It is the 21^st Century and the world has changed, indeed it has changed for good. If you want to be more cognisant of this fact, try to simulate a trip to the 1980’s, where people carried large cell phones with could only make calls (I doubt they had texts then). If something fun or interesting happened and you did not have a camera with the film already preloaded, you would miss out on capturing precious moments, because back then cell phones could not do double, triple or multi-duty.

Dare I even talk about the fact that there was no Internet? Can you imagine if you were a student, studying late at night and you came across some concept that was pretty hard to grasp and you needed to do research? Well, there is no chance you can get stuff done that day, you would have to wait until the next day when the library opened so you could go haul one of the large encyclopaedias for your research.

Indeed the internet is one of the greatest inventions in the world today. It has helped fuel the enormous pace at which technology is growing, and with such growth comes new opportunities. Setting up a business that runs off the internet is preferred because it is relatively inexpensive to set up, you may not need to rent a physical location, all you need to purchase is your domain name and hosting, and tools to run and promote your business.

Running a business off the internet offers a lot of benefits to anyone who is brave enough to take the plunge.

• It is profitable, you can create a good product, make it desirable and sell it to a larger company for good bucks.
• Just like any other business, you have to learn strategy, get creative, and make smart decisions. This helps you grow.
• It boosts your resume and opens you to more opportunities.

Here are the 8 items you need to cross off your checklist to get your business started:

Choose your product.

The first and most important decision you must make is deciding what you want to sell on the internet. There a lot of services you can sell online and although for the most part, businesses on the internet are mostly service-based, your business can also offer tangible products as well. There are a lot of options available online, you can setup your business to provide email marketing and autoresponder services. You can also provide social media content management and scheduling services. Your business can also provide advertising, video editing, hosting, and even training services to people. Another good option is offering eCommerce services where you sell your products or enable other people to sell their own products.

You must put in careful thought and consideration into what you decide to sell. It should be something you like and are comfortable working on. It should also be in line with your skills and abilities. If you don’t know much about the field or are not an expert, you should be willing to learn. Some questions to answer to determine your fit are: What do I know? What am I good at? What am I passionate about and interested in learning more about?

Research the Market.

Now that you have decided what you want your business to be all about, the next thing to do is to find your market. Start by determining your market segment. Are you B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Customer) or both. This would help you get a good idea on how to go about finding your target market. The product you create could be something that already exists or something totally new. If the product or a version of it already exists, you can find groups based on that product on social media or forums and start to engage with people. You want to get people interested in your idea and introduce your product to them. If the product does not exist, you may have to create your own group. You can start to implement some marketing strategies like collecting emails and getting fans on social media.

Create a Business Plan.

By now, you should be able to determine how viable your idea is. The next thing to do is to plan your business, there is a saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Get your pen and paper, tablet or laptop and start writing, write down everything you want your business to look like, your product(s), product names, the personality you would like your business to embody, what you want to accomplish, how you would like to shape the world, how you would handle marketing and how much would you like to make. There is nothing too inconsequential to include. Set objectives goals and targets in place, set pricing, and create a marketing strategy. Figure out if you need to educate the market to let them know how to use the product. You should review and make changes to your Business Plan when necessary.

Get Tech in Place.

As we know, the Internet is technology-based and if you want to create an online-based service, you need to understand the technology. Let me also point out here that there are services online that can help out. For example, if you want to set up a blog, you can use WordPress or Squarespace. If you want to setup an eCommerce service, you can sign up with services like Shopify. These services are great to use, but there is some limitation and less flexibility when you choose to go advanced. Even with such solutions, you may still need to know HTML, CSS, and maybe JavaScript to use the service better. You can decide to take a course in Web Design and Development or you can employ someone with such skills. Another option is to partner with someone with such skills and work up an agreement for ownership, this option can work well if you are just starting up.

Think Proprietary.

By now, you should have gotten enough data to help you determine all the features that would become your product. When creating your product, add a distinguishing factor, something that your product alone has. Remember you are not the only one in this space, even if you are the first, so you have to include something that makes you different. You may have heard the story of one of the founders of Instagram, who applied to work at Facebook and was turned down. He later went on to create Instagram and then sold it to Facebook. If Instagram was just like Facebook, Facebook may not have any need for Instagram and may not be willing to buy it.

Beta Test.

Now that your product is ready, the next thing you want to do is Test! Test!! Test!!! Software can be tricky, you create a program or website and test it on your systems and it works very well, but when someone else uses it, their experience is totally different. Websites render differently depending on the browser used IE, Chrome, Opera, Safari, or Firefox, and the different versions. It can be difficult for you to test all use cases which is why you need different people using your product under different circumstances, and most importantly providing feedback. Be sure to ask users for feedback. The best way to do that is to create a process where people can let you know their experience by offering support.

Launch.

Finally, your product is ready and working as expected. Now you can make it available to everyone. At this stage, you can go full out marketing, implement strategies you have put in place to get as many customers as possible.

Monitor Progress.

Check to see how your product is doing. Check your impact, know if you are meeting your goals and know what people are saying about your product. By now, you own a business and you need to engage in activities that would help grow the business. Set up activities to help you do this, you may have to make changes to your plans from time to time, but whatever you do, make sure you are growing the business.

Setting up a business whether online or offline is not an easy thing to do, but with drive, determination, hard work and learning, you can succeed.