Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Why the Internet is Dangerous for New Business Owners
Not exactly the title you'd expect from someone who helps new business owners set up successful businesses, is it? Yet there is a very insidious danger that lurks within the Internet for prospective business owners: the fact that building a business online looks so easy.

My wife checked out a new shopping district being built near our home. It's still in progress and only about half the shops are occupied. The old world look of the shops, though, got her thinking about her long-time daydream of starting her own chocolate shop.

She's a highly skilled chocolatier who has for years sold her upscale line of chocolates on a small scale strictly by word of mouth. And for years she's daydreamed of opening her own shop in just the type of charming little area that's growing nearby.

The only thing that has stopped her is her own lack of interest in putting aside all of her other interests to devote her whole attention to chocolate-making. When she spots a promising location, she daydreams for a moment, but then starts thinking about the commitment of money in renting the space, the equipment she'd have to buy, the time she'd have to put in, and the intensive planning and promoting she'd have to do to ensure it made money and didn't turn into just an expensive hobby.

When your thoughts of starting a business include a physical location, startup costs, devoting specific times to running it, and the number-crunching to determine if you can make a profit, the barriers to starting a business force you to do some genuine planning. The risks are simply too high if you don't.

That's why the Internet can be a dangerous place to start a business. The barriers to succeeding aren't very obvious and you can be tempted to overlook them.

You don't have to commit hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month to securing a physical location; a few bucks for a domain name and some cheap hosting takes care of that.

You don't have thousands of dollars invested in equipment or inventory; in some Internet business models, you can start without paying a cent for either.

You don't have specific store hours to keep; you're free to assume (and many scammers online are quick to assure you) that a few hours of "spare time" will generate a hands-free money machine that requires no further effort.

And with that kind of illusion of easy money, the tough work of actually planning how you'll make your business profitable seems totally unnecessary.

Saying that the illusion of no-effort success makes the Internet a dangerous place to start a business, though, does not mean you shouldn't do it. People succeed at building profitable businesses on the Internet. They're the ones, though, who put the same effort and planning into it that a prospective business owner would put into starting a brick-and-mortar business.

Plan for your success instead of expecting it to come up and bite you on the butt. Recognize the costs you'll have to face and the effort you'll need to put into promoting your business to make it succeed. Become a true businessperson and not just a tirekicker.

You can succeed starting out your business in your spare time, but you have to use that spare time with a purpose and a plan. Now, that may sound too hard to those who cling to the dream of no-effort riches. But there's very little that I know that can match the sense of accomplishment that comes from actually guiding a business through those barriers to profitability. And it's there for those who are willing to make the effort.
Jeff