Online business is evolved through information technology. Anyone can start an online business today from home and distribute products and services worldwide. Global reach, ease of doing business, less costly infrastructure, distribution, and marketing & sales channels make it possible to start the business from home with money or without money.

Today the story is different. There are thousands of people starting and running an online business from home. so if you’re looking to start an online business then I have following tips/guidelines for you:

Let’s get started:

You need to remember this that the root of every online business is offline. And online business means that you use “internet” to grow your business and sell more. I just mean that you always remember that the people on the internet are real and they are the same as you and me. And they want solutions at home.

7 options you can consider to start an online business:

While there are various methods and techniques to start an online business. But I am sharing with you 7 options that you can consider to start an online business. And I think min. 1 out 7 is very important for you to start an online business.

1. Turn your hobbies into business:

Start your online business with the hobby. You can turn any hobby into an online business. If music is your hobby, if cooking is your hobby, if the painting is your hobby, if poetry is your hobby, if the drama is your hobby, if sports is your hobby, if gardening is your hobby or whatever the hobby you have you can turn it into the successful online business. You just need creative thinking and confidence to do it. And the confidence comes from proper research and execution/profit planning.

The reason behind starting with hobby is that to start or run online business it’s required lots of passion, creativity, interests and skills and if you’re starting something that is out of your syllabus or you never have any basic idea of that business then I don’t think that is the best approach to start business from home.

For example, if my hobby is gardening then it’s good to convert it into an online business. But if someone starting music related business and want to sell musical instruments/music online from home and without money and don’t have much knowledge about the musical instruments then what you will tell them.

Do you suggest someone start music related business without any basic knowledge or hobby? NO and never. It’s because starting any business online is easy but tough to grow and turning it into a profitable venture for 10 to 20 years will require a passion for excellence, systems, and process.

That’s why my personal suggestions for is that start an online business by turning your hobby into services/products.

2. Find the bigger/smaller problem and solve it:

The second option you can consider is that find out the bigger and smaller problem in the society, on the internet and social media and in your country than convert it into solutions with your talent and market or sell it online with confidence.

It can be an educational problem such as lack of confidence in the youth or lack of skilled workforce. It can be the workforce management problem then you can solve it by creating software, apps, chatbots, it can be the financial problem then you can convert it into software as a service etc.

3. Start with your strengths/skills:

Start an online business from home based on your skills and strengths. For example, if you’re good at writing, if you’re good at marketing and selling, if you’re good at the computers, if you’re good at playing musical instruments, if you’re good as a salesman, if you’re good at teaching kids, if you’re good in video editing, if you’re good at graphics, if you’re good at helping people, if you’re good at communication, if you’re creative thinker and if you’re good at anything that is in demand or helpful for people then you can start online business from home.

When you consider your skills/strengths to start an online business then the business grow and you will make profits. To find out and list everything that you have and find out or research can your skills will be helpful for others online.

4. Part-time or full time:

You want to start it part time or full time this is also important to consider. For example, a housewife can start online business full time at home but someone doing a job in the company can start an online business part-time. That’s why if you’re new to the business, and haven’t had any experience of doing business offline/online and haven’t had money then I will suggest those that start an online business part-time.

And once you will see the growth in the business then you can take the decision to leave the job. Or even you can keep doing it without leaving the job. For that, you can hire your local / village people/friends to work on your business. but it’s important to test your online business idea before leaving the job especially if you’re doing a job and your family depends on your income. Because online business requires your time and money to grow.

5. Start with the money or without a big amount of money:

You can start an online business with little money these days but if you have money then it’s a lot easier to grow and build successful online business especially in starting. While there are many businesses that you can start with a little amount of money such as blogging, freelancing services, youtube channels, affiliate marketing and apps development etc. but these business required lots of creativity and technical skills.

If you have money then you can think to invest it on digital marketing, product development, product distribution, team building, stock management and business development strategies. Money will help business to grow and capture the market share faster.

But even with money, there are many online business, ecommerce websites and gurus struggling to grow the business. The big thing is that how you invest your money on business components. If you’re good in the writing but then again investing on the content writer instead of investing on programmer/designer/marketer then it’s tough to grow online business in low budget.

That’s why save 50000 to 100000 rupees to start an online business. Or if you can work hard and have the skills and creativity then start without money and generate money on the way.

6. Turn offline business into online business:

Converting offline businesses/services into online business is another good option that you can consider to start an online business. For example, if you’re running clothes shop in the small city then you can convert it into the online clothing store and you can sell it in many cities and globally. If you’re currently teaching tutions to schools and college students at your home then you can convert it online tution classes where you will find a lot more students.

