Table of contents for Starting an Online Business

1. Coming Soon: My New Online Business

Over the next few months, I’m going to start a new business venture. At the same time, I’ll document it here in hopes that it will take a lot of the abstract concepts we talk about with online businesses and demonstrate them in a concrete way (I’m very concrete and always want to know how to apply concepts).

Why start yet another online business?

Aside from my interest in trying new things and keeping my options open, I have some pretty compelling time-based motivation: I recently got pregnant, and my husband and I agree that we want the baby to be my first priority—my job—once it is born.

With my current business model, that’s tricky. I’m mostly doing custom work for individual clients, which is interesting (I like the challenge of tackling new projects often) but necessarily very deadline-driven. It’s keeping me hopping 50 hours a week, and is not well-suited to the unpredictable schedule of a new baby.

The inspiration

I could simply cut back my hours, but I’ve found that’s easier said than done. Even when there are no new clients (I have experimented in the past with not accepting any new clients), the existing clients come up with new projects or need maintenance work done.

Because some of these requests are common, I’ve started creating new “standard” services to meet the clients’ needs while not overloading myself.

For instance, whenever WordPress comes out with a new version, I get requests to upgrade blogs, so I’ve launched a subscription-based upgrade service that meets this need while adding the predictability I need to schedule the work in. I’ve also intentionally turned it into a well-documented system so that my assistant can take care of the run-of-the-mill upgrades, making it much less dependent on my own availability.

Goals of the new business plan

Based on what’s worked for me in the past and the new constraints I’ll be working within, my ideal new venture…

• Serves many clients at once. I’ve typically worked with one client at a time, which is great for personalized service but just doesn’t scale well. When I build a system that many clients can use, it becomes easier to support (a manual is created that staff and clients can refer to; everyone benefits from upgrades; it’s easier to determine what requests are really important vs. one client’s whim).
• Can be developed once and then set free. This suits both my attention span and the time I’ll have available. Ongoing obligations make me crazy, and this model will let me try many different ideas, run with them until they’re stable, and then reduce marketing to a system my staff can do.
• Is subscription-based. This isn’t always a viable option, but when possible, I prefer to provide ongoing value in exchange for ongoing income. It means I can spend more time creating tools and information, and less time hunting down new customers.
• Provides an excellent ROI for the client. This is based both in ethics and good business. I won’t sell something I don’t believe is a good investment, and always providing a good value also makes it easier to sell and easier to retain good customers.

The next step

I’m going to choose just one idea (out of the many I’d love to try) and commit to it.