Do you ever dismiss an idea to do something for whatever reason because it seems too far-fetched or pie in the sky?  Well, listen to this story.  Inc. Magazine profiled Laurel Touby, a writer and creator of www.mediabistro.com in its March 2008 edition.  Touby’s website contained job listings for professional writers but also served as an online community, with advice on health insurance and resume posting.  What I found to be really interesting about Touby’s story was that her business sprang from her simple desire to meet more people in New York City.  Touby, a contract writer and editor for Glamour magazine, worked from home.  Because of this, she felt lonely and isolated (working from home, I can relate to that!) and started hanging out in local cafes.  Eventually, Touby decided to take advantage of her natural affinity for hosting parties and began putting on “media salons” at local bars, where she would invite members of the media community, like senior writers or successful freelancers.  Touby’s idea caught on fire, and her parties became bigger and bigger.  Touby was thrilled with the fact that she now had a social life with a minimal outlay for postage and invitations.  The attendees bought their own drinks.

Touby then moved to e-mail for her invitations and in 1996, created the mediabistro website.  After she saw that www.monster.com was charging for job listings, Touby began to do the same.  Touby’s site worked its way up to several thousand job listings each month at $279 a pop, and it eventually caught the attention of Jupitermedia, which bought the site in 2007 for a cool $23 million!

Touby’s story is an inspiration for budding entrepreneurs.  Many people, myself included, come up with dozens of ideas but fail to act on any one of them because we’re afraid that it won’t work.  Or we just try too hard.  Sometimes, when you do something just because you like it, the opportunities will come.