How to Start an Online Business Part 1 – What is a Business?

As many of you know, I had most recently developed quite the interest in starting an online business.

This has led me to do some research online in hopes to get some direction on where to begin. To my dismay, most of the stuff that I have found are nothing but fluff where people just talk about common sense stuff that are not one bit helpful.

I was left with no choice but to dissect this myself. Despite having still much to learn, I would like to share with you some basics that I have discovered.

Online is no Different from Offline

Firstly, I would just first like to mention that starting an online business is no different than starting an offline one. Although the technical stuff may be different, the fundamentals remain the same.

Over the last couple of weeks, many of the people in my life had peaked an interest when I told them that I have decided to start my own business. It wasn’t until they asked me what type of business it was, the looks and reaction they had completely dropped when I said it was online.

Let’s face it, many people do not have much respect for online businesses. I think it is because they are so backward in their thinking that they do not realize that the world is only getting more reliant on technology.

Anyhow, I do not want to go too off topic. For those interested in starting an online business, here are some basics in business that you should start with.

What Really Is a Business?

This is the million-dollar question that everyone would like to know. As simple as the question may be, most people do not know the answer.

The business dictionary defines that it is an organization or economic system where goods and services are exchanged for one another or money.

Simply put, in the context where you want to start an online business, it is selling goods or services to someone in exchange for money.

Determining what to sell

For the longest time, I was under the impression that picking a niche was the first step in starting an online business. It wasn’t until recently that it was futile if I had no idea what my product was.

I spent hours deciding whether I should pick a niche that I had an interest in or to do keyword research to uncover a demanding but yet uncompetitive market.

Although both the passion and market research here is crucial, it would be pointless if I had a missing puzzle piece. Neither of these options gave me an idea of what I was going to sell.

I had the sequence backward!

The first step should have been to determine what product I would be selling then to screen it out to see if it was a market worth getting into.

Finding the Right Product

There are two ways to finding the right product. The first would be to create one from scratch and the second is to sell someone else’s product for a commission also known as affiliate marketing.

Either way, the best selling products are those that provide a solution for a problem. They also target a certain demographic and/or people with similar circumstances.

In my endeavour to start an online business, I will be experimenting with affiliate marketing.

For those who are familiar with this, you may already know that Clickbank is the ultimate affiliate database in finding products to sell. This is where I will be starting my journey.

I will keep you posted once I decide on which product to sell.

What do you think is the first step to starting an online business? I’d love to hear all about it.