Checklist for Creating Your Small Online Business From Scratch

Needless to say that it has never been a better time to start an online business than it’s now. With everything going digital it’s an unprecedented opportunity to take your talent and turn it into a product or service that you can sell online.  

This is a checklist for those struggling where to start and how to do it, so get yourself comfortable and follow 7 easy steps to create a small online business from scratch.

7 Easy Steps To Start Today

1. Define Who You Are As an Entrepreneur

Before getting down to planning, budgeting and visualizing your success, one should sit still, breathe in and ask oneself a question ‘Who am I and what I want to do?’. Be honest with yourself – examine your strengths and weaknesses to see what you’ll need to make it as a business person. Listen carefully, as this particular moment may define your future success.

2. Brainstorm Your Ideas For Online Business

The best thing about coming up with a million-dollar idea is that you can do it anywhere, anytime and it’s absolutely free. You need to think of something that will fill a need. And don’t even start thinking ‘everything has already been invented’.

Firstly, don’t limit your imagination. Secondly, there is always some need that waits to be filled – just look deeper. Choose the area of interest and start digging. Do keyword search and find what people are looking for. Monitor forums and discover what problems people may have that you may solve with your product/service.

3. Approbate Your Idea To See Whether It’s Valid

As soon as you come up with an idea, you need to approbate it to see whether it’s worthy or it just sounds great in your head. You can start simple – by asking your friends, colleagues and acquaintances who may be potential target audience whether they would like to buy your product/service. But the better idea would be to do “a coffee shop test”.

Here’s how it works. Choose a local cafe nearby and put up a sign saying “10 minutes of your time in exchange for free coffee”. This method will give you an opportunity to talk to lots of people of different backgrounds, and gain valuable feedback on your business idea.

4. Outline a Plan and Vision For Your Business

Now it’s planning time. When you’ve understood that you’ve got a rocking idea, it’s high time to outline your strategy towards success. Make sure you set long term goals as well as short term ones.

Define your budgeting and think your future expenses through beforehand. As you don’t want to end up with tons of loans. Keep your plan meticulous and clear, so that even a five-year old can understand how they can make money using your business idea.

5. Set Up A Website

If you’re planning an online business, you’ll need a channel to promote your product/service and connect with your customers. So you should create a website or even a social media account will be enough for some products, but better create both. You need to make sure that you choose a great domain name, as this is a crucial step on your way to success. It should be easy to spell and way easier to memorise, so if it’s catchy – you hit just the right spot.

6. Think of Clear and Vivid Representation of Your Business

As soon as a potential client visits your website, they should get a clear image of who you are and what you sell within the first seconds. Otherwise, they’ll just leave the site (yeah, customers have become quite picky and difficult to retain). That is why, think of a vivid description that will include all the needed details to understand your business.

7. Don’t Get Stuck in The “Thinking” and Get Ready for Launching

Here’s the monster ruining “businessville”. It’s so easy to get stuck trying to make your  plan, product, website and other stuff perfect. The important thing though is to get there doing business.

Alan Walker of Stressays review website suggests the following: “No matter how scared you may be, you need to start. Take one step at a time, and don’t rush. Still, don’t keep your business idea on the shelf for too long. Otherwise it will be covered with dust of “nobody needs it anymore” or worse, someone may breathe life into your idea while you’re weighing all pros and cons.”

That is why, as soon as you’re done with a product and a website, start promoting your product online, use your social media to create a buzz around your business idea. Benefit from all the technology that will help you with e-commerce and management.

Don’t get your relatives and friends tired of you complaining “it’s too difficult to start an online business”.

We believe in you, so just go for it!

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