How To Start An Online Business: 5 Things I Would Have Done Differently

I created my first online business in 2005, not because I chose to or because I was smart, but because I had no other option.

I was failing and failing fast.

My first employer knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and was no longer engaged in what I was doing so he gave me 2 months worth of pay and booted me out the door to go figure it out.

I latched onto another entrepreneur who had a brick and mortar business but it was already going downhill fast due to the high cost of leases, inventory and employees.

I built a website for him and started to sell his products online and drop ship some of the products right to the customers.

But it was too late to save his business, and his business wouldn't save me either because over the previous years my bad decisions racked up $100k in credit card debt.

It was a tough decision for me to leave and do my own thing, but it was the only way, so I left the website with him and built my own.

Over the next year, I built my first 6 figure business, all online and with no need to have a warehouse or employees, it was brilliant.

I paid off all my debt and was smooth sailing for several years, but there is still so much I didn't know.

That was 18 years ago (before social media) and so much has changed, for the better.

5 Things I would have done differently:

✅ No physical products, or at least ones that I didn't own the intellectual property to.

✅ Built a continuity program (recurring revenue or subscription model, supplements, subscription boxes, monthly newsletter or recipe). 

✅ Built an email list so that I could market directly to customers.

✅ Build a brand around me and not the products I sold.

✅ Kept working on growing my passive streams (at the time I didn't realize how powerful they could be).

Now, there are so many tools for anyone to build an online business that they love, and my goal is to help people make that a reality.

I have more for you: On the High Value Skills Podcast, I just posted an episode with 5 questions you can ask yourself whether you have just started or are about to start your own online business.

You can listen to it on Apple or Spotify. You can also grab my free guide on 7 Passive Income streams that I've created in the last year and get started right now!

Go out there and make it happen, the world is yours!

Simon