Hiya there, folks!

If you’re subscribed to this blog, then you’re most likely an aspiring entrepreneur.

As aspiring entrepreneurs, one of the questions that’s prevalent in our minds is, “What kind of business should I start?”

Hell, my blog statistics show me that the most popular category in Startup Launchr is the “business ideas” category.

Well, I finished writing my first book, and it’s called the ideaSpark: The Blueprint. It’s an entire manual that’s based on.. you guessed it, how to get your hands on that seemingly elusive business idea so you can go ahead and launch your first business.

I don’t want to talk about it TOO much yet. But I’ll tell you what.

I’m going to give away 10 free copies of the book for Startup Launchr readers. There are two ways to enter the contest:

1.) Go to the Subscribe page and enter your email address then press Submit. I’ll pick the 10 winners randomly. There will be 10 winners from this category.

2.) If you don’t want to subscribe, there’s another way to enter. Simply send me an email using the Contact page and tell me why you NEED a copy of the book. I don’t car what your reason is — it can be a sob story, it can be something that makes me laugh, whatever. Best stories win. I don’t know how many winners there will be from this category yet.

So what’s the catch? For the winners, I want you to let me know what you think of the book. My end goal is to compile an audio collage of readers praising the book (”OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER!” is ideal, but I doubt that will happen). Don’t know if we can achieve that, but that’s what I’m aiming for.

So, you ready? Then go and enter the contest now!

Nothing displaying? Tough to read? Click here and view the Classroom in full-size. Feel free to link here.

Launching an online business doesn’t have to be, and isn’t, that difficult.

Making use of the Internet for your first company allows you many advantages over the traditional brick-and-mortar business.

• An online business doesn’t require a high amount of capital to start with — many businesses can be started for $200 or less.

• You can constantly test (Startup Launchr readers will soon find out how anal I get about numbers) and tweak according to what the market is telling you.

• Spreading the word is easy with the help of social media tools (how did YOU find this site?) and other vehicles for word of mouth.

• Your shop is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I could go on and on, but you probably already know all the benefits of setting up shop online or else you wouldn’t be reading this.

This is the first of many blog series’ here on Startup Launchr. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking to get your first online business up and running relatively quickly, this series is for you. This tutorial is designed to teach you the basic elements of creating an online business in 7 easy lessons that you can focus on per day.

Day 1: The Wrong Way To Approach Brainstorming For Business Ideas
Day 2: How To Get Everything You Need To Know About A Market
Day 3: Creating A Pre-Product To Test Your Demand And Build A List
Day 4: The New Era Of Copywriting Has Arrived
Day 5: Online Business Resources That You Absolutely Cannot Do Without
Day 6: Now Open For Business!
Day 7: Working On The Business, Not In It

First article in the series will be posted on Monday. For the meantime, enjoy the Classroom overview of the series.

Disclaimer: While it’s certainly possible to launch a business in 7 days (it can be done in less than 7 days even), the 7 day thing isn’t a guarantee. The speed of implementation highly depends on how much of a perfectionist you are, how much time you’re willing to dedicate and how quickly you can work.

Another disclaimer: The titles posted above are working titles. They may or may not change depending on the nature of the articles.

If you find this post useful, do Startup Launchr a favor and Stumble it and/or Digg it. Or whatever social media you choose to use. Thanks.

Pocketpreneur has officially been launched.

It’s live and kickin’ at this very moment, so head on over the minty-fresh, brand new blog and have a see for yourself.

How I Chose The Name

If you look at the poll from a couple weeks ago, “Pocketpreneur” received over 50% of the overall votes. In addition to that, I also ran PPC ads on Facebook to test which name would generate the highest click-through rate.

Looking at the click-through rate, “Compact CEO” comes out being a slight winner with a 0.17 CTR (yes, Facebook advertising come with very low click through rates as you can see). I should’ve left the test on for longer to get more accurate data, but I’m quite an impatient man.

Next, I took “Compact CEO” and pitted it against Pocketpreneur.

Pocketpreneur pulled twice as many clicks as Compact CEO did (47 clicks after 77k impressions; Compact CEO would pull approximately 24 clicks at the same amount of impressions).

