’t give your best stuff away. Instead, work behind the scenes developing an e-book or even an e-video series. As you build a readership with your blog, start charging for the e-book or videos, and maybe even offer webcam lessons!

Or, let’s say you’ve grown up with dogs your whole life and plan to become a veterinarian. If you have access to lots of dogs, it would be an awesome idea to develop a site with video of dog training and various breeds of dogs. Everyone and their grandmother has a dog in the US. If you execute properly you could have a hugely popular site.

The bottom line is this: when choosing a summer job you’re making a critical career decision. There are virtues and benefits to both types of summer job. But if you have a true passion and a true entrepreneurial spirit, then why slave through your summer working for someone else on poorly defined tasks, when you can have total creative control and set a precise path to become your own boss down the road.

Last November I had to unload one of my largest businesses. Why? Because I was spending too much of my time tracking down and collecting money from hundreds of clients at a time. I was making money, but I was unhappy. And I’ve always promised myself that no matter what, I’d unload any responsibility that was consistently miserable.

Whenever you run a business, you’re going to encounter what I refer to as managing other people’s responsibilities. Whether it’s the phone company that screwed up your phone bill or the client who keeps forgetting to pay his bill. These are just facts that you need to prepare yourself for. The very essence of business involves interacting with others and becoming interdependent on them. Sometimes people are going to fail their end of the bargain. And that’s going to cost you time and productivity.

Rather than get discouraged about these facts, it can be beneficial to step back and think about how to minimize their occurrence. Below, I’ll give you a few suggestions:

1. Maximize your profit/client ratio.

The basic idea here is that rather than develop 20 websites per month at $150/website, you should aim to design one website for $3,000 or two websites for $1,500. For each client that you have, you have a list of management duties related to them. So with 20 clients, you’d have 20x as many client management duties as when you had 1 client.

Also note how much easier it is to increase your profits just by adding a few clients.

2. Shape your time

If you ever get to the end of the day and find yourself not having accomplished any of your goals for the day because you were busy putting out other people’s fires, they you need to take my advice. Carve out at least 3 hours per day where your planned work gets your undivided attention. If necessary, you might need to implement some rules during those 3 hours such as: No phone calls. No email. etc.

3. Get the right tools

Growing up, my father used to tell me time and time again how important it was to get the right tools for a job. For some tasks, having the right tool could be the difference between hours and days. While I didn’t realize it just a few months ago, there are a variety of tools that are available online that make collecting money from clients a much less painful task.

One such tool is a web app called Bill My Clients. Recently, I was asked to review their service (a review which you are reading now) and I can honestly say that I wish I had had such a simple and easy to use invoicing tool (PayPal’s invoicing tool just didn’t cut it for me) back when I was running the previously mentioned business that I sold in November 2006.

One of the things that makes Bill My Clients a great service is that they make it easy for you to accept a wide range of payments ranging including credit cards, PayPal or even ACH/eCheck. Along with each of these payment features comes a payment tracking system, that makes it easy for you to see who’s paid and who hasn’t. When you’re dealing with dozens of clients at a time, this feature becomes priceless.

Another useful feature that differentiates Bill My Clients from many other invoicing tools is the ability to have invoices sent via the USPS with a simple click of a button. So, if you have a client who isn’t tech savvy or still prefers doing things the old fashioned way, you can send them an invoice through the mail. But the great thing about the Bill My Clients web app is that you can initiate this from anywhere in the world. On a 1 month vacation in Thailand? Need to send an urgent invoice? You’re totally covered!

So in conclusion, if you’re looking for a full-service, time-saving invoicing system to help ease the burden of collecting money from your clients, I have to give Bill My Clients a thumbs up. It’s simple but powerful, and that’s what we’re looking for as entrepreneurs, isn’t it?

College Startup is all about preparing college students to identify good business opportunities that can be executed from your dorm room. One strategy that we’ll recommend over and over is to identify and sell products that appeal to a certain demographic or subsection of society. Doing this sometimes requires looking at your own interests or the interests of your friends.

For example, if you’re in a sorority or fraternity, you’re probably proud to be a member. So what better way to show your Greek pride than with a customized license plate or frame with your Greek letters? Sounds like a great online business idea, no? Well, it’s an idea that’s already be executed by a company called GreekForMe.

GreekForMe has a wide selection of bold and colorful plates with practically every national Greek organization represented. Plates are available at $19.99 and frames cost $11.99. While we feel that the prices are a bit steep and would certainly like to see the option of choosing any combination of Greek Letters and colors/designs, we are impressed by the large number of products that GreekForMe makes available out of the box. In addition, one of the things we like best about GreekForMe is that they arrange fundraising opportunities for sororities and fraternities using their products.

All in all, we think that the GreekForMe license plates provide a great example of a niche product with a natural customer base.