If you’re creating handmade items such as candles/bags/painting/frames/clothes/toys/ etc. then you can build your own self hosted online store or you can start selling on amazon and many other online selling platforms.

Turning offline business helps you to use the experience and market that you have already build so far.

You can market your products/services faster than any other person it’s because you’re currently making profits and now you want to get more customers or want to generate more sells. That’s why to start online business think what businesses you can convert online and it can be your own or others.

7. Start with Why?

I got the lessons from Simon Sinek about WHY? and it was very effectively explained by them. It means that why you want to start the business? Do you want to start it to earn money, do you starting to break the monopoly in the market, do you want to help more people with your services and products etc. Whatever your Why’s. It will help you keep doing in tough times, it will help you to define business goals, it will help you hire right people, it will help you to get your startup funded, it will help you to promote/market and it will help you to make the online business profitable. That’s why it’s important to find the reasons and goals behind doing the any kind of online/offline business.

Technical Ways to start an online business from home

Self Hosted Online Store/E commerce Website:

You can start online ecommerce business in which you sell products/services. For that you need the domain name, hosting, ecommerce theme and payment gateway integration based on the product you want to sell and then you need to have online marketing strategies such as facebook targeted advertising, pay per click ads and content marketing strategies to promote and sell your products.

Amazon FBA:

Amazon FBA means you can use Amazon Platform or marketplace to sell new/used products on amazon and then they will handle the delivery, customer support, pick, pack, deliver and returns for these products. In simple words, it means amazon is like a big ground in the market where thousands of people are selling products on various prices and all the customers go through amazon selling process to buy and sell products online.

Self Hosted Blog:

Blog means communicating in written and helping people with the knowledge, experiences and creativity. It can be about skills development, business development, career development, news, fashion guide, financial guide etc. A blog can earn money from the advertisement that is based on the content, a blog can help to market services such as graphics and website design services, a blog can help you promote third party products such as affiliate marketing etc. A blog is a complete online business with the right strategies and techniques and required little money to start. But you need communication skill, knowledge and interest that can be based on anything.

Portfolio on freelancing websites:

Freelancing websites are those websites and platforms where big and small companies, small business owners around the world post projects and jobs such as graphics designing, writing, programming, marketing and selling, search engine optimization and business development and strategies development etc.

If you’re skilled in any technical, non-technical and business administration skills then you can start freelancing from home. It’s a great business model that provide a quick way to generate wealth, freedom to work on own conditions, flexibility to choose the projects based on the interest and skills.

The competition is very high on these freelancing platform and required great communication and technical skills to get projects consistently.

To do freelancing you need to have portfolio and profile on these websites and you need to bid on the projects regularly. When you create a profile on these freelancing platforms then you also add banking details and once the project is finished then you will get paid directly to your bank account.

These freelancing websites earn 10% to 30% from your income. And many charges fees based on subscription to have profile or bidding options on there websites for you.

Here you can learn more: Tips for Freelancers based on my 3+ years of experiences

Online Courses:

The world wants to learn from those who have creative and technical skills, who have experiences in any online or offline trade, who have done something great and who have the business and career development skills.

So if you’re skilled in anything from cooking to interior design, from math to drawing, from seo to graphics designing, from teaching to digital marketing then you can start teaching online. For that you have to create syllabus based on your skills/solutions, then you will need to record and edit the content and after that, you need to launch and market.

For launching online courses you can choose already existed platforms such as udemy and you can also launch it on your own website. No matter where you launch it on online courses marketplaces or own website, one thing is important for you is that marketing and quality of content. You can do marketing by your own using digital marketing tools, methods and platforms or you need to hire a marketer to promote your online courses.

Consultancy Services:

To start an online business that is based on the technical and non-technical services need a website. Even without own website/blog/platform or communication channel with customers/clients, I don’t think someone can do online business.

So If you want to help people from your technical or non-technical skills then having a websites to promote your services is a good way to start the online business. Millions of people search on Google, Bing for various services provider on daily basis.

When you promote your services on the website and social media and through digital marketing strategies then you will be on the top 10 search results. Now you can help through paid chatting sessions, you have help through mails, you can help through coaching and guiding and you can help through technical services.

People just need to communicate with you and they want to know how you can help them. If you can explain then you can win more clients online and without leaving the home.

