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Introduction

Over $3 trillion change hands every single day. It’s estimated that over $650 million of this is exchanged daily between online businesses and the 2.9 billion internet-enabled people on our planet. Over the next decade, another three billion people are expected to gain access to an Internet connection, and begin contributing to this online economy. As the world population spends more of their hard-earned income online, the opportunity for entrepreneurs to build wealth from starting an online business is abundant. Ten years ago it may have been a choice to jump on the online bandwagon, but now it's an absolute must to survive and thrive as a small business. With over 85% of searches for products and services happening online, it's just a "duh" at this point. Being online means having a responsive, search optimized website as well as an engaging and growing following on social media plus using email as part of your marketing mix. This guide is created to help all budding entrepreneurs out there starting their online business in an affordable and safe way, while avoiding many of the common pitfalls. If you’re completely new to starting an online business, it is recommended bookmarking it and working through it in stages.

Chapter 1 Why do you want to start an online business? Having the right mindset is the most important thing no matter what we do. Whether it’s setting up an online business or learning to play table tennis. To be honest, when someone wants to know how to set up an online business it can be a lot more difficult for them than mastering some traditional activities (like sports, for example). That’s because not everyone knows what an online business is (in oppose to table tennis), and what the exact steps that need to be taken are. Hence: Online business – It’s every business venture where the internet is the main vehicle of: attracting customers, marketing, advertising, processing payments, delivering products (usually), and managing other vital business components. What do you think is the first step in building a successful business? It is to understand your ‘roots’. Why do you want to build an online business? What’s motivating you? Without a fire in your belly, you won’t have the required drive to build a successful business. So these can be some of the common reasons to build an online business:

• To earn some extra passive income on the side of a main job.
• To be able to afford to renounce a job you dislike.
• To work on a project that you’re passionate about.
• To become financially sound.
• Global access, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Improved client service through greater flexibility
• Cost savings
• Faster delivery of products
• Increased professionalism
• Opportunities to manage your business from anywhere in the world.

Customers may prefer to visit your website to find out about your products and services, instead of visiting you in person. They will also expect to see your website address and your email on business cards and other promotional materials.

Online business Opportunities

How you manage your business online will depend on the products or services you offer. You may be able to use the internet to:

• Run an online shop
• Manage your suppliers
• Communicate with your customers, and get their feedback on your business
• Offer services online
• Allow customers to make reservations or appointments online
• Manage your finances, such as online banking, tax and employee pay
• Research competitors. Are these things stopping you?

Now that we’ve identified what’s driving you, let’s figure out what’s holding you back. Before we get started, let’s debunk some myths and excuses entrepreneurs make. “Starting an online business is expensive” Totally false. Years ago, starting a business was expensive. To connect with customers you needed a physical location, which could easily cost over $1,000 per month. Today, the risk of building a business is greatly reduced. Anyone can start a business online for under $4, and serve the 2.9 billion people around the World who have an Internet connection.

“Building an online business takes a long time” Wrong. In fact, by the end of this guide you’ll have an online business. Building your customers and traffic does take time, but it’s part of the journey. If you don’t think you have enough time to build an online business, then you’re right – you probably don’t. But even the busiest people make time for the things they truly want. One extra hour per day is 365 extra hours per year, which is the equivalent of 9 weeks of full time work. What can you achieve in 9 weeks? “But isn’t it really hard to make an online business successful?” It depends. It mostly depends on how well informed you are, on the niche you choose, and how you approach it. People who are near-clueless about online marketing make $1,000s just months after setting up a blog or YouTube channel. They were the lucky ones. The difficulty with building an online business comes down to how well informed you are and your ‘roots’. With the right knowledge, it’s quite easy.

Chapter 2 Major Online business models It is easier to start an online business than an offline brick and mortar business. The startup is far less capital intensive, the barrier to entry far lower, and the return on investment can be insane for the time you put in. It is such a gold rush that there are even investor pools of people forming, who buy these sites and manage them by hiring effective site builders because of the high level ROIs. But what are the models out there that exist that people can leverage to create what they personally want in their lives? Let’s walk through them real quick. Then you can decide which model is right for you. • Business Model #1 – Advertising The most common business model is ads. Almost all of us have seen these. They’re little advertisements — usually Google AdSense — on the sidebars of a website. Adsense is probably the simplest business model that exists online right now. Basically, you create a content site and drive traffic (typically organic search engine traffic, but there are those who have successfully ran paid traffic) to the site. The traffic clicks on the Adsense ads and Google cuts you a check for the ad exposure - a few cents, or even a few dollars per click. • Business Model #2 – Software (SaaS)

If you have the skills to create new software, then this can be a tempting option. The media loves to tell us stories about hot new Silicon Valley startups and the founders of tech companies who cashed out for millions after their company went public. So we think starting an online business means doing something similar. SaaS products are exploding right now, which makes sense, as they can be quite lucrative. Since almost every SaaS product has a rebilling feature, each customer can have a significant lifetime value that allows these companies to lose money on the initial acquisition of a customer, but still make a profit down the road due to that customer’s continuous usage of the software. SaaS products are allowing small businesses more than ever to have high level infrastructure without the high level IT costs that would be associated with them building their own software. SaaS products are everywhere, from accounting and sales CRMs to even writing solutions for fiction authors. • Business Model #3 – Amazon Affiliate Amazon is among the oldest online affiliate program in existence. It is also one of the most trusted online brands around, which means it can convert highly. People will often create portfolios of these styled sites, usually where they are reviewing various products. Similar to Adsense, this is a very easy place for a newbie to start out, and an expert can make it into quite a lucrative endeavor. • Business Model #4 – Affiliates Similar to the Amazon affiliate business model, you simply sign up to sell different products, and build sites around those products or services. Almost every product or service you can imagine under the sun has an affiliate program somewhere. There are entire businesses that have cropped up around helping other businesses create affiliate offers and attracting affiliates to those offers – called Affiliate Networks. There are even businesses that have cropped up that organize all the different Affiliate Networks in an easy to find place, such as OfferVault.

Here’s an example of how affiliates work: A blogger will write a review of “My favorite credit cards.” and at the bottom they’ll say, “you can sign up for the card here — NOTE: this is an affiliate link.” If you click that link and sign up, the credit card company is going to pay that blogger an affiliate commission. Sometimes it’ll be $50 or $75. Over time, that can actually add up to a lot of money. And there are affiliate programs for everything — from audio books to weight loss products. • Business Model #5 – Online information products You can create a video or written course that sells for $41 fairly quickly. But more expensive, high-end ones take a lot longer. Online courses are low-risk, high-reward, and scale very well. You can use them to reach thousands of people all over the world. Most people that are just starting out in online business were probably a customer a time or two for someone selling an ebook or video course about making money online. This market exists in many more niches than just the make money online space. People selling training, dating advice, fitness consultation, or even products about how you can appear taller are all part of this space. The great thing about infoproducts is that all the work for the most part is front loaded — once the product is created and converting, you can scale it to the moon. It costs nothing extra to sell 1,000 units instead of 1 unit, outside of the obvious marketing costs, making this business incredibly lucrative in the hands of the right person. • Business Model #6 – Ecommerce