How to Start an Online Business for $100 – Ramp Up As Needed Or Just For Surges

PC World – Business Center: How to Start an Online Business for $100.

These challenging economic times may be pushing you ever closer to the idea of launching your own business.  Whatever your reasons……whether it’s a life long dream, or a type of insurance against massive slow down in your day job, or you’ve been pink slipped out of the 9 to 5 work force and have no choice…. starting your own business has never been easier or less expensive.

How to Start an Online Business for $100, lays out a plan, with specifics, step by step, just how to do  this, covering just about every aspect that you need to consider.  Having “been there, done that”, many, many times, as a serial entrepreneur, I think they make very good points.  In the few instances I have a different take, I will point them out to you:

“Starting your own business doesn’t have to mean spending thousands of dollars on setup costs before you ever open your doors. Don’t get suckered into spending loads of money on services that you don’t need or that have far cheaper alternatives. Seriously: With $100, you can obtain everything you require to start just about any business online, with only minimal need to get up from your desk. Here’s how to do it.

Find an Affordable Web Host

The Web site for your new business has to reside somewhere. How do you pick a Web host that won’t leave you high and dry?

Most hosting plans for small companies offer similar features: basically unlimited storage space, support for common databases and publishing systems, and anywhere from a few gigabytes to 2 terabytes of data transfer per month. Expect to pay between $5 and $15 a month for the service, with a one- or two-year up-front contract.

Get Logos and Design Work

Numerous Web sites, such as Logo Ease and LogoMaker, will design a free logo for you based on options you set via a Web interface. The quality varies, but generally you can get the logo for free for online use. The services make money if you want to download the logo in EPS format, which is more suitable for printing on T-shirts and coffee mugs. A Web search for “free logo” will turn up dozens of additional alternatives.

Another, possibly better, approach is to seek out an independent designer to work on your logo. If you don’t need anything fancy, you can find someone to do the job for $50 or less through a simple Craigslist ad. The advantage is that you get to work with a live person (with genuine artistic skills) to create something unique for you rather than a cold, computer-generated logo. ( My advice: Later, when your business is roaring and cash is pouring in, you can splurge on a big time designer for your logo, which might cost a couple of thousand dollars. That’s what I did. I started out using a Matisse graphic of people holding hands around the globe since there were no online logo makers in 1995,1996. In 2001, I finally was able to go big time working alongside  Lara August, branding guru and Creative Director of Robot Creative, an award-winning creative marketing firm in San Antonio, Texas to create our present brand.)

Build an E-Commerce Site on the Cheap

If you’re planning to sell a lot of physical goods, you’ll need a service that can handle e-commerce transactions, process credit cards, and provide security for both. Setting all of this up on your own server is an expensive, time-consuming task laden with security risks. ( Forget about it!) It’s best to outsource the functions to a hosted service targeted at merchants. Such services can be surprisingly affordable. Yahoo’s popular Merchant Solutions start at $40 a month. E-commerce sites at Netfirms start at a mere $15 a month. You can customize both extensively to match your desired look and feel.

Find a Big Sales Partner

Thousands of merchants use Amazon to promote their goods, giving Amazon a cut when items sell. The big advantage: You don’t need a Web site at all to sell there. You can sell just about anything that Amazon stocks by registering as a merchant, finding the product page for the item you’re selling, and clicking Sell yours here. Merchants must pay $40 a month, plus a sliding scale of closing fees (6 to 20 percent). Individual sellers can sign up to sell with no monthly fees but must pay an extra 99 cent closing fee.

You’ll find similar services (though less of a selection) at Half.com (part of eBay), and of course you can always try your hand at dealing on eBay itself, which is still a popular venue for selling new and used merchandise, though one drowning in noise.

Think SEO, All the Time

Don’t underestimate the value of optimizing your Web site for Google. But you don’t need to pay an expert thousands of dollars to optimize your site for you: Check out the expert advice from SEOmoz and other search engine optimization writers to learn the basics of SEO, and instill your site with good SEO habits from day one. It takes time for the engines to get to know your site, so be patient. (Just make sure you’ve submitted your URL to all of them!) ( My advice: If you use WordPress as a content management system you can get a free SEO plug in with the click of a mouse which will automate the entire process for you, so you won’t have to learn all the tech stuff, which is not so much hard as detailed and complicated. Keep it simple.)

