1.2. Required Resources and Skills to Start a Business Online

At a Glance:

Basic Requirements (Computer, Internet, Time, Willingness to lean new things as you go)

Initial finances ($0-$50+)

Essential Skills /To poses or outsource/ (Website management, Basic graphic editing, Content creation, Online marketing)

Advanced skills /Not essential but handy/ (Product creation, Fast writing, Web coding, Programming, Advanced Graphic Design)

People often assume that starting a business online requires experience, high level of technical knowledge and/or substantial amount of finances. In some cases, these might be true, but for many online business models, you just need a computer with an internet connection and determination (the needed finances could be neglectable).

The more knowledge and skills you have the better, but definitely, you don’t need to know everything at the start. You will learn many new things as you go. You can also outsource (at affordable rates) the skills you don’t possess or have no interest or time to learn or do yourself. Additionally, you could use the power of ChatGPT to gain, replace or enhance many of the skills useful for starting and running an online business.

Basic Requirements for Online Business Starters

You don’t need much knowledge, experience and/or finances to start a business online, but the 4 listed requirements below are a must.

The essential requirements when starting an online business include:

– Computer and an Internet connection
– Basic Computer Literacy
– Time
– Willingness to learn new things (as you go)
– Small initial investment (domain + hosting)

The first two requirements are obvious (since you can read this), but if you don’t have time to devote to your project and have no will to learn new things, starting a business online is definitely not for you.

Time devotion is very important when starting a business since you are the one that will have to set the foundation of the business and work the day to day tasks until you can afford employees and managers. This phase of the business may last for 3, 6, 9 months or even 1,2,3 years. Quitting your day job to start a business online might not be a good idea at the beginning, but devoting 10 hour per week or at least 1 hour a day could be a good start. The good thing about the online businesses is that you can work on it in your spare time and still make success.

Since you want to run your own business, you should be willing to learn new things every day. This approach will help you start and run your online venture. In fact, there is no need to become expert in anything and everything but you will need at least basic knowledge in several fields like website management, online marketing, outsourcing etc. what are super easy to acquire. The best thing when starting a business is that you can learn the stuff you need step-by-step as you work on your business so you won’t feel the burden and the “pain” of learning.

Here at biizly.com, you can learn the basics for starting a business online, but also can go to more, in-depth knowledge, or find reliable sources to do so. In addition, most of the daily tasks required by any online business could be outsourced … or done by the employees (instead of you as owner). In that case, you should at least learn how to set the strategic aspects of your business and know what to ask (and expect) from employees and/or freelancers. Anyway, giving job/tasks to others will additionally cost you money, what is unfavorable especially during the first stages of your new business.

As your business grows in revenue, you can focus more on the strategic aspects of your business and delegate the day to day activities to others.

Investment (Initial finances)

Yes, you can start an online business without a dime. Anyway, if you are serious about your business you should register at least a domain name ($15/yearly) and acquire a reliable hosting plan that will cost you about $30 for the first 6 months. Another option (not highly recommended) is to get only the domain name and use some of the free blogging platforms like blogger.com.

Having this in mind, your startup finances could include:
– Initial investment (domain and hosting) $0 – $50
– Outsourcing (logo, web management, content writing, graphics .etc) $0 -$1000*
– Advertising cost (Google Ads, fb ads, etc) $0 – $1000*
– Inventory (if selling physical goods) 0$ – $5000*

* The amounts are just an estimation to give you a clearer image where your initial investment could go.

As you can see, the biggest part of the investment could go for inventory, but the good news is that many online business models do not require any type of inventory. In addition, there are even business models for selling goods that don’t require inventory of your own, like the affiliate model or the drop-ship model. In the drop-ship powered store, you will pay for the goods after you make the sale. After that, the provider will deliver the goods directly to the customer.

The two other “big” spendings could be for Outsourcing and for Advertising (if needed). Having that in mind, it is clear that more tasks you are able to do yourself, less you will pay to others and your initial investment will be smaller.

Regarding the advertisement costs, you should know that there are many online businesses that don’t really need advertisement. Anyway, the advertisement should be considered as an essential part of the business since it can bring-in new visitors, can fortify the brand and can increase the revenue and profitability of the business. Our suggestion is to start your business relying on free methods of promotion and introduce paid advertising later. If you decide to advertise from the begging, experiment with small budgets first.

To conclude, to start a business online you will need around $50 as an initial investment. Your investment may increase a bit if you outsource some tasks like logo creation or content writing, but before you put your business on its feet and start generating some income you can do most of the needed task yourself. Later, after you sense the market and make some sales (or other type of revenue), you can start outsourcing, expanding your team, increase your investment and reinvest your earnings.

