Starting A Home BusinessI've got good news for all of you that are thinking of starting a home business: There are lots and lots of people on the internet and, of course, the internet provides lots of ways to work from home. According to one of my favorite sources, The Onion, in 2007 there were about 150 million people on myspace. And that's just myspace. Using my fancy MBA Finance skills, I can extrapolate that if there are 150 million on myspace, then there has to be at least 1 billion on the internet at any given point in time. So, why should you care? Because the potential rewards for starting a home business are huge. Your online product or service has the potential to grow from a very small business into a nice and healthy business by reaching a ginormous market place. Big market place = lots of potential customers for your very small business. Yes, there are online superstars that have tribes of devoted followers, but with such a big marketplace there is oodles of room for you to start a home business. Just because somoeone has done well in your arena, it doesn't mean there isn't room for you. This can actually be good news. You can see what has made them twitter search material and then differentiate yourself. Differentiation means that you don't quit! This is important, people! Almost everyone goes through the exact same inane thought process that if it already exists, then they can't do it. While it is true that copying someone else's work is in fact illegal, creating your own unique selling proposition (USP) in your arena of expertise, is not "breaking the law". To create a USP, focus on how you can serve people differently (not necessarily better): will the main product of your very small business be of worse material, but cheaper? Are you a one-stop-shop? are there unmet customer needs that you will satisfy? Evaluate your arena and then niche smaller and smaller until you can state in 2 sentences who your customer is and how you are going to meet their needs. For more on niches, check out Market Research. Niche It. Niche It Good. If your website isnt perfect, if your product isnt perfect, its OK. People value value more than perfectionism. If you offer value, people will join your clan. To summarize my $18K in economics learning: a small difference in skill input (ie your uniqueness going into your thing) can be magnified into ridiculously big differences in the amount of value that comes out of your thing.
One important thing to remember when evaluating a niche market for your business: make sure the people are the type of people that will spend money for whatever it is you are trying to sell. For example, I don't actively market to fans of Dumpstering I am all for being resourceful and helping Mother Earth, but I don't expect that they will be first in line to pay for what I have to offer when I am starting a home business. There are lots of entry points into niche market arenas for your home business. Beyond the staple search engines like Google and Ask, there are internet communities that allow users to explore and discover web material that is submitted by other users. There are people out there that could be using stumbleupon when they stumble upon your website (P.S. I don't get paid anything if you click on any of these links. They are here for your reference). Twitter is another great place to learn more about potential customers before starting a home business. Twitter allows you to make friends with the people you want to sell to. It is a great place for remembering that you should never attempt to sell your thing to others when they first meet you; its very used car salesmanish to do so. Let people test drive your mindset by posting tweets and showing them that you have something to offer and that you are not just marketing your home business. Friends first, then money. The same goes for forums. When starting a home business it is a good idea to go to forums and find out where your potential customers hangout and then join in on the fun. Note that I said potential customer forums and not forums for people who are just like you. CPAs get most of their money by selling their services to people who don't know how to or don't want to do their own taxes; they don't get a lot of money from fellow CPAs. Follow that same strategy. Did you like this article? Help others find it by submitting it to Digg and
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