10 reasons to start an online business

Hi there, its Praneeth here.

In this blog, you are going to learn about 10 reasons to start an online business.

Not just that to have a clear point of view I am going to share with you 4 reasons not to start an online business or you can say the disadvantages of online business.

Along with that, you will have 5 online business ideas you can start today without many hurdles.

I am also going to share with you 10 things to consider while starting an online business in general.

Each section of this blog is full of information packed with lots of facts, examples, and stories to understand the point much better.

So, remove all your distractions and continue reading the guide.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Here is a 30000-foot view of the blog.

Expenses are extremely low.

This one is quite an interesting one.

You got almost no expenses whatsoever when you are talking about starting an online business.

Let’s face it.

What does it take to start a business in general?

Irrespective of the business there are few things that are most common in all businesses.

Let’s know what are those.

Storage of material like rent of place expenses.
Traveling expenses.
Permissions, licenses, taxation expenses.
Marketing budget.
Labor expenses.

What makes an online business special,

Here you are starting a business online.

Hence, the following things are not applied or less required in online business.

Storage expense.
Traveling expense.
Marketing budget.
No permissions and licenses are required.
Fewer labor expenses.

All you need is a computer, Webhosting, and a domain name to get started with a website and start your online business.

If you are just starting out, hosting doesn’t cost you more than 5 thousand INR which is around 70 USD a year.

There are many hosting providers that are providing a domain name for free for a year if you buy their hosting.

I have written a detailed guide on hosting,

To learn more, click here.

You might need some labor that will get covered up with your business scalability and profits.

It is not a big deal.

Another interesting thing is, there are online business ideas you can start earning money by selling other products and much more interesting stuff which you will obviously learn later in this blog,

Keep reading.

There you go, the most important reason to start an online business is EXPENSES ARE PRETTY LESS.

The barrier to entry is very low in an online business.

Freedom.

Here comes the second most important reason to start a business online.

The freedom of what,

Freedom of traveling & going to the office.
Freedom of thinking, hustling and working for someone’s dream and success.
Freedom to planning and growing your work & finances on your own for yourself, not for your boss.
Freedom from a boss and that boring 9-5 job that doesn’t interest you.
Freedom from rat race overall.

You have that flexibility of location, I would say you don’t need to set up an office at all.

All you need is a computer and internet service to work.

You can work from your bedroom, bathroom, down the cafe round but ultimately when you have the choice of working where you feel like your productivity also increases.

You can work where ever you are comfortable working on unless you have no internet availability.

It is no longer going to be,

Go to the office and work hard, hustle, and come back stressed and tired feeling like a never-ending cycle.

Unlike stuck in 9-5 you have the freedom to schedule your work whenever you are interested in working.

Free and productive time usage.

This one is pretty obvious with an online business.

Unlike offline business, you have the flexibility of time where you can focus on important things of your life other than your work.

Well, I am talking about your emotional, social & spiritual life.

This comes under spending time with your family, friends, and relatives, and doing come spiritual practices like mediation and prayers to keep yourself spiritually clean and stay connected with supreme and nature.

You can chill out your time and go for a vacation with your family and go to some places where you are chilled out on your own instead of begging for holidays for your boss.

It is no longer the way that time equals money rather it is that if you invest time in the right things you have passive income generated for the rest of your life through online business.

Open 24/7.

Because you have started an online business, usually it will be a website.

Websites are stored on servers of big computers by your hosting providers.

Having a domain name and web hosting for your website gives you a place where others can access your online business through the INTERNET.

Be it a,

Blog.
Website.
Online eccomerce store.
Selling courses and products.

Whatever the thing you do on the internet, it is 24/7 open.

Unless there are some problems with internet issues or some hosting issues, your business is wide open all the time of the day.

This opens people from all the time to access your business and work.

A huge possibility to grow strong financially.

Let’s face it.

If you shortlist the best benefits of an online business, like the top 3.

You got to include this one.

Starting an online business opens up large and wide opportunities for you.

The most interesting part of online business is,

Even if you don’t have a product to sell, with the traffic and audience you build on your website or blog, you can sell them other products and get a decent commission out.

This very thing is called AFFILIATE MARKETING.

Not just that, by creating a digital product like an ebook or information product of your niche and sell it to your audience on your website.

Because the product you made is an ebook, there is no need for production and manufacturing unless you are interested in making physical books of it.

Remember it does not take much effort and time to create one product as long as you are good on the topic.

But the result is that you have created yourself a passive income source.

There are many other ways which are all passive income sources you can create online business-like.

