There have been many myths peddled around with starting an online store. One of the factors that discourage most women from starting online businesses is the belief that starting a successful online business requires a lot of capital and huge investment.
These statements often miss out the bigger picture and leave what is important out. One of the most important factors contributing to creating a successful online business is what business idea you groom and grow.
Unfortunately, a lot of people draw blanks when they are required to come up with ideas.
If you belong to this category and are looking to start a business in spite of this, keep on reading to find out how to start a business even when you don’t know where to start from.
Find An Idea
When it comes to starting a business, the first advice people give is to do something you are passionate about.
While a piece of great advice, the idea that you should totally focus growing a business around your passion is limiting.
To find a business idea that is likely to thrive, you have to consider a couple of other factors alongside your passion.
Are you willing to invest your time and energy in the idea?
How much information do you have about the idea?
When things get tough, are you ready to put all your effort into the idea and stick with it?
These are all important questions that you have to answer before you should settle on an idea.
Read
Take a break and apply yourself in other ways.
Read books on business for women.
You might not find these business books very exciting but there are tons of information on how to create and build your business from scratch in these books.
However, don’t let the reading drag on forever as that will be counterproductive and defeats the purpose of reading the books.
Act on the information you obtain from the books.
Set a limit on how much content you consume and how often you do it.
Find Your Potential Customers
Now that you have finally stumbled on the idea, the next step is to find and build an audience.
Finding and growing an audience takes time and effort. While you shouldn’t rely on friends and family as your customers, you can leverage on them to find your potential customers.
You can exploit their influence and connections to grow your business. If you are in doubt, you can also search online for content related to the idea you came up with.
Use the internet to give yourself an advantage you are likely to find content about your idea online.
Avoid Self-Doubt
Defeating thoughts creep in everyone’s head. You will start asking questions like
Will this business ever take off?
Will people like my product/content?
Is having an online store a really good idea for a mom?
Am I going to make any sales?
If, as a mother, you are having doubts about starting a business from home or creating a source of passive income, you are not alone.
Just like with all life challenges, self-doubt tends to build up at crucial moments.
It will pass once your idea is out there for your potential customers. If it is your first business idea, the level of self-doubt might be very high.
Don’t worry though, it gets easier with experience.
Export The Best Version Of Your Product
If you can at the start to build the best version of your product, then it’s awesome, although starting with a good useable version is a good way to test the market.
Gauge the reaction of people.
See if your customers are paying for idea 1.0 before you market the bigger version.
Care About Your Customers
Naturally, as a good person, you should care about making the lives of other people better.
Caring about your customers shouldn’t be a business hack or tactics.
However, you should know that it helps your business when you show genuine care about your customers. If you don’t care about the people you are selling your service to, then the business idea wasn’t probably for you in the first place.