You Want To Start An Online Business, So Treat It Like A Business - Part 1

A Hobby Or A Business?

So you want to start an online business. Why do you want to do it?...There is so much to discuss about this subject, I decided to publish a series of 4 posts to cover the topic as it is to much for 1 post.

 If you want to start your online business, you need to decide right from the beginning whether you want to just run it as a hobby, or do you plan to build it into a real business. By referring to “real business”, I mean you must be able to earn a full-time income from it.

If you are just looking for a hobby and generating an income is not one of your goals, fine, just have fun with it. But if you want to create a business, then treat it like a business from day one. If you think about starting to treat it like real business as soon as it starts to generate a worthwhile income, you most likely will never get there.

Set your goals, know what you want to achieve, and be serious about it.

If you decide to buy into some franchise, it will literally cost thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Spending all this money, do you think it’s going to work for you if you spend only a few hours a week as and when you feel like it, working on your business? Or maybe you consider not getting any training? Or maybe you would just give it a try for a month or two, and if it doesn’t work, you’ll just quit.

I don’t think so. By investing a lot of money, you’ll make sure you commit yourself to that business. You will try to get all the training you possibly can, and you most definitely will follow any proven guide lines provided by the creator of the franchise. You will also plan properly and prepare yourself, so that you don’t just quit at the first obstacle you encounter.  

So what is different about your online business?

The fact that you can start your online business without a huge capital investment creates a pitfall or stumbling block to many potential entrepreneurs.

I am not saying you shouldn’t invest any money when you start your online business. If you have the capital available and you know what you are doing, you might have your business up and running so much faster.

What I am saying, is that if you don’t know what you are doing, it might be risky spending a lot of money. I am also saying that if you don’t have the money, there’s no need to go into debt and take all kinds of risks. That’s the positive side of an online business.

The danger is that when you don’t spend the money, you don’t take your business serious. When family or friends make bad remarks, or have de-motivating comments, it is easy to quit. People often tend to judge what you do by the amount of money you put into it. If you want to start your online business, don’t allow this to happen.

You will have to invest in your business anyhow. Although you can start your online business with little or even no money, you will have to invest time. Yes, as the saying goes; “the only place where success comes before work, is in the dictionary”. So you have to commit to your business. Treat it as a full-time business. If you still have a full-time job, block out certain times in the week (preferably on a daily basis) to commit to your business.     

Once you treat your online business as a serious business, you put in the effort and commit to its success; it will become a serious, full-time business.

Go to Part 2