Check this post to see 101 ways to make money using opensource. Check the first 10 ways, if it interests you read the full post.

Wow. That is a ton of money. I could have funded my first production run with that cash. And if I had my products manufactured in China from the get-go, I could have funded my first two production runs with that cash.

So, instead of beating myself up about the financial mistakes I made five years ago, I hope to teach you how to avoid them. And maybe someday, if I ever start another business, I’ll do better now that I know better.

CafePress.com is an online marketplace that offers sellers complete e-commerce services to independently create and sell a wide variety of products, and offers buyers unique merchandise across virtually every topic

The whole article is full of useful information and tips on making money. There are some exceprts I have taken from the website which I particularly find well articulated.

If it’s a mass market “trend” that’s all over the news, it’s too late- This means the barriers to entry are usually too high at this point to have the greatest possible chance of success. Sure you could still make a lot of money in something like the app store or the facebook platform, but the chances are significantly less than they were in the summer of 08 or spring of 2007. You can always revisit past trends though.  Peter Cooper and I clarified some of the semantics about what is a trend over here.

Make waves, don’t ride them- There was a famous talk Jawed Karim gave from youtube. He described the factors that made youtube take off in terms of secondary/enabling technologies. I think they included (1- broadband in the home 2- emergence of flash, so no codecs required 3- proliferation of digital cameras 4- cheap hosting 5- one click upload 6- ability to share embed). Find those small pieces and put them together to make the wave. That’s what youtube did imho. The other guys really just rode the wave they created (which is okay).

Visit the website for more of such tips