Starting an online business nowadays seems so easy. The truth is that it’s not, but could become easier when having a great idea, resources to learn from and a coach. You may decide to go your own way, but these things are beneficial if you want to start your business online. To make sure you’re doing the right things, you need resources to learn from or some tips and advice from someone, who will be your “angel guard” through your journey.
Every business requires to pass some stages like planning, organizing, setting up, and taking off. Maybe the hardest part comes after the start, like managing your business. Now imagine having your guru to help you learn everything you need to know to start, manage, and grow your business. Help you when you struggle.
The online entrepreneurs are people who once upon a time were only beginners just like you. They walked a long path to success. They took great risks, experimented to see what works or not, but were mostly a lot self-motivated. Entrepreneurs are passionate, flexible, they know how to network in order to bring their ideas into reality.
The great news is that we have a variety of digital marketing coaches that could teach you about the basics, starting a website, SEO, your marketing strategy and tactics, e-commerce, customers’ behavior, managing ads, and many other helpful details.
Their beginning wasn’t easy for sure and getting help from someone who’s been it all through is priceless. That’s why today there are plenty of them that could be your helping hand. These so called gurus provide great information, will lead you step by step to take off the ground. Also, some of them offer a framework for accountability to make sure your business remains focused.
Our list is made of 10 online gurus that are (more or less) among the most prominent entrepreneurs in the online business startup field and they could point your way to start and run your own online business from scratch.
One thing that is very important to mention before you continue reading is: Don’t fell for false promises. No matter how successful some gurus may be (or seem to be) most of their students fail because that’s the way entrepreneurship works.
Here is the list of the best gurus for starting an online business we have selected, mainly based on their popularity (traffic on their websites):
#10 Yaro Starak (yaro.blog.com)
Alexa Rank: #84,320
Yaro is a founder of Entrepreneur Journals. His website has helpful information about following his famous online business model: start a blog, grow an email list, and sell your digital products.
He provides some paid resources to help you with your online business.
- InboxDone.com provides a human being to take over your email for you. If managing your own email and/or your customer support email is slowing you down, he can help you. You can learn a lot from his successful projects as well as follow his business revenue model for your business.
- Another one on the list is definitely the “Blog Mastermind” which is a step-by-step blog program to start an internet business. Blog Mastermind is offered monthly for $297/ month x 12, yearly $2997, or lifetime membership for $4997.
Pros:
- He caters specifically to Intermediate and Advanced Bloggers
- Credible instructor
- Reviews suggest that Yaro is very thorough and determined to help you succeed
Cons:
- Not much for beginners
- May be out of the price league for many people
- He does not teach many business models like SaaS subscription business model, Influencer – Sponsorship Model, Advertising Model, or Affiliate Marketing
#9 Derek Halpern (socialtriggers.com)
Alexa Rank: 95,567
Social Triggers was founded by Derek Halpern. Derek is an expert marketer and entrepreneur. He developed it over the past few years, and it has helped him build a few wildly popular websites, one of which attracted more than 1,000,000 pageviews in a single day. More specifically, he uses the perfect blend of data-driven marketing (conversion rates, academic research, and personal case studies) and content marketing to get traffic, attract customers, and sell products online. He offers a free book “How to get you, first 5000 subscribers”. The not so good thing about his page is that it’s stocked with much information and they cannot be found really easily. The beginners would be confused at first sight.
Also, he can help you with the following:
- Build a blog audience
- Create an online course
- Sell a product online
Pros:
- 80/20 rule for building a blog audience
- Derek teaches proven psychological principles
Cons:
- Information that is confusing for beginners
- Information cannot be found easily
#8 Ezra Firestone (smartmarketer.com)
Alexa Rank: #40,069
Ezra Firestone is a CEO at Smart Marketer. There are plenty of useful resources on their site to help you build your story, your own online business. Their specialization is e-commerce stores! They have their own, which generates over $20 million in yearly revenue, and through which they’re constantly finding the most profitable trends in e-commerce. Smart Marketer provides open-source information through weekly content, premium training, live events, and a high-level mastermind.
- Weekly Content-They provides free content via weekly blog posts, emails, and Facebook Live broadcasts that help you develop every facet of your business: The most effective tactics and strategies for increasing profit; tips for establishing healthy and productive work habits; ways to build strong relationships with your team, business partners, and loved ones; and a look behind the scenes at some of the industry’s biggest companies and events.
