Start a Business: Beginner's Guide.

If your goal is to start a small online business that replaces and exceeds your current income this may be the most important article you read this year.

Brash, huh?

Here’s the deal: I’ve been working online full time for almost 10 years, since age 19. I’ve had a lot of failures and a lot of successes.

There is no better way to learn how to succeed than to learn from someone who has already done it.

Tip #1: Focus On What’s Important

What’s important? Action.

In the beginning, just get started. Don’t get too caught up in details that don’t matter.

Dealing with the paperwork, business cards, and other ancillaries isn’t absolutely necessary.

It’s an online business for a reason. Save the time, paper, and money and don’t get business cards.

If you happen to meet someone who wants to know more about you or wants to visit your site ask for their e-mail address and actively follow up with them.

Handing out business cards is passive, and even more than that, ineffective.

Other paperwork a lot of people get caught up in is registering a corporation or other business entity. That will be important eventually. But you can (in the US anyway) start a business in your own name with very minimal paperwork (a simple Doing Business As form) and cost.Consult a tax advisor for specific insights.

The most important thing right now is bikini waxing,

Tip #2: Invest In Education

Whatever business you want to start, be it blogging, eBay sales, information product selling, affiliate marketing, or any one of the countless other ways to make money online, there are hords of people who have done it before you.

Sometimes those people will have written about what they did to succeed. In those cases, if their business aligns with what you want to do, don’t be afraid to invest money into their products.

Personally, I have easily spent upwards of $40,000 on non-University education. That includes buying eBooks, print books, seminars, coaching, membership sites, you name it.

I want a refund of my college fees though

As a general rule, the most important skill you can learn, no matter what business you’re starting, is marketing. I don’t make a distinction between online and offline marketing. Once you learn marketing you can use it anywhere, with a few tweaks of course.

I liken it to learning computer programming. The language you learn isn’t as important as the logic behind it. You can adapt to any language.

RELATED POST: START A BUSINESS, QUESTIONS TO ASK

Tip #3: Ask For Help

If you look closely, you would realize, the worst
enemy of the man on the ladder is the one
at the top.

If you’re a bit introverted like me you might be shy about asking for help.

Don’t let that be a barrier to your success.

In other words, feel the fear and do it anyway.

You will deal with rejection. Many people won’t respond to your e-mails, phone calls, or tweets.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter.

Starting a business isn’t supposed to be easy. That’s the filter.

I promise you, if you talk to enough people, you will get the help you need. I’ve been quite surprised by just how accessible some people I was initially afraid to contact are.

Bonus hint: I’ve had greater success connecting with ultra successful people than those who are just ultra successful in their heads. :)

The key to getting a response is to send very short, very succinct e-mails. Practice the http://five.sentenc.es rule. Keep your e-mail to five sentences and make it clear what you’re asking.

Tip #4: Participate In The Community

Whatever niche you’re in there is a community.

For example, back in the days when I used to sell on eBay, I hung out on a few eBay message boards. I helped people where I could and I got help where I needed.

As an added bonus, when I decided to start selling eBay how to products (I haven’t sold them for over 5 years), guess who helped me launch that business? The same community that I had participated in freely for over a year.

These days, whichever community you should be a part of is larger and more easily accessible. Take advantage of that.

Tip #5: Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Your ultimate goal may be to quit your job, but don’t jump the gun.

You will find tons of stories of people who quit their jobs before they had their businesses going, but there’s a reason for that.

People who failed furiously because they didn’t have an income to support themselves in the lean business startup phase don’t usually write about it. And because they don’t write about their failures, you never hear about them.

I want you to quit your job as much as you want to quit your job, but I don’t want you to do it before it’s time.

 RELATED POST: WAYS TO QUIT YOUR JOB

Karol Gajda is a lifelong entrepreneur who blogs about Freedom, Health, Travel, and Life at RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com. He (yes! he is a man) has an excellent guidebook, How To Live Anywhere.