So if you have to decide on something (such as the name for your next online business, for example), pay-per-click advertising is a relatively cheap way to find out. It’s a great tool to test titles, names, concepts, and even actual products. I’m a firm believer of acting on instinct, but it’s also smart to have numbers backing up your decisions.

How does Pocketpreneur differ from Startup Launchr?

Got sidetracked there for a moment, but here we are again.

It’s quite a simple difference, really. Startup Launchr is dedicated to the execution side of things, while Pocketpreneur is for the business ideas and planning. Both topics are huge beasts, and I felt they both deserved their own dedicated platform (can’t be bad for the branding, either).

So head on over to Pocketpreneur, have a read around the published posts, and subscribe. I’m sure the one-two combination of Startup Launchr and Pocketpreneur won’t disappoint you.

Nothing displaying? Tough to read? Click here and view the Classroom in full-size. Feel free to link here.

NOTE: StumbleUpon people, here’s a brief background to clue you in what’s happening here at Startup Launchr.

A couple of posts ago I announced that a new blog is in the works and asked for your help in naming it. The poll received a great response from Startup Launchr’s readers (that’s you guys! Don’t worry, your free report that I promised will be headed your way real soon).

In anticipation of the new blog to be launched alongside Startup Launchr (more on that in a couple of days), today’s post deals with the core elements of a successful business. This new blog will be dedicated strictly to the business ideas, and will venture to the business planning process in the near future.

Which name did I eventually choose to use, and how did I come to that conclusion? Are you hungry for ideas to help jog your mind for businesses you can start in an instant? Subscribe to the blog, and wait for the next post to find out. Till then, enjoy this week’s treat on Startup Launchr!

Every profitable business is built on a solid foundation. 4 of them, to be exact.

In order for a business to be profitable, these four elements must be in tune with each other from the core to the outer layer. They supplement the 6 rules to follow and give you a basic framework for your business model. When coming up with business ideas, think about it using this structure, starting with the core and building upon it layer by layer.

These 4 layers also serve as a troubleshooting guide. If your product isn’t selling, reverse-engineer the process. Fix your outer layers, and dig in deeper as necessary. If your outer layers are all in check and your product still isn’t selling, then maybe you need to consider moving on to the next business idea and hit a different market altogether.

Using this framework will tremendously help you in brainstorming for new business ideas, as it allows you to think of businesses, markets and products in a systematic manner. Of course, brainstorming should be as form-free as possible, but having guidelines to steer you in a general direction never hurts.

To view this Classroom in the proper order, start with the core and start going outwards.

INNER LAYER: YOUR MARKET

At the core of a successful business is a good market, or a good niche.

The definition of “niche” has been bastardized by the Internet marketing community, leading to much confusion. In Startup Launchr, we’ll use the term as university business classes traditionally define it:

“A niche market is a focused targetable portion (subset) of a market. [It] may be thought of as a narrowly defined group of potential customers.”

Successful businesses target and cater a specific group of people. They must have a well-defined problem and your business should aim to solve this. If your chosen market does not want to spend any money, then no product you create in the world will make your business successful.

INNER-OUTER LAYER: YOUR PRODUCT

The next layer is your product.

Your product must solve a problem (or problems) for a particular group of people. They must solve the problems and cater to the wants and desires of your market; otherwise the company will seem unfocused and all over the place.

Example: The iPod solved the problem of making music conveniently portable. Before the iPod came out, other portable music devices that were able to hold a lot of music were big and clunky. Apple released a product that solved this problem and the desire of being cool at the same time.

OUTER-INNER LAYER: YOUR SALESLETTER

Your salesletter is your advertisement to your product. It is different from your advertisement (to be covered in the next outer layer).

Your salesletter can take on many different forms and sizes. It can come in the traditional form of a one-page long-scrolling newsletter. It can be a series of videos delivered through email. It can be a blog regularly updated with information pertaining to your product. It can be a website showcasing different products with a short description to it.

At its core, an effective salesletter makes the customer realize that you understand their problems, and that you have the solutions to solve them. They make the customer realize the value you have to offer, and gently persuade (not nag) the customer into purchasing your product.

