Home Business Reality, Three Necessities for Starting A Home Based Online Business

By Rick Carbone

There are many enticements offered today from Internet marketers that seemingly make starting a home business a piece of cake and they are ready, willing and able to take your money to show you the "inside track." Yes there are instances of home based business owners striking it rich overnight. The reality is that starting any business requires three things. You don’t need a Harvard MBA to be successful but you do need these three things, 1, a well thought out business plan, 2, a product or a service and 3, a platform to run your business, i.e. a website or a blog.

Armed with the above three items, you can start a business. All of the extra items will fall into place as you start to assemble these three items. Let’s look at the three in detail.

1, A Good Plan

What does this mean? It’s so open ended. What constitutes a good plan? There is one school of thought that says that any plan is better than none. Another school of thought says that you plan must be highly detailed covering every aspect of your business. I think that for a home based business somewhere in the middle is where you should be. It’s not an absolute necessity to have business planning software although good planning software will provide structure and ask many of the questions that you may fail to ask yourself in setting up your business. Additionally I don’t think it’s necessary to incorporate your business when you first start out. As your business grows so does your personal liability and your assets, you will want to protect them. Also think about your marketing plan and how you will manage and fund it.

2, A Product

A good source of products is right at home. What are your interests? You can write about interests that you have, such as hobbies or pastimes. You may have a different slant on something that others have never thought of. Many online businesses start out with eBooks because they are cheap to produce and require little effort to fulfill. There are many marketers that claim that the eBook is dead, but I have seen a renewed interest as of late. Don’t write them off yet, excuse the pun.

Physical products are a little harder as they are so influenced by the latest fad. Although I would not suggest trying to market iPods as there are consumer giants controlling the market, however there is a market for iPod accessories that may be lucrative. There are wholesale sourcing directories that can be helpful in finding wholesalers and distributors that will "drop ship" so you never have to touch the product. You need to be very careful about finding wholesalers and distributors so you may want to invest in a relationship with a "wholesale source" directory.

3, A Business Platform

The biggest advantage that the Internet offers is that it provides you with a storefront without the bricks and mortar. Let’s face it building, leasing and renting a suitable space can be quite expensive and may not offer you the best venue for your product. A website is the same as a storefront but with tons of advantages. If you only want a one page site to house your sales letter it really isn’t expensive to do. Your website can be your best marketing tool, your storefront, your warehouse and your fulfillment processor all rolled into one and at one tenth the cost of a physical store.

Rick Carbone is the owner-editor of Home Business Researcha top Home Business website focused solely on online home business development and management since 1998.