Placing ads.
Selling other products and getting a commission of each sale.
Selling your own digital products.
Selling your own online courses.
Giving online services and consultations.
Sometimes sponsored posts of brands.
Creating a premium membership website for exclusive content for the audience.

The opportunities to earn money in these online businesses are huge.

You know, although they appear to be small it is pretty large when you start implementing things out by yourself.

Almost all of these income streams in online business is passive.

That is the very reason you can grow strong financially through online business.

Learn new skills & knowledge.

By starting an online business, it is a big motivation and a reason to start learning some important skills and knowledge.

Well, I am talking about.

Digital Marketing skills.
Writing skills.
Website design.
Research and planning.
Graphic design.
Networking.
Communication and leadership skills.

Of course, the skills you will learn vary to vary with the type of online business you run.

But,

Ultimately, it is going to be worth it.

Whichever skill and knowledge you have will never get wasted rather help you in multiple ways of your career.

To me personally, as I started this blogging which is one of the best online businesses you can start.

I have learned many other skills and knowledge such as,

Website design and development.
Graphic design.
Time management, communication skills.
Writing skills.
Digital marketing skills and SEO.
Planning and research skills.
Financial planning and investing knowledge.

Although not all the skills I learned were because of blogging but only after I entered the blogging arena, I started learning new skills.

Well, I am good at graphic design as well along with writing skills.

I guarantee you will end up learning a couple of skills after you start any online business like a blog or e-commerce store.

Ths same will happen to you, I can assure you that.

Capture a larger audience and scale the business.

It is of no surprise to know the thing that through the online business you can capture an audience from all over the world.

Through means of SEO which is search engine optimization like Google and Bing.

You can create a blog and gain traffic from google through SEO on your blog and website, that way you have the opportunity in hand to get the audience.

Not just that,

Seo gives a chance to capture traffic both,

International.
Localized and targeted.

It again boils down to the very fact that your website is on servers which are accessed on the internet all over the world.

Hence, unlike a general business, where the organic reach of the business is less unless you are investing a large sum in

Marketing and branding of your product.

A general offline business reach would be very less but shifting that business to an online platform can be a lifechanging step for you.

Here are some examples of some businesses that actually started an offline business and shifted to online and doing wonders now.

People are online and internet usage is high as well.

The fact is that around 59% of the global population is accessing the internet which is around 4.5 billion people all over the world.

It is pretty humongous when you think about it.

Even the number of websites that are created every day is remarkable.

It is 547200 websites are created every single day globally on the internet.

You know, it is incredible when you let the very fact get digested in your mind.

Mainly due to the corona pandemic this year, actually, speed up the process much higher.

Physical distancing and Lockdowns sort of things actually made things much worse for an offline business.

You see, more people are on the internet today,

People are using the internet for work.
People are using the internet to attend meetings[zoom & skype calls].
People are using the internet to study and exams[online classes].
People are using the internet to purchase things[ eCommerce stores].
People are using the internet to order food & clothes like doorstep delivery.
People are using the internet to get entertained[netflix and amazon prime].
People re obviously using the internet to break distancing and get connected[social media].
People are using the internet to educate themselves[skillshare, blogs, youtube videos].

Just let me know what are the things people are not doing on the internet.

The Internet is the biggest invention for mankind.

Once again thanks to the corona pandemic the internet has been growing exponentially.

You can outsource your work later easily.

Outsourcing is hiring people to do handle your business.

The best part of online business is you can outsource your work to people online.

For example, you run a blog as I do.

Outsourcing your wor gets easy and cheap as compared to hiring employees for a business where you got to look after there other things like.

Their shelter.
Their travel expenses.
Their health & insurance expenses in some cases.
Their holiday expenses.

But in online business, you have the option of freelancers.

Here, you can find people who are there to work for all types of businesses such as,

Blog writing.
Graphic design.
Web design.
Digital marketing.
Technical work.

There are literally people of all kinds whom you can find on platforms like Upwork and freelancers.

The best part of the freelancers is that you as the owner of the online business do not have to take care of the things I mentioned earlier as you would likely do in offline business.

Their medical expenses.
Their travel and shelter expenses.
Their holiday & off-day expenses.

Freelancers work on an hourly basis,

You hire freelancers based on their portfolio which is a combination of their skill set, performance, and reviews.

The equation of outsourcing your work in online business is simple.

Time+work+performance=money.

No other expenses asked.

The point to be made here is,

You do not necessarily need to outsource your work if you don’t feel like doing it.

But ROI in outsourcing your work on online business like the blog is cheap yet highly effective as compared to offline business.

Here is a quick summary of outsourcing work on online business.

It is easy.
You get a chance to give your work to experts and get answers instantly and solve your problem.
It is affordable.
Roi is great.
Expenses are less as compared to offline business.

