Keys to Starting an Online Business

Keys to Selling OnlineIf you’re thinking about starting an online business, here are some fundamental ideas to help you stay focused and grow.

1. Learn by Helping Others

An easy way to learn about online marketing is to help a friend, family member, or organization set up a website to promote their product or service. As explained in my story about how to learn by helping others, this is a low-pressure way to learn the basics, and it usually costs only your time.

2. Find the Right Product Idea

The first step in starting your own business is to come up with a new way to help people solve a problem. Your idea should make you feel excited enough that you’ll have no problem spending nights and weekends building a business around your concept. As detailed in my articles about your product idea, the challenge is to solve a problem where the current state of competitors’ service stinks.

3. Start with a Simple Website

There’s no need to spend lots of money creating an impressive website before you start selling online – especially since your first goal is to prove your product idea by acquiring your first happy customers.

If your products provide real value, and if the information on your website is useful and original enough to inspire confidence, then you can probably close your first sales without an expensive website design.

You can register your business domain name and then set up and host your website for less than $10 per month, and design an attractive website for free.

4. Focus on What’s Important: Winning Your First Customers

As you start setting up your first online store, focus on the needs of your customers – and don’t get too distracted by everything else.

The basics of what you’ll need to communicate online are the same regardless of the size of your business. The keys are to publish helpful and original information about your product; show some good product images; and provide the expected details about your company contact information, warranty and service terms.

As discussed in my article about evaluating your product idea, if you’ve thought out your unique selling proposition and know your competition, it should be easy for you to demonstrate your product’s advantages online.

5. Respect Other People’s Money

Consider opening an online store only if you can be guided by a real respect for other people’s money. Your online reputation and good word-of-mouth require you to always hate disappointing customers. You’ll find tips for keeping your customers happy in my article about giving great customer service.

6. Minimize Your Starting Costs

Your very first goal should be to spend as little money as you can while you prove your product idea. Don’t be lured into paying for an expensive website design, buying costly office equipment and software, or renting office or warehouse space until you’ve proven that you have a solid idea that can keep customers happy.

My article about how to keep starting costs low gives more of the details.

7. Don’t Quit Your Day Job

I believe that the best way to start an online business is to work nights and weekends while you keep your day job. That’s because:

  1. By keeping your day job you eliminate the pressure to immediately turn a profit. This gives you time to start small, develop good online content, create the right service processes, learn from customers’ feedback, and make better long-term decisions for your business.
  2. Without the pressure to immediately turn a profit, your work can be more for fun and less for survival. In this mindset you’re able to take sensible risks and even allow yourself to fail some of the time. In other words, you’ll be able to think like a CEO.

If your product idea excites you enough, you should have no problem finding the energy to work nights and weekends while you prove your idea.

For ideas to help juggle your daytime and moonlight jobs, see my article about moonlighting tips. And, for information about special tax advantages you can get while working two jobs, see my story about how to manage your money.

Next: Learn By Helping Others

Learn By Helping Others

Learn By Helping OthersMy first big break in the world of online business occurred long before I got my first product idea. It happened the day that I hired a home repairman from an ad on Craigslist.

The repairman arrived at our home in very old vehicle, and it was clear from his car and his clothing that he was working on his own and not with any established company.

In the past I’ve had mixed experiences with services found on Craigslist, so I kept an eye on the work. The more I observed, the more I was impressed: the man completed the difficult job quickly and with obvious skill, despite the fact that his agreed price was much lower than what others had offered.

As luck would have it, while he was working I asked the man how his business was doing, and he confided that times were tough. As we talked, it dawned on me that this his major issue had to be a lack of good advertising.

Out of gratitude for his work and a little curiosity, I eventually volunteered to try and help the repairman set up an inexpensive website to promote his services – using his credit card to pay the costs.

Following the processes described in this blog to set up a simple website and advertise online I started to learn the basics of online marketing.

The results were surprising. I quickly discovered that the repairman’s larger competitors weren’t doing a good job of advertising online, and it turned out to be easy to bring in a lot of new customers without spending much money.

Within three years the man – now a friend – grew his business enough to hire employees, open a brick-and-mortar store, and buy a fleet of several trucks.

And by that time I had already started an online business of my own.

