But it is worth everything. It used to be that if you wanted to start a successful business, you would need to raise a substantial amount of capital. Say you wanted to open a restaurant, for example. You’d have to buy a location, outfit it with furniture and equipment, and then hire a bunch of staff. It was all very expensive and not within the realm of the average person.

With the Internet, things have changed dramatically. When you look at some of the most successful blogs on the Internet, the only costs involved are domain registration and hosting. Depending on what package they get, this can run up a total annual expense of less than $100. With this very minor monetary investment, huge amounts of money can be made. John Chow, for example, made over $17,000 last month from his blog alone. And that doesn’t even include the cash he gets from TTZ Media and TheTechZone.

Even dot com moguls can be outdone, though, and by high school dropouts to boot. You may have heard the story of 17-year-old Ashley Qualls. She started Whateverlife three years ago, providing the people of the world with free MySpace layouts. These were particularly catered to teenagers. Like so many other websites before it, Whateverlife cost next to nothing to launch (and maintain), but Ashley pulls in up to $70,000 a month from that site. And this is at age 17. She has since dropped out of school.

It goes to show you that anyone can succeed online, regardless of how much funding they have backing them up. All you need is a great idea, perfect execution … and a little luck certainly doesn’t hurt either.