I often meet new Internet marketers on various forums and they aspire to earn the big bucks like some of the well-known personas out there, such as Yanik Silver and Bryan Kumar. However, most of these new marketers have only the slightest idea on where to start, and a lot of them are not willing or able to invest startup capital in their online business. However, it is almost impossible to start an Internet business without spending some money on basic infrastructure such as web hosting, domain names, and so on. Hence, here is a rough guide on how to build an Internet business starting with $0.
The
first and most important thing to do is to list out all your skills. What
skills do you have? You may have picked up these skills through daily life (for
example languages), through your job (hands-on knowledge on a specific niche), or from your hobbies (for example fishing). It is most vital to list down
skills or knowledge that you have and might be in demand elsewhere. For
example, you love fly-fishing and you do it every day after work. You may build
your Internet business upon this: writing an instructional guide on
fly-fishing, teaching people how to do it, etc. Best of all, you do not need to
spend money to acquire this knowledge: you already have it.
So, the
very first option, if you have no money to start off your online business, is
to earn some capital using your already existing skills or knowledge. You can
give tuition to students on your dominant subject in college, you can teach
stuff about your hobby to people who are interested, you can write guides on
knowledge or skills you picked up through experience and cannot be found in
theoretical books.
Okay,
let's say if you just can't think of any skills or knowledge that people might
be interested in. Then, it's most important that you locate a workable business
model and focus on that alone. You can obtain almost everything you need
through bartering, web hosting, domain name, or credit card processing, to name
a few in exchange for your product (if you own one) or services like
copywriting, ghostwriting, and website designs. There is always some mundane job
that people don't want to do, and you can do that for those people in exchange
for things you need. You just need to ask for it!