Next: Find Your Product Idea

Your Product Idea (1)

Find Your Product IdeaPart 1: Find Your Product Idea

Contrary to what you might think, it’s usually not difficult to come up with a great product idea for your new company.

Start by keeping notes about the products and services you’ve encountered in everyday life that really stink.

  • Are you frustrated because your car mechanic ripped you off? Then maybe the Internet needs a better way to find honest repair shops.
  • Is it impossible to find parts for your vintage wristwatch? Maybe you should start an online parts store for antique watch enthusiasts.

So long as you’ve found a problem that you can help solve, and you’ll be happy devoting lots of time to it every day, you’re off to a good start.

Online Success Story

Over the past few years I’ve started two online businesses. The first is a legitimate success.

The successful business was prompted by my urgent need for a particular kind of DIY home repair tool. It seemed impossible to find the tool I needed in local stores.

I did find the item for sale on a few websites, but they all gave too little information about how to select and use their tools. And when I purchased those products I received loose parts in a brown box without any instructions. There was no after-sales service and no warranty.

Because I was a frustrated customer it was easy to write down a simple plan to design and build more reliable products, sell them on a website that shows lots of information, and give the kind of service that customers would expect.

Until that time I’d never run a business. I started out building the products on nights and weekends, in a room over our garage. Then I launched a primitive-looking but informative website that used simple PayPal “Buy Now” buttons to receive payment.

Today the business is thriving. Our customer service, manufacturing and shipping have moved to a new facility with a staff of talented people. We have a much more sophisticated eCommerce website. And I genuinely enjoy running the company.

Unfortunately that experience didn’t teach me all that I needed to know about what makes a good product idea.

Next… Part 2: Good vs. Terrible Ideas

Your Product Idea (2)

Good Vs. Terrible Product IdeasPart 2: Good Vs. Terrible Product Ideas

Encouraged by the success of my first online store – and at the urging of a friend who wanted to become a partner – a couple of years later I started another web business.

My friend owns a TV repair shop. He noticed that online TV parts retailers claimed to be growing very quickly. And since used TV parts are salvaged from damaged sets that people often pay to dispose of, my friend told me that the cost of those parts is practically zero.

“Think how much money we could make by selling those parts a little cheaper,” my friend said.

His idea seemed impossible to resist.

So while my new partner continued to run his repair shop, I designed another web store and created the inventory and packaging setups so that we could sell the parts online. After working many late nights I launched the website and we started selling TV parts over the web.

Within a year I abandoned that new business. The frustrations were huge. The profits were tiny.

But I did learn a valuable lesson.

Know Your Customer… By Being Your Customer.

My big mistake was to invest so much time in a business that I really didn’t understand. I had never run a repair shop or purchased used TV parts.

Had I owned a television repair shop I would have known that many of those businesses are in serious trouble.

Progressively larger and cheaper flat screen TVs give consumers a huge incentive to discard broken sets instead of getting them fixed. This shrinking customer base forces repair shops to hire untrained, lower-wage staff who know how to swap out circuit boards but can’t do any real diagnostics.

I quickly discovered that our online parts store was really in the business of providing free diagnostic help – something that can be tricky to perform remotely even with talented technicians – and then handling an onslaught of product returns from repair shops that ordered the wrong parts.

There were frequent communication problems. And because many TV repair shops seem motivated to push costs onto the parts supplier, they often acted in ways that appeared to border on fraud.

Not being a TV technician, it was difficult for me to improve our technical support. And I quickly learned that my friend, who is brilliant with a soldering iron, doesn’t have the personality to provide good customer support. It seemed impossible to keep our customers happy.

As luck would have it, my other online business was growing so quickly that it I found it difficult to devote enough time to solve all those problems with the TV parts business. The decision to leave that new business was easy.

What did I learn? That it can be a huge mistake to focus first on profits, without understanding your customer or knowing how to solve their problems.

Fortunately I knew from my previous business to keep our start up costs low while testing the TV parts idea. After our first full year in the new business I was able to report a tiny profit to the IRS.

And then I got out.

Next – Part 3: Evaluate Your Product Idea

Your Product Idea (3)

Evaluate Your Product IdeaPart 3: Evaluate Your Product Idea

As you plan a new business you should think seriously about whether your product idea is a good fit for you, personally.

  • Will you be happy working nights and weekends to start up a business based on your idea?
  • Will helping people solve this problem – for years if you’re successful – keep you motivated and happy?