- Live Events– If you’re looking to build valuable relationships in the e-commerce community and seek for some pieces of information from leaders, join their live streams! They host every year’s Ecommerce All-Stars for business owners and entrepreneurs who want to get away from their routine, focus on growing their business, and have a great time.
- Premium Training– For business owners seeking in-depth training on how to grow their businesses, they offer premium training on all the most important subjects: Facebook advertising, email marketing, project management, starting a profitable Amazon business, and more.
- BlueRibbon Mastermind– For high-earning store owners who really want to take their business to the next level, they have our top-level group, Blue Ribbon Mastermind. This membership provides 2 live events a year, 2 mastermind calls a month where they focus on implementation and growth, an exclusive Facebook group, and a member-led “Round Table” every 6 weeks where they dive into a specific topic to gain more knowledge and experience.
Ezra offers a 6 module course about advanced email marketing system to grow your business:
- One time payment (currently on sale) $1347.30
Pros:
- Interaction with interesting people on a daily basis
- Great programs for people interested in e-commerce
Cons:
- Training is non-existent
- No Benefits to speak of
#7 Matthew Woodward (matthewwoodward.co.uk)
Alexa Rank: 36,112
Another one on our list is Matthew. In case you want to increase traffic & sales of your digital business over the shoulder of an established expert, you’re in the right place. Whether that is link building, traffic generation, social media, or conversion rate optimization. There are two offers from Matthew, his really successful blog and the search logistics. There aren’t many testimonials for the business outside itself.
Matthew Woodward can help you with:
- If you want to increase your search traffic- Download his (free) intelligent spreadsheets to build a personalized SEO strategy in minutes.
- If you want to start a blog- Fast track your blog’s growth in the next 7 days with his free email that will transform your blog’s success.
- If you want to start working online- Matthew will show you 36x different methods that you can use to jump-start your digital business & make your first $1 online.
Pros:
- Expertise is within the blogging community and SEO
- Helpful and well-written blog content
Cons:
- Their partnership program seems just a little too good to be true
- Nobody’s speaking about their programs
#6 American Writers & Artists Institute (awai.com)
Alexa Rank: #23,686
This website is helping people that want to discover how to become highly successful copywriters and business owners so they can live their dreams.
They’ve been targeting writers since 1997 with their copywriting training programs, events, and exclusive communities. Their products are not free except their newsletter and offer products from different categories like copywriting, niche copywriting markets, B2B, web writing, publishing, home business, business building, and graphic design. Some of AWAI’s best books and products are:
- The Barefoot Writer: Discover freedom-filled living through well-paid writing($108)
- The Writer’s Life: Receive their FREE newsletter on how to make a great living as a writer
- Professional Writer’s Alliance: Join their exclusive group for working and aspiring writers
- AWAI Circle of Success: Their elite copywriting training and community($49)
- B2BWritingSuccess.com: Advance your career as a B2B copywriter here($49)
- WealthyWebWriter.com: Discover training, templates, and tools for web writing success($29)
- DirectResponseJobs.com: Where marketers post freelance and full-time writing jobs
AWAI’s other offerings include programs in graphic design, self-publishing, internet marketing, resume writing, freelance writing success, and many more.
Pros:
- focused on targeting writers
- variety of courses
Cons:
- copywriting courses are so many hours, so little in return
- some of the programs are pretty expensive
AWAI’s programs are offered between $30 to $500.
#5 Rahmit Sethi (iwilteachyouhowtoberich.com)
Alexa Rank: #16,649
New York Times best selling author and founder of iwillteachyouhowtoberich.com. Over 1,000,000 people read his material to learn how to use psychology and systems to live a better life. That could mean automating your finances, making more money, finding your Dream Job, starting an online business, or mastering your inner psychology. He’s giving 98% of his material free. Sethi has split his products into 4 categories:
- Start your Business
- Grow Your Business
- Find Your Dream Job
- Boost Your Productivity
- Optimize Your Finances
His materials may be good but are only applicable to people living and working only in the USA. Anyways lots of people are talking about his famous book that is well organized and really helps with automating personal finance. His book is awesome but his courses are questionable. The benefits are less than the price paid per course.