A perfect way to a side hustle and make a difference.

This one is the most important reason, and because of this many people have started their own online business and continuing.

Because you have great flexibility of time and you only need your computer and internet connection to work on your business.

Many people who despite have done their job 9-5 comeback home and work on their online business like mostly a blog.

Spending a couple of hours each day for a couple of weeks and months on your blog is a perfect start for any online business.

As you continue doing things better, you start realizing the potential of the business and focus on it as your career.

It is my personal story,

Because I am good at writing I took blogging as my side hustle while I was a student in college.

I used to come back from college and work on my blog for a couple of hours at night straight.

Not just me, this was and is a story of millions of people who make their lives on the internet through online businesses like blogs and others which we will later learn in this blog.

When the point of marking a difference comes you have the following things in your bag.

A new direction in life.
Productive things to do after getting back home from work.
A way where your children can feel secure about their future and finances, you can pass the business to them.
Better things to discuss with your friends when you meet and inspire them.
You can work on things that interest you not your boss.

4 Reasons not to start an online business/disadvantages of online business.

It is not always about the pros of an idea.

There are cons also there.

Here I want to give you an unbiased point of view towards online business.

So let’s understand 5 reasons not to start an online business aka the disadvantages of online business.

1. It is very competitive so without a plan and strategy don’t start.

You see, any online business you take has extreme competition there.

You know there is a good competition in all online business ideas so without a plan and strategy if you enter starting an online business, you are going to be crushed.

2. You are not patient & determined.

You take any online business, results are not quick at all.

Every online business takes time to fruit results.

You take businesses like.

Blogging.
Affiliate marketing.
Dropshipping.
Digital marketing.
Web designing.

There are obviously thousands of people around the world doing that.

You know, if you are not patient and not good in your craft you are not going to make it now.

Because people have multiple options to go after if you don’t give them what they are expecting to get.

3. You want money quickly.

There is no concept or idea like overnight success in online business.

Everything takes time to build.

If you are that guy who wants money to fall into your bank account soon, you should probably reconsider the very thought.

Things take time,

Here is the deal,

Most people spend almost 15 years of their time and money in education for a job which is not guaranteed but you do it.

If there is no guarantee of a job even after doing that much of hard work.

Why are you expecting to get overnight success in this online business?

You shouldn’t treat things differently.

Of course, things take time to fall in place but it won’t be that late and delay if you are on right track with the right strategies and techniques in hand.

4. You don’t want to invest time and energy learning and experimenting with things.

This one is pretty serious,

You know if you either are too busy at work or not taking online business seriously.

You better quit either of the things.

Because starting an online business is not a piece of cake.

You are actually starting a startup online.

If you are not serious about it, you better stop doing it because it is a great waste of time for you and for others.

You have to experiment with things on your business to figure out things that work best for you, to find out what your audience is really interested in, marketing of your service and social media presence stuff like that.

You have to create a business plan to out beat your competition and place yourself as an authority in your industry.

You need to build and act on your strategies which have to have that X factor in your business that separates you from the rest.

You need to enhance your creativity and use it to beat your competition, bring something new on the table.

People hate the same content and the same service again and again.

To figure out all these things you need a lot of time to invest.

Believe me, it takes a good amount of time to understand these things because I went in this phase myself.

These things vary from person to person and business to business, and it depends on the niche and type of business as well.

If you are not willing to do that, sorry, online business is not the right place for you to hang out.

Now that you know what are the reasons and disadvantages of starting an online business,

Let’s understand 5 online business ideas you can start today which are awesome.

5 Online business ideas you can start today.

Here you are going to learn 5 of the best online business ideas you can start today without much investment and hurdles.

Let’s dive right in,

1. Blogging.

Without a second thought,

Blogging is the best online business idea you can start from scratch today.

What makes blogging interesting and important?

The search engine loves content.

The best way to drive visitors to your website is through search engines.

When you blog, you are publishing content on your website.

With time Google recognizes your effort and starts ranking your website.

The higher users engage on your website and content, the higher the trust gets with your website for google.

More trust from google on your blog means more chances of getting traffic and rankings of your website.

I have written a detailed guide on why blogs are important for SEO and business, click here.

After you start a blog, once you have decent traffic on your blog, you can generate multiple passive income streams on your blog such as,

Placing ads.
Selling other products.
Selling your own digital and physical products.
Doing sponsored posts.
Selling services and consultations.

This is the beauty of blogging.

If you are worried about the future, don’t worry text is not going to die,

Although things are not the same but, blogging in the future is going to be much important for people than now, because you know the internet and people’s consumption is increased.

