Friday, August 30, 2002

Welcome to Shery Ma Belle Arrieta

I'd like to formally welcome Shery Ma Belle Arrieta to W3O. Let her Filipina dotcom story inspire more women to explore doing business online.

Yes, we're getting bigger. I'm hoping that once we have this blog stable with regular writers/contributors, we could already spin off to a regular website. (I wish such a day will happen soon)

Shery's entrepreneurial story brings back great memories to me. I wish I did a little bit later so that my options would have been better and much more flexible. At present, I'm at home most of the time. I only go out when I have a speaking engagement, a meeting with a client, or attend my Saturday class.

Although I must admit that it is quite risky that you don't have a regular income. However, it brings out the best in one person. You become creative on how you do things and get it done in order to survive despite little resources that you have. In this freelance business, if you're flexible and not too picky, you can survive. As you mature, you can create your own opportunities.

In my case, I recently published a monthly DigitalFilipino StatsReport. Similar to my book, it is a self-imposed challenge that I gave to myself. In most of these endeavors, the revenue doesn't come directly from these products but the value-added generated from it. Being invited to speaking circuits, commissioned to do specialized research, writing grant papers, consulting, among others come into play that provides a totally different earning opportunity and offset the cost of my publication.

If you work harder and smarter, you'll earn well. But if you get lazy and foolish with business decisions, you'll pay twice the price of such mistakes. More often than not, we learn these things the hard way as we encounter failures and mistakes along the way. Nevertheless, it makes us all stronger, wiser, and tougher.

This is the New Economy and we just can't give up!

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