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START A BUSINESS: Questions to Ask Yourself

According to Wikipedia, a Business is an “ organization” involved in the trade of goods and services or both to consumers. Anything that involves selling of goods and  rendering service for cash to anybody is a business, although it would be more appropriate to use the business term if the “organization” was registered with appropriate bodies.

This article on starting a business helps to answer the first five questions to ask yourself when  you intend to  start a business and provide accurate answers.

WHY?

Why should you start a business?. According to startups.co.uk, you can start a business so that you become your own boss, run your own life, specialize on interests, open multiple streams of income and maybe make that big dream of yours finally come true. Starting a business might also be the only way you can fulfill your destiny and not have regrets when you are on your death bed or at the pearly white gates.

I need to start a business, so I can finally spend time in the spa

WHAT?

What business exactly are you going to start? In other words what goods or services are you going to offer and  subsequently to whom?  Two main  factors determine what business to start,

1. Your Interests:

 If you intend to start a business that would be around for a long time, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start it, in your area of interest. Those things that come to you naturally.You have to lay back and look inward to discover your interests. Is it sports, Lifestyle, Cuisine  Fashion, Nature or  Music? Let your business be centered around your interest otherwise the business would be a living hell.

2. Your Skills and Expertise:

 Start a business that you are skilled enough  to run. Based on natural skills or acquired skills, your area of business should be something you are good at, for you to break even. No matter how many staff or workers you have, who handle things for you, your skills and expertise and continued development in that area would go a long way in influencing your decisions and making your business thrive. High net worth individuals have been known to go for some conferences, seminars or classes when they want to diversify into other areas of business.

Million dollar Idea: Live Sized Lizard Earrings.

WHERE?

Where to start a business is also a very important question to ask yourself when you finally figure out what business to start. The concept of selling ice to Eskimos is simply preposterous. Your essence in life shouldn't be to supply goods and services to people that don’t need them. Your essence would be to meet a need, provide a needed service and at times needs can be location specific. Some goods or services might best be needed overseas and not in your neighborhood.  Figuring out where exactly your business would thrive also depends on two main factors.

1. Environmental Factors:

 You should start a business in an environment with some considerably favorable factors. Factors would never be 100% favorable but starting a business in a place that makes the business dead on arrival is about a waste of time as not starting a business at all. 

2. Prevailing  Factors: 

Almost like the first, economy, purchasing power of the environment, government regulations, competition should all be considered when starting a business. Here you would need to do market research.

OMG! This is the perfect place to start my business.

WHEN?

This question can be broken down into three.

1. When is take off time?

 When do you   begin a business. The answer to this question is not some vague suggestion like when I get married, or when I get tired of my present job, or when I need money or when the economy improves. It should be down to specifics with particular dates and time, that's the only way you are ever going to start a business.

RELATED POST: JOB OFFER- QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

2. When  should the operating hours of the business be?

 This is a question to ask yourself, are you going to work on weekends, it is going to be a freelance job that would be based on client timing, would there be holidays, vacations, breaks etc. This question gives you the structure of  how your business would look like.

3. When am I expected to break even or pull the plugs? 

This is a very critical question to ask yourself, what is the expected boom date of the business with consideration for over or underestimation? 

The best time to start a business was 20 years ago in China

HOW?

This question can only be asked after you have successfully provided answers to the previous questions. How are you going to start the business and get it up and running. Are you going to buy a franchise or merge with a company? How are you going to raise capital, establish contacts, develop a customer base and move sales, how would your products look like, what would your values be?. All aspects of branding , business plan and business development falls here and makes this the most important question.

I am going to start an invisible business, and would have a billion  invisible  customers.

To start a business , there are questions to ask yourself such as  why, what, where, when and how you are going to go about it.

Further Reading: Start Your Own Business, Fifth Edition: The Only Start-Up Book You'll Ever Need
 

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