What is really good is that he created the “Growth lab” to give students an avenue to build a rich life by creating an online business. Its essence is building a low risk and automated online business that gives you the freedom and flexibility to live a life you want. Rahmit is still on the top-performing entrepreneurs that will help you create your strategies, frameworks, and tactics to get the results you want. He promises the right system, success, more control, more income, and more freedom to live the life you’ve always wanted.
Pros:
- great teacher and a great system to psychology about making money online
- his book is excellent
Cons:
- over promising, it doesn’t mean you could always get rich with running an online business, but you may afford a living
- only applicable to people living in the USA
- his courses are questionable
“Earnable” is currently closed, if you want to use his program, you will need to sign up on the wait-list.
His book ”I will teach you how to be rich” as a paperback currently is on sale and costs $9 and a kindle version $8.
#4 Patrick Flynn (smartpassiveincome.com)
Alexa Rank: #11,901
SPI exists to provide a trusted learning and development ecosystem for online entrepreneurs. They help folks at all stages of their journey make progress toward new levels of success. Community is alive with individuals and teams from all walks of life and at all stages of their entrepreneurial journeys bonded by a common cause—to build purpose-driven and profitable businesses they can be proud of. SPI empowers its community members to take action toward achieving their goals by providing best-in-class educational content and training experiences. Beyond its own creations, SPI partners up with other industry experts to develop and champion useful resources that further enable its own mission. What is interesting is that he shows his income reports to help motivate people to see what’s possible and as proof of experience.
On their website, you can learn for free about affiliate marketing, business development, email marketing, personal development, and book publishing.
Their paid resources are:
- Online courses: Pat delivers flagship courses in his trademark electric, personal, and in-depth style. Students have access to Pat’s personal office hours to get extra help. And they regularly update their lessons to make sure they’re current with industry trends and best practices. The prices start from $699 to $799.
- Powerful tools of the trade for online entrepreneurs: Here are their chosen few—those platforms that they have come to love and trust. (affiliate links)
- Books to help you get smart about online business: Their three featured books are each authored by their founder, Pat Flynn. Each one covers an important theme core to conceiving, starting, and marketing your online business. (available on amazon.com, paperback cost $16, kindle versions cost $7)
- Podcasting: They love making podcasts. With the power of your voice, you can build an audience, make an impact, generate more business, and have fun doing it too. They have decent podcasts about tutorials and case studies. Pat offers a free “Podcast Cheat List”.(sponsors)
Pros:
- step-by-step guide on how to start a niche site
- Displaying earnings reports
- Some of the courses are free
Cons:
- some omissions in Pet’s programs
- expensive courses
#3 Ryan Deiss (digitalmarketer.com)
Alexa Rank: #9,124
DigitalMarketer is the premier online community for digital marketing professionals. It’s a place where you can learn how to market like a pro, connect with industry experts, and get the strategies and tools you need to grow and scale your business to new heights. With tens of thousands of customers in 68 countries around the globe, they’ve become one of the world’s most trusted voices sharing the best of what works in digital marketing. If you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or small business owner, then they can show you how to run effective digital marketing campaigns that drive more traffic, sales, and profit for your company.
Their page includes some free material to get started: the ultimate guide to digital marketing, marketing skills audit, free digitalmarketer account, content marketing resources, email marketing resources, and paid traffic resources.
DigitalMarketer’s products are separated in:
- On-Demand Workshops– These hyper-focused, on-demand workshops help you stay on top of the latest marketing strategies & tactics. Inside each of these groundbreaking training, you’ll find the tools, techniques, and templates you need to launch a marketing deliverable service.
- Certifications & Mastery Courses -They built these foundational courses to train their own team members. They’re providing certificates in fields such as Digital Strategy, Content Marketing, Paid Advertising, Search Marketing, Email Marketing, Copywriting… and so much more.
- Playbooks – Made to walk you through step-by-step execution of proven marketing tactics, growth strategies, and carefully crafted campaigns.
DigitalMarketar provides membership for its users:
- DM Insider (subscription): Create your account for instant access to 30+ marketing tools
- DM Lab ($95): It includes 36 marketing playbooks, 11 comprehensive masterclasses, 10,000+ marketers to answer all your questions, and discounts and deals on some tools. The members have discussions about current marketing trends.
- DM Elite Lab(3x $995 a year): A private community that includes monthly workshops, group coaching & accountability, and access to their certifications. With DM Elite Lab you get training(content),access(community) and accountability( coaching).
