Looking to start an online business?
There are many reasons people start an online business, the most common reasons are:
- Establsh a side hustle to make extra income
- Hobby to learn and grow from
- Build an online business that replaces their full time income
- Build an online business, and team to scale and grow it
- Market their established business online for additional income or lead generation.
Depending on the options above and your timelines, the goals you set for your business will be very different! For instance, to support a team then the annual turnover would need to be much higher than for a side hustle or hobby. One of the great things about starting a business online is the number of business models that are available to you and the ability to test and measure different things to learn what works best.
Your skills and experience, along with what you want to spend your time doing, are also key factors. For instance if you want to scale the business, building it buy selling blocks of your time, which is finite, doesn't allow you to scale. Investing your knowledge into the creation of a course which you can sell is much more scalable. We created the Busines Focus Workbook to help you consider some of the key aspects of deciding how you want shape your business. This is key in setting your early business goals and setting goals is well known to massively increase your chances of success.
Online businesses can be highly flexible and involve a few different ways of generating income. You may have an online store selling products, also sell consulting and additionally generate income through advertising or referring people to products. Perhaps you simply want to be able to showcase your photography or art and leverage technology which allows customers to purchase your work printed on different mediums or products, such as tshirts.
Over time you may find that you didn't enjoy one aspect, and want to focus on other areas and make a pivot to adjust your approach.
There are no right or wrong answers, the right answer is simply 'what works for the business you want to create and grow'.