Is Your Internet Business Worth Pursuing?

One of the great things about the Internet is that it has opened up for many people the opportunity for them to run their own online business with start-up costs far less than what was required in the years past. Unfortunately for many people who pursue this dream, they fail to fully understand if their business idea is really the next big thing, or if it’s simply another version of an idea that has already been done to death online.

To help you determine if you idea might be one that really is “the next big thing” or not, I’ve created this checklist that I use when looking at potential business ideas online. Just remember that not all ideas may be business worthy, but that doesn’t mean you should ever give up dreaming big!

• Can you market your idea? Many people come up with great ideas, but they simply aren’t marketable or don’t solve a problem that people currently are having. A lot of ideas are great ideas – but the problem is they already exist online for free or at very little cost.
• What is my target audience? You have to know who you are trying to attract to your site. All too often we design and develop for ourselves and completely ignore our target audience. Come up with a persona for the “everyday” person that will visit your site.
• What will people do with, and how will they use, the service or product you are providing? Avoid feature creep from the beginning by defining a core product or service. Then ask yourself what will make users want to talk about and recommend your product. How does viral marketing come into play for this?
• Create Your “WOW” Factor. Find something that gives you not only a leg up, but a whole body up on your competitors. This can be through technology, features or even staff. You have to have something special for your business really to flourish – just trying to be another company in the mix won’t cut it nowadays.
• Be Different. Don’t try to create another Google or eBay – the world simply won’t pay attention to you unless you totally revolutionize the world. Instead, identify the ways you can make your products and services different from everyone else. Promote diversity and innovation in your product mix so you aren’t in competition with others, but instead are defining your own market.
• Find some great content producers. For online companies the key is in the content. You must have superior content to get noticed in the online world. Figure out who will be writing your content. Look for people who can take an ordinary sentence and turn it into an extraordinary statement.
• Make sure your content is linkable. You want content that is building SEO from the very first moment you go live. When developing content think of why people would want to link back to it. Make your content as viral as possible.
• Ask yourself what you will do if only 10 people show up. Try and figure out how to attract people to your site and then be prepared if nobody shows up. Have not only a “Plan A”, but a “Plan B” and possibly a “Plan C”.
• Be prepared to work hard, but also be prepared to fail. I’m not trying to discourage you, far from it, but I do want you to realize that a lot of small businesses fail. It’s not for lack of trying, but often its just because of market conditions that were not seen or anticipated. Even if your fail the first time, or the first dozen times, keep pursuing your dreams.

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