Thread: Starting an internet business

LOL, just LOL.

There's hundreds of online stores that already sell specialty shampoo/body wash designed to treat skin conditions and damaged hair.

You need to browse the Internet a lot more before you start thinking of any ideas, because your aim is so far off it's ridiculous. I can't even believe that you really just said that lol.

Do more research, use Google, browse the Internet more, read about Internet ventures on TechCrunch and VentureBeats, and try again in a few months.

These exist already, you just have to do it better. Look into it more: see what companies like these aren't doing, that YOU can do.

Originally Posted by julien515

Hello all

I really want to start my own business while I am still young "I'm 18" and avoid having to get into the work force and the slowlane. I read MJ's book "Very Inspiring" and I've read a couple other books on success and starting a business. I have decided that I want to start an internet business. I noticed there is no one on the internet selling specialty body care/body wash products. By this I mean if someone has lice or dandruff I would have an ecommerce site that sells specialty shampoo/body wash designed to treat these conditions. As well as ointments and special lotions for dry skin or rashes and many other skin and hair conditions. Do you guys think there would be a market for something like this? Assuming there is The biggest 2 questions I have are

1. Would it be a good idea for me to use an ecommerce template or should I hire a programmer to do the site for me?
2. How would I go about finding a drop shipper for these sorts of products.

My goal is to be making 500k a year "post taxes" in the next 5 years. I am more than willing to put in the work and do WHATEVER IT TAKES to be successful with my business! I'm just trying to figure out what is the best market for me to channel my focus. Do you guys think ecommerce is profitable, do you have any advice for other internet businesses that would be more profitable.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Yes there is a market for anything
You should use a template
Probably not many dropshippers for that line of products
To make $500k a year, you would have to be doing about $4m-$5m a year in sales and you won't be dropshipping.

Good for you!

To get started and get cash flowing, I would suggest you setup a wordpress blog and write a few articles on the subject. Use that website to get approved as an Amazon affiliate and a Commission Junction affiliate. Write articles about the specific products and put affiliate links in the articles. Work on getting traffic and making conversions, you will make a commission on each item you sell. This will let you save your capitol by not spending it on inventory, credit card service fees, and a smaller server. You will learn about SEO, link building, copy writing and more during this process. It will also let you know if you have the fortitude to stick with a project like this.

Once you start generating a few thousand dollars in sales each month, you can look into converting the Wordpress site into a full blown ecommerce site with shopping cart, credit card processing, and find someone to either drop ship for you, or create your own formulation. Then you just scale it using everything you learned.

Originally Posted by Gold777

Do more research, use Google, browse the Internet more, read about Internet ventures on TechCrunch and VentureBeats, and try again in a few months.

Sorry, but I really don't like this advice. Get busy and do something, learn while doing. If you just research and try to have it all figured out ahead of time, you have probably missed your window of opportunity. You learn to ride a bike by getting on and pedaling like hell, researching theory on balance and momentum doesn't do you any good once you finally sit on the seat.

Originally Posted by healthstatus

Sorry, but I really don't like this advice. Get busy and do something, learn while doing. If you just research and try to have it all figured out ahead of time, you have probably missed your window of opportunity. You learn to ride a bike by getting on and pedaling like hell, researching theory on balance and momentum doesn't do you any good once you finally sit on the seat.

I disagree.

Researching and reading is very helpful for stirring up ideas. This guy has no experience at all on the Internet, that would be equivalent to you telling someone to go start a retail shop in a random area when they have no prior experience at all. They would fail miserably and learn very little. However, it's easier looking at it for him from a 3rd person perspective. If he were to research retail shops first, look at how they operate, what most of them do right and what most of them do wrong, and what they aren't doing.... well that speaks for itself.

Comparing business to a bike is completely irrelevant. I could say the same thing about anything, in fact I think I will just to prove my point.

You learn to box by watching and listening to your instructor first, and then trying to replicate/perfect the moves yourself. You don't just jump in a ring and start swinging randomly.

See what I did there?

Thanks for all of the responses, I'm trying to come up with an idea for an online business that has a relatively untapped marketplace. So far it sounds like this might not be it. But I agree with healthstatus, I don't want to spend a bunch of time trying to come up with the prefect idea when I could have spent that time on an OK idea but committing to perfect execution "Or at least as close to perfect as I can get".

Originally Posted by Gold777

You learn to box by watching and listening to your instructor first, and then trying to replicate/perfect the moves yourself. You don't just jump in a ring and start swinging randomly.

See what I did there?

What was it, education is learned by reading the fine print, experience is learned by not reading the fine print.

