Setting up a Successful Business

[Ducky]

Hi, Ducky here, and I am going to give you some tips on making a business.

First of all, there aren't any get rich schemes, and if you think you have found one, it is most likely a scam.

At the end of the day, making your own business is about making money. Money, Money, MONEY. This isn't going to be very easy, so you should quit now if you just want money quick. You have to enjoy business to set up your own.

OK.

So you have an idea, or some kind of though as to what kind of business you want to run. If not, you should go away and think for a bit.

Next, you need to find some way of advertising your idea, whether it be blogging or posting on forums. But bottom line is, you will need a website. If you have no idea how to set up a website, I would first go with
FreeHostia: http://www.freehostia.com
However, a free website isn’t going to help much. You are going to need more space, because you will probably want some forums for F.A.Qs so you want to buy some webhosting from there.

That website uses a simple Control Panel so you can make the most of your website. Next, you want to go find some way of making money from your website, I suggest Google Adsense. So once you have set that up, you have an income, a very small income, but at least it is something. Bill Gates had to start at something, am I right?

So now you want to try promote your website, that has your idea, on as many sites as possible. This will allow you to get more traffic to your site, and potentially more income. Now you have more people clicking the ads on your site. But people aren’t going to do that for nothing, so you have to motivate people to click the ads in some way. Perhaps setting up rewards, but at the end of the day Google Adsense isn’t going to help you set up a business.

You want to make sure that your business is unique, if you are setting up a purely online business it has to be easy to use. After all, you are going to have to start small so that you can keep things under control. Now I started off with many businesses but some of them failed. You know why? It was because I aimed to high, you have to be realistic, you can’t make money like $500 a day straight away. If you were to make that, it would take a very long time.

So they are the basics to setting up a business, but as a summary here are some key pointers:


Think Carefully about what you want to do
Don’t jump into things without having a clear action plan
Make a goal, say you want a certain amount of money. I normally start off with making $5 a week, then $10, then $20, then $50.
Make your business unique, and promote it in any way, shape or form.
Think about the repercussions of you starting the business, is it going to be worth it?
Have fun making the business, because after all, you want to enjoy it, don’t you.
Thank you for reading.

-Ducky

[Fergal]

I particularly like your point -
Have fun making the business, because after all, you want to enjoy it, don’t you.

Life's short, what's the point in working hard to set up and run a business if you can't enjoy it?

Maybe you could expand a little more on how to come up with a good online business idea?

[Ducky]

Sure, here goes.

Well starting up an online business from scratch is something not many people can do. You have to get a good reputation, otherwise no one is going to want to use your business.

To get your ideas, look for some inspiration, think of your favourite online business whether it be paypal, eBay, what ever. Just think of the core ideas gone into that business. You want to ask yourself some questions I thought up each time you make a business. I will fill them out using Paypal as an eample.

What is the purpose of the business?
Paypal is a free online bank basically. It allows users to transfer money from bank to bank, and has now become the most popular way of online payment.

How does Paypal make money?
Well to start off, they take a very small commission off of each payment, not much but it still makes it worth it. Now think of all the Paypal users in the world, OK? Say if Paypal takes 1% of the transfer, now that doesn't sound like much. It is probably less than that, but if about 1 Million People in a year each spend $100, most do more, then paypal make $1m. See how that works?

I will make more later.

[Nazreen]

I see your point Ducky. It's like today's up-and-coming athletes idolizing other elite athletes. But in your case, you look for inspiration from other successful online businesses like paypal. This is what other startup businesses do too. But as in the case of the up-and-coming athletes, they start by copying or mimicking their idols and after that, they come up with a unique style of their own. Same is true with online businesses, they start out by following in the footsteps of other successful businesses and at some stage, come up with an innovation that's entirely their own.

[Fergal]

Ducky I like the way that you analyse PayPal's success and it is a process that could certainly be motivational and inspirational for anyone setting up a business. Do you feel that, that thought process is a good way to generate business ideas?

[Ducky]

Definitely yes! Do you know how long Google took to think up completely? Over 12 months, may seem like a very long time to wait. But now look at Google, the most popular search engine on the web, and it takes in over $10000 per day via advertising and searches.

If you can't be bothered to think it up, then you need to rethink your choice of career. Fergal, thought process and planning, are the main things in geneerating businesss ideas. But they are also very important for sustaining a business. More on this later.

[Nazreen]

I've read somewhere too about the importance of the thought process. If done regularly and consistently, it will already become a force of habit. There are a lot of successful businesses that do brainstorming sessions everyday to come out with great product ideas and innovations, marketing and advertising strategies, and business planning.

[ritajones56]

Thought process is by far the most important thing you can develop for success. If you get that straight and are intensely focused on your business goals, there is no limit to your success, or profits for that matter. Forming productive habits is so key.