- DM HQ: Customized Digital Marketing Training For Your Entire Team
Pros:
- Education materials that are related to marketing are vast
- One of the best sites to learn about marketing your online business
Cons:
- The site needs to be more informative as it contains material only related to marketing
- Information may be confusing for beginners
#2 Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim (wealthyaffiliate.com)
Alexa Rank: #6,583
WealthyAffiliate is mainly focused on giving lectures about online business, arranging a helpful community, and other resources about building a website, domains, and hosting plans.
The services at WealthyAffiliate are split into one “SiteRubbix” experience:
- Education: From the moment that you join you are going to be walked through their step-by-step training platform. For newbies and advanced marketers alike, their focus is teaching how to create a successful, long term business within the online space.
- Websites: Create and grow your business with the SiteRubix website platform at Wealthy Affiliate. It is not just about websites, they have some of the most useful and integrated tools for website analysis, management, ranking, and security. Regardless of the type of website you are looking to build, with a few clicks, you can have a beautiful website up and running and live online.
- Hosting: They offer a WordPress hosting experience with which you could get an SSL for free. Whether you are just getting started within the online space or looking to grow several different businesses to new levels, their hosting platform (called “SiteRubix”) will remain robust and powerful every step of the way.
- Domains: Websites, domains, and the management of your websites are fully integrated within the SiteRubix platform.Access and purchase .com, .net, .org, .info, and all of your other favorite top-level domains in an instant.
WA Community: They created a community that cares about your journey when creating your online business. Also, they help you connect with people from different countries all over the world as well as connecting with people from your country.
The premium package is the first 7 days for free, after $49/month.
Pros:
- Website hosting with high uptimes, fast load speeds, and lots of features
- Thousands of hours of recorded training
- Live training weekly with Q&A
- An engaged community of 1.4+ million members
Cons:
- Can be addicting since the community is so engaged and active
- Takes more than 6 months for consistent income
#1 Zak Bezo (biizly.com)
Alexa Rank: N/A
This list of gurus that help online business startups wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t include our website too. We know, you think we are bragging, especially for placing our site on the top position, but you wouldn’t be reading this post if we didn’t exist and we wouldn’t create Biizly if we found out that any of the above-mentioned gurus was perfect, if they addressed every personality type or if they covered every different need in this area. We don’t tend to be all of that too, we just try to address the need for starting an online business in a simpler and straight forward way, especially for the beginners. Another disadvantage of many other competing sites is that they’re usually over-promising and giving false expectations. The reality is that starting an online business is not that easy and definitely is not for everybody.
Having that in mind we established Biizly with a mission to empower those who want to start their first online business with relevant, abundant, and free resources. In order to achieve that mission, we have developed a reliable, web-based step-by-step guide for starting and running an online business from scratch. The guide is accompanied by a clickable and comprehensive PDF startup checklist to keep the wannabe online entrepreneurs motivated and organized during their online startup journey. The guide and the checklist are also suitable for intermediaries who need a sound tool to follow when they work on their new business venture and don’t want to miss or neglect any important aspect of their business project.
Regarding the advantages and disadvantages of our website we will try to be as unbiased as possible, taking in consideration that we have to do more work to achieve higher standards of quality:
Pros:
- 100% free access,
- Dedicated mostly to Beginners (intermediaries may find it useful too),
- Step-by-step Online Startup Guide that is web-based and easy to navigate,
- Clickable and comprehensive PDF Checklist for motivation and efficiency,
- Simple, straight forward approach.
Cons:
- Mostly text-based materials (no videos, no podcasts),
- No active community,
- No formal training and mentoring offered (yet),
- Lack of resources for advanced business stages.
Conclusion:
One of the motivations to write this post and to create this list of the most relevant online business startup gurus was the difficulty to find them in the waste pool of information. Besides these 10, there are many, many more out there who offer (more or less) the same thing but with a different approach and focus.
Now it’s up to you to choose which one (or few) to trust and follow. We don’t imply that we are the best. We have still a long way to go, but at least we believe that the knowledge for stating and running an online business should be free of charge. Another thing we believe in is that the process of starting an online business is simple enough to be presented in a simple and straight forward way as it is in our guide and the checklist.
If you decide to go further, you may want to read our article: Want to be an Online Entrepreneur? Prepare first…. or don’t hesitate and start right now.
