How To Make Money Online

Suleman Ali needed a change. So, in mid-2007, he left his programming gig at Microsoft to start a company--any company. On a whim, he wrote an application for Facebook, the social networking Web site, called Superlatives, which lets visitors rate their friends as the smartest, best-looking and such. It immediately caught fire.

"I basically started building it out of boredom, and people started noticing it three days after I launched it," says Ali. So did interested suitors: Nine months later, the 26-year-old sold his hobby-cum-enterprise, called Esgut, to Palo Alto, Calif.-based Social Gaming Network for "several million dollars" (he's not allowed to share the exact purchase price).

For all the troubles in the economy, the Internet continues to be a hotbed of innovation, entrepreneurship and, as development costs continue to decrease, stiff competition. Some of the most lucrative ideas have yet to hit the drawing boards. "I could almost make the case that the idea you think is really stupid is [the one that will] succeed," says Guy Kawasaki, partner at Garage Ventures.

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Ali financed Esgut, with an eight-employee roster, by selling advertising that runs alongside its applications. By the time he sold the business, the company's six apps had attracted some 14 million unique users. Now Ali is ready for round two. Despite the downturn, the young entrepreneur says he's in "brainstorming" mode with a high school friend and MIT graduate.