Needed Skills for an Online Business (to possess, acquire or outsource)

Let’s make it clear right away. You don’t need to be tech savvy, a geek, or experienced online marketer to start and run a business online. The good news is that you will learn many new things by doing, as you work on your business. Not your current knowledge, but your willingness to learn new things and your determination will be crucial for your success.

By following this Guide you should gain the ability for the essential strategic thinking and you should be able to set the foundations of your future online business. You should also obtain informative and detailed knowledge about the needed day-to-day activities and operations to start and run your venture.

As mentioned before, the more skills you have (acquired) the better. You will be able to do more of the tasks yourself (you or your team members, if any), and you can do it in timely manner without paying for services. If there are some skills you don’t know yet, don’t stress. You will learn everything you need as you go. Everything else, that you are unable, unwilling, or have no interest or time to learn you can outsource to freelancers. (Employing other skilled workers during the starting stages of your business is often unnecessary and costly.)

Here is the list of essential skills (or sets of skills) that are needed to start and run an online business:
– Strategic thinking (Setting the foundations of your business)
– Website management (WordPress, Weebly, Magento or other CMS)
– Basic graphic design (logo, image editing)
– Content creation (text, recordings (video or audio), infographics, etc)
– Online Marketing (E-mail, SMM, SEO, Advertising)
– Outsourcing (finding freelancers to do the above-mentioned tasks)

Some of the mentioned skills/tasks are easy (to learn) and you can start doing them right away, for example the website management. Others, as the SEO (Search Engine Optimization), are more complex and require more time and experience, and some (as writing), might require some talent. If you develop expertise in any of these sets of skills, it may become your competitive advantage when running your business. You can also offer your expertise (as services) to other online business.

Finding other skilled freelancers to do the work, instead of you (outsourcing), seems as an easy task but it might get tricky. First of all, you need to know what to ask, than you should wisely chose who will do the tasks you need. Experienced and highly ranked freelancers may be expensive and/or busy to deliver on time or to communicate with you efficiently. On the other side, new and inexperienced freelancers, who are much more affordable, may deliver shabby job or not deliver at all.

At this point, it is very important that you develop sound strategic thinking ability, since you are here to start your online business. We hope that this guide will help you achieve that. After you decide to start your online business, the acquiring of the other skills will flow naturally.

Advanced skills in the areas mentioned above, are not necessary to start and run your online venture, but can help and ease the process since you can manage, enhance, improve, and fix your web site yourself on a higher level without engaging freelancers or you will be able to develop competitive services or products based on these skills.

Advanced skills that are not essential but could help your online startup include but are not limited to;
– Web coding (HTML, CSS),
– Web programming (PHP, ASP, Javascript)
– Databases (MySQL MsSQL)
– Programming, (Java, C#, C++, Python etc)
– Advanced Graphic Design,
– Fast writing skills etc.

Additional skills that can bring extra value to your business is the ability to develop/create products or services. Development of products and services is not simple since in some cases you will need in-depth knowledge and expertise in the field, in some investment and equipment, in some you will need talents and in other an entire team.

Types of products and services suitable for an online business may include but are not limited to:
– High quality Content (articles, texts, books, e-books, videos, audios, photos etc)
– Services (marketing, web management, online research, consulting etc)
– Teaching and coaching (textual, recorded or live courses, classes etc.)
– Software (programs, apps, platforms, web services),
– Arts and crafts (paintings, sculptures, jewelry, home décor, gifts, pottery, clothes, etc.),
– Goods and Commodities. (These may include handicrafts or manufactured goods)

The ability to create a competitive products or services can become your core business via internet and a competitive advantage. Anyway, it is not necessary to develop your own products and services since you can also outsource them (recommend and/or resell) trough affiliate partnership or from a drop-ship provider.

Regardless if you develop your products and services or you offer someone else’s, you should acquire the essential skills mentioned above in order to set and run your online business.

Summary:

– You don’t need some special skills or expertise to start a business online
– The most important to succeed are your determination and your will to learn new things as you go.

Basic Requirements to start a business online:
– Time devotion (At least 1 hour a day)
– Willingness to learn new things (as you go)
– Initial investment of $0 to $50 (for Domain and Hosing)

Essential skills (to possess, acquire or outsource):
– Website management,
– Basic graphic editing,
– Content writing,
– Online marketing

Outsourcing:
– Anything you cannot do or have no time to do (in-house), can be outsourced to freelancers or other companies at affordable rates.

Additional (advanced) skills that might get handy but are not necessary:
– Web coding (HTML, CSS),
– Programming,
– Advanced Graphic Design,
– Fast content writing,
– Product (or Service) development.

Tasks: