Let’s break things down a bit.
What is an online business? I like to go to Wikipedia for things like this. Wikipedia is an awesome source of information that many people overlook, but more about that another time. We’re thinking about what an online business is.
Wikipedia says that in a business:
“..people work to make and sell products or services.”
Sticking with trusty old Wikipedia, an online business is:
“..any kind of business or commercial transaction that includes sharing information across the internet.”
So an online business is where people sell products or services over the internet.
That’s it. That’s the definition.
It says nothing about what that looks like. It doesn’t say that it has to be a company of 247 employees with a marketing budget of £2 million and offices in London, Frankfurt and New York.
With this simple definition, could an online business be an Etsy account that sells coasters made from lollipop sticks? Yes. (..and that does exist)
Could an online business be a Fiverr profile offering to draft romantic texts to your new girlfriend? Yes. (..and that does exist too).
Could an online business be a Medium account writing about anything you want to write about every day. Yes. (..and that is virtually everyone on Medium)
I’ll leave it there, but I could go on infinitely.
The first step in building your online business is not starting an online business, it is understanding that you can build an online business.
Let’s look at why we find it hard to understand this, without slipping into a discussion around conspiracy theories of why we find ourselves working in standard jobs, with standard working methods and standard earnings.
From the moment we go to school, and often even before that, we are basically programmed to aim for a normal career. Depending on where you live, you will be expected to choose your career path anywhere from the age of 16 to 21. That’s just too early, there’s no way you can make an informed decision about your future career.
Starting your own business seems way out of your league and something you can only do when you’ve worked your way to the top of your chosen career.
Hang on, how do I work my way to the top of a career writing romantic texts for people?
Ah, I see there might be a discrepancy in what we think about starting a business and what is actually involved. This is not just restricted to young people, these entrained beliefs about careers carry on through our lives and when we get to the point where we have worked our way to the top, we are no better off about the risks we think are involved in starting a business.
It’s that perception of risk that is hard to get over. Nobody has ever said that starting your own business is the safe option and sticking to a normal career path is the risky one.
But that is how I see it.
Agreed, a business can experience risk but you are in control of mitigating that, pivoting if necessary and even starting all over again if you want or need to. In a ‘normal’ job you only find yourself earning money because someone has decided they need you at this moment. What if that changes?
I started looking into online business a few years ago when I had hernia surgery. I decided I needed a backup, even a new career if possible. It took me 18 months to replace my old job with an online business and all of a sudden I felt freer and more confident than at any other point in my life and had a vision of a successful future.
All I did back then was write about Ikea hacks and put adverts on my website. It took me about a week to learn all I needed for that. After that, it was about tweaking things and churning out content. But that was only going to take me so far.
Then the real business began, immersing myself into online business, learning about marketing, writing, social media and more.
The tools, tricks, techniques, knowledge is the easy bit. A slightly harder part is networking, keeping up to date with changes and experimenting. The hardest part of all, that I have found, is what is going on in your head during all of this.
Of all the things that are going on in your head, the biggest hurdle is everything that tells you not to get started in the first place. I have learnt this from virtually all of my coaching clients. They are perfectly able to create an online business for themselves, they just don’t truly believe they can do it.
You might not expect a lot of content on mindset from a ‘starting an online business’ site, but that is exactly what you get from me at Cool Content Creations.
I believe that mindset is the missing part in many resources you might find that aim to help you start an online business, as good as they might be.
If you can get over your restricting beliefs then starting an online business becomes a simple process of finding something that lights you up, understanding your audience and showing up every day.
I am going to help you on all of those fronts, and it’s all here on this site. So keep diving into my articles and hopefully they will help you sow a seed, grow it into a sapling and then enjoy it blooming until it is the biggest tree in the forest.
You’ve got this.