Your example made me remember how I learned that exact lesson early. Many, many years ago.. Thought I could beat up anybody. No problem I would say. Started working out at a boxing gym, work on my bad -ass skills and all. Second day, some one says, you want to spar? Yes, I replied. Looked at my great competition. Little kid, and I mean little.. I had him by at least 30 pounds, and 3-4 years.. Of course I can beat that little kid, I hope I don't hurt em.. I thought in my head.

The little bastard knocked the crap out of me. I am surprised I am alive.

A few months after, I realized that he had been training for at least 5 years, and to ad to that little tidbit, his dad was a professional boxer back in the day. Maybe questions I should of asked before thinking I was all that.

Originally Posted by Gold777

You learn to box by watching and listening to your instructor first, and then trying to replicate/perfect the moves yourself. You don't just jump in a ring and start swinging randomly.
See what I did there?

Have you ever been to a golden gloves event and watched the pre-teen divisions? They get told to just get in there and wail away. After they show some skills and talents and decide if they mind getting hit or not is when they start getting coaching like you describe.

I didn't tell him to setup a retail shop, I told him to minimize his risk and use a very newbie friendly strategy to see if it works and if he likes it, in other words I coached him!

You laughed at him, told him he was over his head, told him to get lost and research some more, then come back later.

Originally Posted by healthstatus

Have you ever been to a golden gloves event and watched the pre-teen divisions? They get told to just get in there and wail away. After they show some skills and talents and decide if they mind getting hit or not is when they start getting coaching like you describe.

I didn't tell him to setup a retail shop, I told him to minimize his risk and use a very newbie friendly strategy to see if it works and if he likes it, in other words I coached him!

You laughed at him, told him he was over his head, told him to get lost and research some more, then come back later.

One of my friends was just in a golden glove event and he damn sure trained and sparred before getting into the ring.

I didn't say you told him to setup a retail shop, I said it would be equivalent to doing so, I made a comparison. You told him to just jump into it with no experience and no research and see what happens, that's just plain idiotic. In fact, I think even MJ made a video on taking action and explained how you shouldn't just "Take Action" but create a plan first and know where you're going and what you're doing.

Yes I laughed at him, why?

Let me ask you something, would you honestly open up a retail shop right now and sell the products he described?

Yeah, I absolutely think not and if you say you would I can bet it's only for the sake of trying to win this argument.

I told him to go do research and go learn more about the Internet because it would help him stir up more ideas, the guy is a complete newbie and has no idea what the Internet has to offer. The guy could come up with a genius idea beyond a online store, and possibly even change an industry, who knows.

The difference between what you and I are telling him, is that you're telling him to setup a basic online store that will get him no where, and I'm telling him to go EXPLORE first. Christopher Columbus explored America first before stopping to build anything. You have to explore, learn, and then make judgement THEN think of ideas.

So yes, "get lost", go research, go learn, go explore, go look at some of the amazing Internet ventures out there and learn what they're about and how they work. By the time you think of another idea it'll probably be 100x better than this one.

Columbus took off from Spain not knowing where was going, found stuff he didn't know existed, and brought back a massive fortune. He learned and made a fortune by doing, not from researching.

Originally Posted by Gold777

I disagree.

Researching and reading is very helpful for stirring up ideas. This guy has no experience at all on the Internet, that would be equivalent to you telling someone to go start a retail shop in a random area when they have no prior experience at all. They would fail miserably and learn very little. However, it's easier looking at it for him from a 3rd person perspective. If he were to research retail shops first, look at how they operate, what most of them do right and what most of them do wrong, and what they aren't doing.... well that speaks for itself.

Comparing business to a bike is completely irrelevant. I could say the same thing about anything, in fact I think I will just to prove my point.

You learn to box by watching and listening to your instructor first, and then trying to replicate/perfect the moves yourself. You don't just jump in a ring and start swinging randomly.

See what I did there?

Starting an online business as described above is NOTHING like starting a retail shop. For less than $100 you are in business online compared to tens of thousands bricks and mortar or more depending upon build out.

I agree with those telling the OP to get started and LEARN from doing. The world is FILLED with guys who have read 20 business books, belong to 5 entrepreneur forums and almost all of them will NEVER have a business of their own.

I was on the boxing team in college, you have no clue how you learn to box either.

Another Idea i've been considering is for a real estate site where if you are looking for a house to rent you post the specs of the home your looking for, for example you might say "I want a 3 bd 1br apartment in xxxxx area code for $850 a month or less". If a land lord has an apartment meeting your needs he could send you a message including his contact info, picture of the home, ect... I would charge him/her a fee to contact a prospective tenant. I'm not really sure if this could work or not since there's already a lot of realtor sites out there, I noticed that with the exception of craigslist list they all work the other way around. A landlord would have to post his home and tenants would contact the landlord.

