How can I start a Membership Site?

As a web designer, online visibility is incredibly important when it comes to branding globally. Depending on your business, a lot of your global business goals can be achieved by setting up an online business. You should register domains in the countries you'd like to market to, such as the US, NZ, and SIngapore that you mentioned. Also establish a Business Plan and central brand that includes all of these markets. Try to avoid getting caught in a re-branding process down the road. If your brand needs tweaking in order to achieve scope, do so. I would start by registering the business in the country you mainly do business in, and provide shipping of products/services to all of your other markets if necessary to get started. Then as you establish a foothold in each territory, look into the benefits of setting up locally.

Reed Hoffman and Sydney Armani

Ugh. Investors. Here's the harsh or maybe happy truth. If your Startup offering (product, service, information, courseware, consulting, etc) provides stellar value, then you require no investment. Do your launch + if money starts pouring in, either skip the investors of if you really must use investors (doubtful, if you're providing stellar value), then the more revenue you have, the better terms you'll get from investors.

The worst motivation for starting a business is the need for income. A business has to be built over time based on meeting a market need. Of course a business must make money to be successful, but this can take a bit of time. So, the real need is to use the online world to make money. Based on your copywriter skills, here are some ideas to get you started: 1) Start a blog. You can do this for free with platforms such as Blogger and WordPress. This will provide you a chance to show case your writing talent. Writing articles about copywriting can both demonstrate your writing ability and be used to market your approach. 2) Join job markets. There are several freelance sites you can use to make extra money without little to no cost, such as Upwork and elance. You will find jobs on these that will help you earn money and build your portfolio. The pay can be low as the markets tend to be aggressive but a few good contacts can lead to a better source of work. 3) Build your network. Connect with people who provide web marketing services. They need guest bloggers, ghost writers and ad copywriters. Over time you can build a steady source of freelance work. Once you have a good portfolio and practice, you should consider building a branded web site. But first, build your freelance brand. This approach works with other skills too. Let me know how else I can help.

I think as a first-time entrepreneur who is non-technical, you should focus 100% of your energy on your clothing business with your buddy. There is far less required to make a clothing business a success than a startup run by a non-technical founder. I don't mean to trivialize the challenges of running an apparel company (there are many) but comparatively, there is a greater chance of you having success with the apparel business than a startup. But you *reduce* your chances of success by diluting your focus with other ideas. Happy to talk to you in a call about starting off on the right foot with a cofounder.