OUTER LAYER: YOUR ADVERTISEMENT

Your advertisement is different from your salesletter. Effectively, it is the salesletter to your salesletter.

Your advertisement comes in the form of PPC ads, banner ads, blog posts, white papers, reports, social media participation, etc. They can be as short as 70 characters long, as long as a thousand words (pictures are worth a thousand words, they say), or an entire book.

The main goal is to drive traffic into your website which contains the salesletter. They entice the customer into visiting your website by giving them the hint that you have something of value to provide them. For your advertisements to be effective, they must be relevant to your salesletter; don’t expect to get much sales if your advertisement says something about pet training and you drive them to a website selling dog food.

Any comments? Drop them thoughts in the comments section below!

When it comes to making business decisions, I’m a huge fan of giving equal importance to both numbers and instinct.

I thought of launching a blog about my business ideas while I was on the bus home (instinct). Before doing anything about it however, I looked at my statistics before taking any action on my idea (numbers). I’m also testing out several names to guide my decision on the URL and what to name it.

According to the numbers, people are clicking on the business idea category the most (aside from the main page and individual posts, that is). That category edges out every other category and even beats the About page in terms of clicks and visits.

When you’re running an online business, it should be a given that you NEED analytics software, and a great one at that.

Enter Clicky

Clicky is an up-and-coming web analytics software, which apparently are partners with Freewebs, Performancing and BlogFlux. They’re an alternative analytics software apart from others like SiteMeter, StatCounter and the monster-of-a-program Google Analytics.

Some of the ways you can use analytics software to your advantage:

• For blogs, look at which topics are most popular with your readers and cover those more

• Use keywords, sections and categories to determine which products you can offer your customers

• Look for pages that rank for a wide range of keywords, and model your other pages against it

• Find which keywords people are using to find your page and optimize your site for it

Clicky is a wonderful choice for your analytics software and can do all of these for you. In some instances, it’s a smarter option than Google Analytics. Read on to see why.

Outgoing Links

For blogs, the first thing I noticed was the Feedburner module which allows me to track my RSS subscriber count without having to log-in my Feedburner account.

A huge problem with Feedburner statistics is that it isn’t instant. As someone who wants to keep track of how my subscriber count has grown Clicky’s accurate exit page tracking allows me to keep count of how many people clicked to subscribe to the RSS feed right now (a total of 36 subscribers during this period). It also shows me which link people are clicking to subscribe. This shows me that they are using the “Grab the RSS feed” image on the right toolbar.

Visitor Detail

The details that Clicky gives about your site visitors is nothing short of incredible. I can even give the visitor a name if I wanted to.

Clicky also allows you to filter your visitors by operating system, browser, source, and cross-check that against the total number of visitors. You don’t just get the numbers, but also the actions, time spent, and bounce rates.

You can also get the number of actions per visitor and their length of visit, as shown on the screenshot below.

What are Actions, you ask? While Google Analytics only tracks page views, Clicky “also tracks file downloads, outgoing links, and other types of clicks.” They give you a much more accurate picture of visitor activity. Detail oriented people like me will enjoy this.

Spy

The Spy feature is truly an innovative one, as it allows you to get a live view of what’s happening on your site at this very moment. Statistics fiends will enjoy this — it’s like watching a room full of people browsing just your site.

My Wish List

Sad as I am to say it, Clicky isn’t perfect. My wish list for Clicky includes:

• A detailed resource guide for their product. It’s one thing to know the basics of analytics software, but if they could put out an official guide on how to optimize Clicky for your website it would be that much better. Webinar, maybe?

• Omniture-like conversion tracking that allows users to see which sources converted the best. If my conversion metric are the number of clicks on the “subscribe” button, I want to be able to know where these people came from so I can focus my efforts on using these avenues for promotion.

Why Use Clicky Over Google Analytics?

Here’s where it gets interesting.

First of all, getting your results live is the main convenience of Clicky analytics software. Where Google Analytics takes a while to refresh its data, Clicky tells you what’s happening on your site right now, which is perfect for statistic hounds like myself.

However, the main benefit for using Clicky over Google Analytics is protecting your data.  While Google might offer you a great tool for free, they charge you in different ways not immediately obvious to webmasters and use your statistics against your best interests.