Originally Posted by PatrickP

Starting an online business as described above is NOTHING like starting a retail shop. For less than $100 you are in business online compared to tens of thousands bricks and mortar or more depending upon build out.

I agree with those telling the OP to get started and LEARN from doing. The world is FILLED with guys who have read 20 business books, belong to 5 entrepreneur forums and almost all of them will NEVER have a business of their own.

I was on the boxing team in college, you have no clue how you learn to box either.

I'm not telling him to read 20 business books and sign up for 5 forums, and I actually mentioned nothing about them, I'm telling him to go explore the Internet and find out what it has to offer.

Learn how to read dude, he's stuck on one idea right now that is completely over saturated. I'm simply telling him to go find out what else he can do first before going with such a basic idea, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Of course you learn by doing, but that isn't the ONLY way to learn and it's not even about learning, it's about thinking of new ideas and getting creative.

How old are you? If you don't think you learn how to box from your instructor correcting your form and helping you perfect your technique personally you're completely retarded.

Originally Posted by julien515

Another Idea i've been considering is for a real estate site where if you are looking for a house to rent you post the specs of the home your looking for, for example you might say "I want a 3 bd 1br apartment in xxxxx area code for $850 a month or less". If a land lord has an apartment meeting your needs he could send you a message including his contact info, picture of the home, ect... I would charge him/her a fee to contact a prospective tenant. I'm not really sure if this could work or not since there's already a lot of realtor sites out there, I noticed that with the exception of craigslist list they all work the other way around. A landlord would have to post his home and tenants would contact the landlord.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I'M TELLING HIM TO GO EXPLORE THE INTERNET MORE^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why are you guys trying to get him to waste his time doing things that already exist, and that he's not doing any different?

Facepalm, just facepalm. I can't even comprehend the stupidity behind actually encouraging him to do something that has already been done a million times. It's like MJ's story of the workers on the island, another iron worker isn't needed, there's already a ton of them. Why the hell would you become an iron worker or even ENCOURAGE someone to become an "iron worker" when it's already been done to the fullest extent by everyone and their mothers?

Lol, just wow...

Originally Posted by Gold777

THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I'M TELLING HIM TO GO EXPLORE THE INTERNET MORE^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why are you guys trying to get him to waste his time doing things that already exist, and that he's not doing any different?

Facepalm, just facepalm. I can't even comprehend the stupidity behind actually encouraging him to do something that has already been done a million times. It's like MJ's story of the workers on the island, another iron worker isn't needed, there's already a ton of them. Why the hell would you become an iron worker or even ENCOURAGE someone to become an "iron worker" when it's already been done to the fullest extent by everyone and their mothers?

Lol, just wow...

There isn't anybody out there doing this "except craigslist, I fell I could make my site better" every realtor site 've seen make the landlord post his property and the tenants come to him. For my site the tenants post what they are looking for and the landlords come to them, the exact opposite.

Originally Posted by julien515

There isn't anybody out there doing this "except craigslist, I fell I could make my site better" every realtor site 've seen make the landlord post his property and the tenants come to him. For my site the tenants post what they are looking for and the landlords come to them, the exact opposite.

Yeah, that's the most illogical and inefficient way you could do it. Why would landlords want to waste their time looking for tenants when it's much easier to post the details about your property, list it, and have people come to you automatically?

I mean think about it, the TENANT will know what they want BETTER than a landlord, it's not hard to browse through a list of properties that have the price, number of bedrooms, pictures, and details on the neighborhood within a few seconds.

Also, time is an issue, maybe the tenant wants or has to find a place within just a few days, what if no landlord contacts them for weeks?

Yeah, exactly, there's a ton of other issues that could arise doing it the way you just thought of.

Just my 0.02...

I don't believe any responsible individual would ever suggest someone to get into business without first doing some research. At the same time, analysis paralysis is real, and can get real nasty. Ultimately, the REAL learning begins when the "initial schooling" is complete. You'll never stop learning..Anyone worth their salt will agree that you learn most by doing, and there will always be lessons to be encountered...Trial and error is important, not too much, but a healthy dose...

I've read over 30 books this past year and a half. And I've learned more in the past 30 days than I have before. I started building my business 30 days ago. My learning finally started when I started doing. Think about it...

Research and due diligence is a must, but applying it is vital. It's all about balance.


All the best,

Cory