Think through your own experiences when buying this type of product or service from someone else. Other key factors that could determine the success of your business include:

  • Is your product scalable? In other words, could you have problems meeting the demand as your business grows? Scalable products might include electronic downloads and items made from common parts, while less scalable items might include antiques, original art, and used parts.
  • Do consumers actively seek out your product online? Most products satisfy a need that’s easy to describe and often searched about online. But if you’ve developed a solution that few people realize exist, your advertising could be more of a challenge. My article about advertising online discusses some of the alternatives.
  • Are website visitors likely to be one-time buyers, or repeat customers? Websites that get a high percentage of repeat customers can usually afford to spend much more on advertising to bring new customers than websites whose visitors usually buy once in a lifetime.
  • Can you deliver the products as reliably as customers expect? Think about how you will deliver your product in ways that keep customers satisfied – especially if your product is fragile, perishable, one-of-a-kind, or often needed in a hurry.
  • What level of service is required before and after the sale? Starting an online store takes a serious commitment to customer service, especially if your product addresses an urgent customer pain.
  • Are you selling Vitamins, or Pain Killers? Products that don’t address an acute pain (“Vitamins”) can require lots of information and a more sophisticated web store since customers might have unlimited time to comparison shop. Products that solve urgent problems (“Pain Killers”) can bring in faster sales, but can also require exceptional service because many customers could be anxious and in a big hurry.

Know Your Competition

Take time to search out and document your direct and indirect competition online, and buy from as many different competitors as you reasonably can. In each case, write down their strengths and weaknesses, develop a plan to communicate your better value online, and start writing down the processes you’ll use to deliver better service.

Think carefully about the information you’ll need to communicate to show you’ve got a unique selling proposition.

  • What unique value can you offer to convince customers to buy from your website – and not from somewhere else?
  • What detailed product information will customers need to see before they buy?
  • What unbeatable offer can you provide to convince customers to buy right away?
  • What money-back warranty or other assurances can you offer to inspire confidence?

Remember that your biggest challenge could come from indirect competitors.

NoteAs I launched a web store to sell a DIY repair tool, I learned that our biggest real competitors are service companies throughout the US who perform similar repairs. These local companies can usually offer faster service, and because they charge much more per customer they can easily outbid us for online advertising. These indirect competitors didn’t stop our success, but they have a big impact on our advertising costs, how we prove our advantages online, and the “no questions asked” warranty that we offer to help customers feel confident in our products.

Be aware that you could be in for serious challenges if global online retailers are selling even somewhat comparable products. As discussed in my story about Amazon, you should take these competitors very seriously and use the utmost caution before you consider advertising with these companies.

Next: Get the Right Company Name

Get the Right Company Name

Get the Right Company NameChoosing the right company name, in the form of a web address (or root domain, as it’s often called) is essential for your online business. Your choice of web address should determine the legal company name that you register with your government, and not the other way around.

Just as important as choosing the right name is to research and register the name with care to avoid scam artists, as we’ll discuss in this story.

Guidelines for a Good Web Address

To help your online business grow, your web address should be:

  • Easy for visitors to remember, and preferably not longer than 15 characters for better search engine recognition.
  • Meaningful so that it includes one or more keywords that people can associate with your business. For example, “JoesOnline.com” would tell very little about your online fish food store, while “FishFoodSupply.com” does a much better job.
  • Free of confusion – without hyphens, abbreviations, potential homonyms (like “capital” or “capitol”) or anything else that could prevent someone from typing the correct address after hearing the name spoken only once.
  • Not similar to established business names that you know or discover, and not already taken as a “.com” Top Level Domain (TLD) name.

Brainstorm Your Ideas

Finding the right name can be a fun process if you work at your own pace, without feeling pressure. You can start by searching online for words that describe your business and then adding words of your own to create combinations that are memorable and easy to pronounce.