Get Bonus Income With Google AdSense

Unless you’re selling physical merchandise, try adding Google AdSense ads to your site. You might pull in only a few dollars a month while your site is small, but that’s more than nothing–plus, it opens the door for bigger ad opportunities down the road. (Me:  Besides, it gets you on Google’s radar.)

Constantly Promote Your Business

How do one-person businesses get big? They’re always promoting themselves–always. Add your URL to your e-mail signature. Create a Facebook group for your business. Write a  about your product or industry.

Managing Your Growth, Scaling Up

Set Up a Switchboard

If you’re expecting a lot of incoming phone calls, an answering service might be worth the investment: You’ll seem more professional to customers, and you won’t be roused from bed at the crack of dawn by callers who don’t understand what time zones are.

You can have a live answering service (similar to the one your doctor uses) for $20 a month–or less, if you have minimal incoming calls. Another option is to do it virtually: For about $10 a month, you can get an 800-number-based system such as RingCentral that answers calls with an automated greeting, routing calls to you (or other employees or contractors) or to voice mail depending on button presses.

For a Little More: Get a Virtual Office

The world doesn’t need to know you’re working in your basement, so many business owners turn to a P.O. box for the official address of their company. A bare P.O. box, however, doesn’t seem all that professional, and you can’t receive UPS or FedEx shipments there.

Another option is a virtual mailbox service, such as that of Regus. With a virtual mailbox, you get a physical mailing address and someone who will sign for packages from other carriers. The catch is that people sending you mail still have to put a PMB code on the envelope, though it’s less conspicuous than with a regular post office box. You pick up the mail once a week, or the service forwards it to you at cost. The plans cost $100 to $150 per month.

You can step up from there to a more serious arrangement: A virtual office setup gets you not just mail service but a live receptionist who answers the phone however you like, plus access to a physical space with offices, conference rooms, and even videoconferencing facilities. Fees can range from $250 to $325 a month.

These costs are admittedly beyond our $100 budget, so consider whether you really need them before signing a contract. With so much business conducted online and via phone, you may never deal with visitors at all. ( My advice:  Skip it.  Should you ever need a conference room, you can rent one from an office company like Regus, or borrow one from a fellow entrepreneur in off hours.  Most likely, in an online business you would be doing teleconferences or conferences online anyway, from your own computer.)

For a Little More: Offload Fulfillment and Shipping

Selling physical goods online often means long hours spent in your garage packing up orders to ship to buyers, and then standing in long lines at the post office to mail it all off. Another option exists, thanks to the wonders of e-fulfillment: You pay someone else to do all the inventory handling and order shipping for you. Fees can be pricey unless you have the volume to mandate it: Efulfillment Service costs $70 a month flat, along with $1.85 per order processed and $0.25 per cubic foot per month for inventory stored, plus actual shipping fees.

Alternatively, you could hire a student or other temporary help to do the work for you a few days a week, but you’ll still have to find somewhere else to park your car.

Behind The Scenes Technicalities

I think it’s important to know how complete this piece is, in case you want to go back to it for things you’re not contemplating now and  use it for a reference.  It also goes into some nuts and bolts things you may want to consider such as filing for an assumed name ( Jane Smith doing business as, dba, “Fashion Forward”), additional licenses you may need, depending on what business you’re in, what kind of bank account to use, and whether to incorporate — the author recommends keeping it simple, opening as a sole propriertor ship, then incorporating later, if you want. ( My advice: Just don’t forget to do it as you get successful so you will not be personally liable for issues relating to your business).

What was left out here, was where to find outsourced help, which you can find in the link below.

Now, that is really a very thorough road map of getting started for $100.  If you have the burning interest, the drive and ambition that fuel an entrepreneurs rise, you will make it.  We wish you the best.  Write and tell us about your experiences so we can add them into our common well of shared knowledge.

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