YouTube Channel:

You can also consider youtube channel to start your online business. To do it successfully, you again need the concept to help people. The concept can be technical and non-technical. For example, if you’re a chemistry teacher, you can teach thousands of people and earn income from advertising and marketing. But you need to think to big and should have the plan to expand that youtube channel into big business.

Build and promote mobile apps/web applications :

You can learn to do programming at home. If you do programming then you can not only able to provide web/apps development/design services to clients and companies. But you can also build your own mobile apps that solve a certain problem in the market. It can be artificial intelligence application, marketing software, accounts management and selfie app.

Etc.

Skills you need to start, run and grow your online business from home:

Digital Marketing skills:

Without digital marketing skills, it’s impossible to run an online business for longer. You should have to focus on the learning content marketing, search engine optimization and social media marketing skills and if you have the budget then you can start advertising on the search engine and social media. But without digital marketing skills and team, it’s very tough to make the online business profitable for a longer time. That’s why you need to focus on the building digital marketing skills no matter you’re doing the daily operations by your own or by your team.

Related: Top 10 Essential Digital Marketing Skills for Beginners

Team Building Skills

When starting an online business from home you can say that you can handle everything. It’s true based on the business model such as blogging or youtube channel. But starting an online business from home do not means that it’s not a bigger. You need a team especially 1-2 people who can help you from their home. They can be a digital marketer, graphics designer, distributor or etc. You need to build the system and process in which every task that is involved in your business will have goals and cleary methods to do that. So that you can delegate and train people earlier for the business.

Time management

Time management means you know where to invest your time in a certain situation and day. It mean your business goals are urgent. If you need to post a article on your website it means it’s a urgent and you can’t sleep before posting it. When everything is start looking important and urgent then you can manage your time wisely. Your focus should be the on quality and marketing of products and services. And it’s urgent to execute your business plan on daily basis. That’s why time management skills will help you to win the competition and achieve more in less time.

Leadership Skills

Leadership skills means you take the responsibility to grow your business no matter what sacrifices you need to do and you will do it. It means you will never hesitate to write a blog post, you will never hesitate to post a video about it, you will never hesitate from social media marketing and you will never hesitate to market and promote it.

It means leadership skills in which you just focused on your goals, execution and commitments. You will do it, no matter it’s difficult and make you nervous. But you do it.

Leadership skills helps you to think bigger, it will help you to build personal development skills, it will help you to learn every details of your business, it will help you commit for a long time to help others. And building leadership skills means something different in you than the rest of the people around you.

For example, thousands of people laughing on your business decision, but if you’re a leader you do not care and it will not affect your decisions negatively instead you will use the criticism to grow.

That’s why having leadership skills to start an online business from home is essential.

Learning Skills:

Learning is also leadership skill. It means you dare to learn. It mean you take a decision that is important and after the results, you will learn. You will learn from failures and you will learn from success. When learning and experiments become the part of your life, you will achieve many things in life those you have never expected.

Learning skills means you learn how to build a marketing strategy, learning skills mean you’re learning and following the experts tips, learning means you’re learning from the customers, learning means you’re learning everything that is important for your business. In simple words learning means growing your business by using others experiences that is available. That’s why learning skills are important to start and grow the online business.

Financial Management:

You can run any business online or offline from home. And you can have every skill that help you to earn money. But if you don’t have the skills to manage the money that you’re earning then it’s impossible to become rich by doing online business. I mean here is that learn how you will use the money that you’re earning. Or how you invest the money on the business that is currently have in you pocket. it’s also about how often and how much you save the money. The real financial success is not about how much you earn, but about how much you save and invest it to grow more from thousands of ways.

That’s why financial management and money management skills is essential to start and run an online business for every entrepreneur and business owners. It will help you to invest money wisely on the business and help you to grow more money.

Quick Decision Skills:

To win in online business you have to faster in decision making. It means quick decisions about when to launch certain products, when you can offer discounts, when to offer free products, when to hire new people, when to market on facebook, when to advertise through video marketing etc.

These all decisions are important for online business. And it’s important that you take such decisions faster than your competition strategically. Having great decision making skills will be very helpful for you to start and run an online business successfully.

Data Analysis Skills:

Customer behavioral data and data analytics tools help an online business to research and execute data driven decision to grow the profit, increase sales and build the brand worldwide. And the availability of data in online business makes it different than the traditional style of doing business. If you have data analysis skills, you can analyze what products needs important changes, what to launch, where to market etc.

So if you want to start any kind online business then start it with confidence and never fear from the competition and do not hesitate to market yourself and your business. Welcome the entrepreneurship world.

If you have any questions then I here to answer.

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How to start an online business from home