2. Graphic design.

This is something that is pretty incredible as well.

It is designing things like graphics and logos and images, infographics, and all those things.

You know graphic designers are a key part of the marketing of a product for the company.

The graphic design is a type of online business you can start today, you can create your own website.

You can promote yourself as a designer after learning essential software of design on platforms like LinkedIn, etc.

Even the future of graphic design is safe because graphic design plays an important role in marketing and for businesses,

You know, designers help create

Attractive designs of products.
Professional packaging.
Attractive marketing designs and logos of companies.
Goog first impression os products and business.
A captivating color palette of marketing of the product.

3. Web design.

You know, the number of websites created on the internet is humongous,

Web design is one such idea of online business that is very high in demand.

Web design in the name itself means designing a website for users.

You need to master,

Coding.
Html.
Javascript.
Design.
Have curiosity and creativity.

It is a great business to start and when the websites created every day are humongous there is an obvious need for professional web designers for people, the future is good as well.

4. Digital marketing.

Digital marketing is an art of marketing and selling a product on digital platforms.

There are different types of digital marketing you can start like.

Social media marketing.
Email marketing.
Influencer marketing.
Affiliate marketing.
Advertising through SEM/PPC.

Because of the very fact that people are using the internet very much and active on different social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Digital marketing is the best way for companies and brands to market and sell their products and increase revenue.

You can start a website or a blog and obviously drive traffic and use digital marketing on your blog to generate revenues.

Or you can be on social media platforms become a social media influencer and od influencer marketing.

It all depends on your skills and interests.

Read, more about digital marketing.

5. Dropshipping.

This one is pretty amazing you know.

This one is called dropshipping means.

Selling other products on your eCommerce store and having a decent commission on each sale of the product on your platform.

The interesting part is,

You don’t need to spend money on buying goods and products.
You don’t need to worry about the shelter or storage of products.
You don’t have big losses of products if they are not sold.
You only have to worry about building traffic and trust in your e-commerce store to maximize sales and earning.

As people walk in your online store, if they buy things on your website, you will have commissions for products.

You just need to spend a couple of hundred dollars on buying web hosting and website and create an e-commerce store and marketing of the thing.

Read, how to start dropshipping.

There you go, these are 5 best online business ideas you can start today without much investment and hurdles.

To learn more about online business ideas,

Read, 20 online business ideas to start from scratch.

10 things to consider while starting an online business.

Here is a basic 10 things while starting an online business from scratch.

Note: the plan is just an overview of any online business, not a specific one type of business.

Select your business type.
Find a need, problem, niche that is underserved and fill it.
Use search engines to drive traffic to your online business.
Analyze your strengths and weakness accordingly.
Look at the competitors and their strengths/weaknesses.
Create your business plan & strategy for how you are going to attract more people to your website or business.
According to your business type, scale your business eventually to maximize returns.
Design your website neat and clean.
Work on things that your competitors are not doing or doing less in your industry, add more value and create a higher impact on the audience.
Build Expertise of yourself on your website to drive more traffic to your place from Google.

Learn more about the plan to start an online business.

5 Faqs on reasons to start an online business.

Here are 5 frequently asked questions on starting an online business and a business in general.

Let’s answer all of them.

1. Why choose to start an online business right now?

Ans: Well, the answer is because more people are preferring online than ever before.

Read, the reasons for the internet availability reason for the blog to get an idea of what I am talking about.

2. What do I need to start an online business?

Ans: Well, the answer is pretty simple.

Its hunger and curiosity to learn things and hard work to work on the business day in and day out.

Investment and planning are secondary, it’s about the mindset that matters most.

3. Why do people choose to start a business?

Ans: Well the answer is pretty simple.

Financial freedom or a sense of satisfaction.

There are many other answers to starting a business but the majority answer is safety, security, and financial freedom.

4. Is starting a business hard?

Ans: It depends on your mindset.

But usually starting any business mainly if you are the only one starting it can get quite hard but if you have a team or outsourcing is there, it gets easy.

But yeah, starting a business is quite hard initially.

5. What do entrepreneurs struggle with most?

Ans: There are many things,

Personally, me being an entrepreneur.

I would say,

Motivation paralysis.
Anxiety.
Stress.

There are many other things that entrepreneurs struggle with most.

Ending remarks:

There you go, I have answered everything that is there to know about reasons to start an online business.

Do let me know whether you are starting an online business or not in the comments section below.

Make sure to share the blog with your family and friends if you found it helpful to let them also know of starting an online business.

You know, sharing is caring.

Do check out my other blogs,

I will catch you in the next blog till then,

Keep learning and keep growing.