You’ll find that some markets – for example bicycle shops – seem to have enormous competition for domain names, while in other markets it can be easy to find a great name. After you write down a list of potential word combinations that sound good, are easy to remember, and follow the guidelines above, use only an encrypted domain name search to test if each combination is already taken as a registered domain. To avoid having your name taken by someone else:

  • Never type the name into a browser address bar to test if it’s already taken, since those results can sometimes be visible to others.
  • Never check the availability of a domain name with a web host provider unless you will pay to register the name at that exact time, since some providers reputedly sell those search results to outsiders.
  • Never check the name in your state’s online databases to see whether a similar company name has been registered until you already own the domain name. I learned firsthand that individuals can monitor those search results and will try to hold your name for ransom.
Address Bar
Never Test a Domain Name Idea by Typing It in Your Browser Address Bar

My advice is to settle on the best combination of words that’s not already registered as a “.com” name, check for potential conflicts by searching the phrase in quotes (” “) on Google, look for any conflicting trademarks on the USPTO trademark website, and if you’re satisfied that you have a great original name, register the .com domain online right away.

Next: Register Online First, then Everywhere Else

Register Online First

Register Online FirstIf you’re going to own a web store, you’ll need a web address (often called a “root domain“) that will appear online in visitors’ search results, or when they type the name into their browser address bar.

As discussed in my article about getting the right company name, your choice of web address is critical to your business. Choose the name carefully, but when you’ve decided on a great name act right away to take ownership by registering it online.

Register Your Domain

Start by choosing the web hosting company where you will register your domain name. Your web host is an important decision, since you could be with the company for a long time. We use a web hosting company called 1&1 Internet* because they’ve been reliable and make it easy to upgrade service, but it’s important for you to research alternatives on your own.

Unfortunately, many websites that review and compare web hosting companies seem to provide incomplete and inaccurate information – possibly because they’re paid to do so. Don’t make your decision based solely on reviews from websites you don’t know well.

NoteOne way to learn about potential problems with a web host is to search their name and “sucks” (for example, “ExampleHosting sucks”) in Google. Typically the larger the company, the more negative results will appear. You’ll almost always see some complaints unless the company is very small, but it’s important to look through the negative comments, figure out how consistent and rational they seem to be, and use that as a guide.

Once you’ve decided on a web hosting company, compare the domain registration packages that they offer. Many hosts allow you to register a domain and get basic email service on your new domain for around $35 per year. Later on you can upgrade to a full web hosting package when it’s time for you to set up your website.

Having an email address on your domain (like sue@FishFoodSupply.com) can help you look like a legitimate company as you start your business. Most web hosts allow you to access this email account over the web, or you can set up an email client on your PC (like Microsoft Outlook). You can also forward your email to GMail and other accounts.

Register your “.com” domain name to start, and consider registering “.net” and alternate spellings as soon as it seems likely that your business will grow. Be sure to choose the option for private domain registration to avoid publishing your personal contact details online as the domain owner.

You’ll need a personal payment card to register the domain, but should change the automatic billing to your business payment card as soon as you set up your new bank accounts and business payment card.

Until you upgrade to a web hosting package, visitors will likely see a generic, domain parking page at your web address after you register the domain.

What Happens Next?

Your next step is to register your business with your government, just as a brick-and-mortar business does. We’ll discuss that next.

Next: Register with Your Government

 


*This is not a paid endorsement.

Register with Your Government

Register with Your GovernmentAfter you’ve registered your company name online, registering your new business with the government can seem almost stress-free. I found our county offices to be surprisingly helpful – and no wonder, since over the years we’ve sent them a lot of sales taxes collected from customers in our state.

A first step is to visit your county clerk or tax office, tell them you’re setting up a new business, and ask for the paperwork you’ll need to file in your area.

Typical state and federal paperwork you’ll want to file can include:

  • A “Doing Business As” (DBA) certificate of ownership to register your business name in your county. Your DBA name should closely match your web address; for example, if your website is “FishFoodSupply.com you could register the DBA name “Fish Food Supply.”
  • If you live in a state that collects sales taxes, you’ll need a state tax permit. You permit number is required to send your state tax assessor any sales taxes you’ve collected from customers in your state.
  • If you think your company ever has the slightest chance of being sued by a customer or competitor, create a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in accordance with your state laws to protect personal property from being seized in a lawsuit. If you list yourself as sole proprietor of the LLC, filing your income taxes should remain as straightforward as possible.
  • Apply for an Employee Identification Number (EIN) online with the IRS. You’ll start using your EIN right away with financial institutions, suppliers and others because it allows you to identify yourself for tax purposes without disclosing your Social Security Number. You may also need to file IRS form 8832 to tell the IRS that you can be “disregarded as a separate entity” to continue filing an individual tax return.

