Hello,
It's very easy to start an online business from anywhere in the world. It will take time to grow and become profitable, however the startup costs are minimal. It all starts with a social media presence in my opinion. I personally know several people who have started their own successful service-based businesses online without having their own website. These people started on a single social media platform and expanded over time.
Service-based businesses have significantly less startup costs when compared with product-based retail, as there is no shipping or inventory involved. They are ideal for reaching an international audience due in part to the absence of shipping needs. It is possible to start a business with nothing but a Facebook or Instagram account, certain skills and an internet connection.
To get started, I would suggest studying a niche skill and becoming excellent at it. This skill can be anything of value to others, such as learning to be a life coach or hypnotherapist. Next, begin learning about digital marketing. During this time, use the marketing skills to build your social media following. Before you start charging for your services, it's important to obtain any required business licenses.
When you have a steady following, you can start offering 'free samples' of your service and create a demand for it. Introduce your regular prices at this time as well, so that potential clients know what to expect after the trial period ends. Build rapport with all of your clients to encourage them to return for future sessions. Once you have a good sized following, 'rinse and repeat' what you did on another platform. You can do this across several social media platforms over time to increase brand awareness and reputation, all with minimal investment and no personal website. Once you are established on two social media platforms, making a professional website for your brand is a good idea to increase credibility, although it's not required.
Menashe Head Of SEO @ https://www.mysticsense.com/
A very good question! The best way to start an online business is by creating a website and having a blog where you will write about your products or services. This gives the potential customers to know more about you and if they like what they read, then they can buy from you.
The second thing that I would suggest is having an email list because this will help you get more clients and it also helps your site gain more traffic.
Another important thing is having a marketing plan because without one, people won't know who you are and how to contact you.
So, I believe this answers your question! Thanks for reading!
Hey
Great idea! I'm currently in the process of launching two online businesses.
This is the process I've gone through so far:
1. Decide what business you want to launch - product or service business. Either option has pros and cons depending on the type of product or service.
2. Define your niche and target audience. Where do they hang out online, what do they do, why would they use your product or service.
3. Join Facebook Groups and Discord channels, Reddit and Quora threads with discussions around your niche and target audience and start engaging and answering questions and providing recommendations..
4. Launch a blog or YouTube channel and start documenting your journey about the online business you are launching and the product or service you have in mind.
5. Offer a free trial of your service or sample of your product to capture email addresses and start building an email list of potential future clients.
6. Once you have an MVP of your product or service, launch and get feedback from your audience about changes and improvements to your product or service. Build up testimonials as social proof.
For products, if you are offering physical products you want to have a number of sales channels like Amazon, eBay etc and you need to consider sourcing suppliers and drop shipping etc which involves quite a few moving parts.
If you want a good template to follow for an online business, read Tim Ferris 4 Hour Workweek - packed full of nuggets and has helped with my online businesses.
Happy to have a chat and discuss further if you want a deeper dive on this.
Good luck!
