African millennials understand the concept of real estate as a source of wealth, but with the explosion of the digital landscape, how many have made the connection that digital real estate could work in the same way?
Let’s start from real estate as we know it – buying undervalued land or property and selling it at a profit, usually after the surrounding area becomes more developed. We all might have relatives, or know of someone who had the foresight or luck to make such investments in land, it was the way of the time.
For young people thinking of investing today the question is usually how to go about it. Should we do what our parents’ generation did and save money to buy land? My answer is yes, if you can. The truth is land’s priced out of reach for most millennial crossing over from their 20’s into 30’s, when thoughts of investment start coming.
So, how about investing in a website or some other digital property?
When you think about it, you probably have the same general concerns while purchasing physical land or digital property from location: where to host your site to how you’ll use it: private or commercial, safety of asset.
Taking a closer look, even the steps for buying land through to use are very similar for digital assets
- pay for land | buying a domain name
- necessary registration | buying hosting
- secure land by fencing | setting up landing page
- start building, start use | emails like yourname@yourdomain once registered*
- complete building | start full personal/commercial use
- maintenance | maintenance
*Like physical land, you can start using even while still building. These emails make you look professional, even without a website – I did this for years with great results while figuring out what to use the site for.
What if the 2021 version of buying land like your parents did was buying a digital asset, or some “space on the internet”?
Here’s some ideas for how you could use it.
- Like shops on physical land, online stores can be ‘built’ to sell physical or digital products.
- Site where people come to use your facilities/services, and pay you for the time spent, just like a hotel!
- Personal blog: your ideas, like the one you’re reading have a home, and you can invite people there to visit.
Now, go buy some ‘land’ so you can reap the benefits.