What Happens Next?

Next, you’ll need to set up a separate bank account and at least one payment card for your business.

Next: Set Up Your Bank Accounts

Set Up Your Bank Accounts

Set Up Your Bank AccountsYour choice of where to set up the bank and payment card accounts for your new business could have a big impact on daily convenience. You should choose carefully, since it could become difficult to move accounts as your business grows.

It’s often easiest to create separate, linked business accounts at your current bank. But before you do, take a serious look at whether your personal bank is a good choice for your business.

  • Be sure that your bank uses multi-factor authentication to help protect your money from thieves. Multi-factor authentication typically requires you to reply to an automated email any time you try to access your accounts from a computer or browser that the bank doesn’t recognize. Many of the nation’s largest banks still don’t offer this basic protection, and so could put your finances at greater risk.
  • Confirm the checking, savings, and payment card accounts all allow QuickBooks Web Connect (*.qbo) statement downloads (as opposed to only Quicken downloads). This can free you from entering transactions by hand or importing them with less reliable methods.
  • Be sure that the bank provides a free or low-cost business checking account, in addition to a higher-interest savings account where you can move any funds that aren’t needed to pay bills.
  • Ask if your business checking account will have an online bill payer feature to save time when you need to pay supplier invoices by check.

When setting up your new business account, the financial institution will require you to bring the forms you received when you registered with your government, including your business registration, EIN number, and so on.

As you set up your new business accounts you’ll need to transfer in some personal funds to get started. You should also consider getting a checkbook to pay some of your suppliers’ bills.

Paying some supplier invoices by check – as opposed to prepaying by payment card – can be an important way to build a credit history for your company. Even if you never really need to buy items on credit, some future suppliers may ask you to provide references from other vendors whose invoices you’ve paid on time, by check, before they’ll do business with you.

Get a Payment Card Right Away

I personally hate having too many credit cards, and resisted getting a payment card for the new business right away. This was a big mistake: not only does the IRS expect you to consistently charge business expenses to a separate card that’s solely for your business, but use of a business payment card can start saving you money immediately.

That’s because a separate business payment card makes it easier to charge every legitimate expense to your business. This could save a lot of time separating business from personal receipts, and helps ensure that you claim every business expense to save you on taxes.

NoteBe aware that using a personal credit card for business expenses could impact your credit score. A mortgage lender once told me that my credit score fell by around 30 points because a single, personal credit card account that we use to pay monthly advertising expenses often exceeds half its limit, even though we pay the balance in full each month.

Now that your accounts are in place to pay business expenses, it’s time to set up your website.

Next: Set Up Your Website

Set Up Your Website (1)

Set Up Your WebsiteWebsite Basics

When starting your first online store, it’s usually best to start simple and keep your costs low.

It makes little sense to hire an expensive web designer – or to sign up for an eCommerce service with high monthly costs – until you’ve proven that you can sell your first products and keep your customers happy.

What Is a Website, Really?

  • Sometimes a website consists of static pages that are similar to the pages you create with a word processing program. Although it’s not recommended, you could create a home page by typing a few lines in Microsoft Word and saving the document as index.html in the web folder you can access in the control panel of the web host that you chose when you registered online.
  • Instead of a word processor, professional website developers more often use Web development software. While this approach can provide a great deal of control, as described in the next article it can be very difficult to learn.
  • Today many websites consist of pages that are displayed on-demand by a content management system (CMS). The CMS gives you an easier way to create and organize your web pages, and uses a database to store the information. As described in the next article, we use a free CMS called WordPress for this website, but you can also pay an eCommerce service a monthly fee to host your website and give you their own CMS.
Online Store Diagram
Three Parts to Your Online Store
(Click to Enlarge)

What Makes an Online Store?

In addition to a working website, your online store will also need:

  • Shopping cart software that lets customers choose the items they want to buy and calculates shipping, tax, and any other costs.
  • A payment gateway that securely accepts payments and temporarily holds the funds in an account called a merchant account.

This chart shows some of your options, including software that you can install yourself and services that suppliers can host for you. We’ll explore these options the next articles, starting with alternatives to set up your website.

Next: Choose How to Set Up Your Website

Start an Online Business While You Keep Your Day Job