How to open a Virtual Store from Havana?

Take the # of hours it takes you to do it and charge $50/hour. That's the price. Eventually you can charge $100/hour but that will require a bigger customer. If the customer is small < $1M in gross sales per year - charge $50/hour If the customer id medium < $1-5M / sales - charge $75 Over $5M - charge $100 The challenge you'll face is clearly defining the expectations and handoff so that you're not stuck doing stuff that you can charge for and always getting interrupted from past customers.

If I was just starting out, I'd consider learning Meteor (https://www.meteor.com/). It's just entered version 1.0 and after working with it for a little less than a year I do have some issues with it but it still makes for a very solid framework that gets you up and running very fast. You would only need to learn Javascript, and you can slowly work your way towards nodejs from there (which Meteor is based on) if you want to, or you could get the basics down and focus on learning design if you prefer.

You ask the customers, and gauge their level of interest. Better yet, get yourself in front of some customers, and instead of telling them what you make or do, ask them what they need. When you notice that many of them need the same thing, and if it is something you can make or provide, you then have a business idea worth pursing.

There are a few ways to track things automatically, but they get complicated: - referral program software - Give your referrers special URL's with parameters that identify them as the referrer (like http://url.com/?referrer=JohnDoe), then push that value into a hidden form field - Create a separate landing page for each referrer I'd keep things much simpler to start. Just tell your social club that there's a referral program in place, then add a form field on your signup process asking who referred the new customer. If John Doe knows that there's a program in place, when he refers someone, he's likely to tell them "make sure you say I referred you". When the new customer joins, they'll likely remember to enter "John Doe" as the referrer. It's not bullet proof, but it's an easy way to start.

The ways I've done this in the past are 1) Find some customers that are willing to hire you (or your product) but know that you'll only be free nights & weekends to support/work with them. 2) Find a "partner" (co-founder or other) that's got a flexible schedule that can help build the business while you're at work. 3) Block out nights, mornings and weekends to build the business till you have enough orders to cover 50% of your salary. This might mean 7pm-11pm most nights, and 4 hours each day Sat & Sun. Make progress (sales $$$) and momentum. All that being said, it's risk reward. Sounds like you want to avoid taken the risk, and I get that .. but the upside is always smaller. Unless you put yourself in a position to have to succeed (ex: quitting your job) then you may never make the scary decisions that are required to build a company (like cold calling, going in debt, making a presentation, etc). I'm on company #5 with many other side projects started nights & weekends .. so I get it - but don't be afraid to bet on yourself and go all in.