Mistakes You’re Making When It Comes to an Online Business
Soon out of business school, the temptation is high to launch one’s own business, online or at a great city. Starting an online business is hard; obviously, many entrepreneurs know this. However, most believe that the difficult part is cracking the market. Well, that is not necessarily the case. Running a new business involves a roller coaster of emotions and strategic upheavals that many newbie business owners are unaware of.
Bad Choices Begin with Web Design
Let’s start with where most online entrepreneurs start: the web design process. Most new online businesses face crippling problems one or two years into operation because of bad decisions made at the start of the design process.
First of all, entrepreneurs do not think about the importance of independent web hosting. All new business begins with a limited budget. It’s up to the competency of the owner to spend this limited budget wisely. However, most newbies have trouble distinguishing between worthwhile costs and temporary costs. For example, investing in dedicated servers in Australia for a start-up based in Sydney is not a waste of money, even though in the beginning it may seem wasteful to pay for a service that one can get for free using a CMS platform like WordPress. Here’s the thing: you are running a business, not a personal blog. You need to host your site independently and have your own set of terms and conditions for users and developers to adhere to.
Another issue is that many newbies try to design their business websites themselves by using an easy CMS like Wix. As mentioned before, professional aspects of your business should be entrusted to the professionals. If you do not have experience designing high-quality websites, you should invest in a good designer. Otherwise you risk an unappealing site and lose sales even before you get started.
Bad Company
Running a new business is stressful. It will be more stressful if you are surrounded by people you don’t like or people you cannot manage. It’s paramount that you hire the right people for the right job at your online venture. As Jim Collins, the author, said, “start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” Follow this advice when you hire either fulltime or contract-based employees.
Overlooking Local Customers
It’s common for entrepreneurs to enter the business world with grand ideals in their heads. Online entrepreneurs especially have dreams of dominating the world like Amazon or Google. While, no one said dreaming is bad, it’s highly important to have realistic goals a small venture can achieve in the shortest amount of time as possible. Start with the target customer base. You may want to have an international combination of clients purchase your services or products. But right now, when you are just launching, the people most likely to buy your products are the ones located closest to you. Therefore, don’t forget to optimise your site for local customers with tactics such as location-specific keywords.
As you can see, a new venture can be plagued with bad decisions and wrong expectations from the beginning. There are no foolproof plans for starting an online business, or any business for that matter. However, if you have made mistakes like the ones mentioned above, it’s important to learn from them and take steps to rectify the situation.