The issue with using Google Analytics if you’re running a high-traffic site is that they can use your statistics to categorize keywords that competitors should bid for. Since Google’s main source of revenue comes from AdWords, you end up losing traffic that should be yours. Also, if you advertise your site through AdWords, allowing Google access to your statistics might get you hit with a low quality score and have to raise your bids to activate your ad.

Don’t get me wrong, Google Analytics is a great tool. If you don’t have a budget, Google Analytics is a powerful analytics option to keep you going on the right track. I still use GA on some of my sites (including this one), but not for my websites that I advertise through PPC and sell items on.

Give Clicky a shot. They have a 21-day trial where you can avail of their pro versions for free.

Tough to read? Click here and view the presentation in full-size

So you’ve read through the 6 rules to follow when starting your online business, and you’re itching to launch something.

You understand that your business must, first and foremost, solve a problem for a certain group of people. You’ve taken it to heart that you must be able to get your business up and running quickly. And most important of all, you understand that your business must scale and should require the same amount of work whether you’re servicing 10 or 10,000 customers.

With that said, I’m going to share you with 10 types of businesses you can work on today. These are all businesses you can start without having to quit your job, and can be worked on during nights and weekends.

Hopefully, this should generate some buzz for the launch of Startup Launchr’s sister site (name TBD — help us name the new blog, will you?).

Coaching and Consulting

Everybody is an expert on something.

Maybe your passion for something has lead you to be more educated than most when it comes to the topic. Maybe your current job has given you the skills and knowledge to be able to train others brand new to the industry. Whatever the case, there are plenty of people willing to pay for the information you have on top of your shoulders.

Scaling the business could mean developing a program to deliver to your clients either through email or a membership website. It could also mean hiring other employees which you have personally trained.

The key here is to realize that “expert” is merely a frame of mind on how to label yourself. You don’t have to be the best — just more knowledgeable than most. Of course, Startup Launchr is NEVER an advocate of ripping off your customers — be sure to always provide value.

Examples:

SEO/SEM consultant
Small business marketing consultant
Social/dating/life coach

Reseller or Affiliate

Want to get started selling but don’t necessarily have the patience to create your own product? Maybe you came across a certain book or product that you find so compelling, and believe that you could spread the word about it.

Many people make good money as resellers and affiliates for products and services. You don’t need to keep an inventory, handle orders, deliver items, deal with pissed off customers, and every other headaches that come with your own business. Once the customer purchases an item through your link, you get paid and your job is done.

Examples:

Clickbank Marketplace
E-Junkie Marketplace
Other infoproducts that include affiliate programs

Clothing and Accessories

Got an eye and a hand for design and illustrating your own clothing? You can make money by selling your own clothes and accessories online. Publish-on-demand websites like Cafepress.com and Zazzle.com allow you to sell your own products without manufacturing anything.

Of course, your profits are much less per item sold, but this eliminates the need for a high investment in capital in something you’re not sure that’s going to sell just yet.

Examples:

Specializing in bags with environment-friendly designs
Selling shirts for people who frequent clubs, bars and parties
Selling merchandise (such as mugs, mousepads, etc.) with office humor (“I Heart Spreadsheets”)

eBay Vendor

Do you frequent garage sales, flea markets and have an eye for bargain items? If so, consider selling goods on eBay. The basic premise: buy at a low price, sell at a higher price. You can also consider dropshipping, where you develop relationships with wholesale suppliers. The idea is to let them handle delivery while you sell their goods at a higher price.

With eBay, competition is likely to be fierce. Copywriting skills is more essential than ever if you want to compete. Rckstr.com offers a great resource on copywriting specifically for eBay. If you can ignore the short salesletter, you can read the contents for free.

Examples:

The whole eBay site ;)

Freelancing

Closely related to consulting, you might want to give freelancing a shot. Companies usually prefer outsourcing work to freelancers as this allows them to save on hiring permanent employees.

Be careful, however — set this up the wrong way, and all you’ll get for yourself is another job, not a business. Don’t sell yourself; instead, sell the company brand and the results you can deliver. This allows you to hire others in the future, employees that you’ll be able to train with your expertise.

Examples:

Copywriter
Graphic designer
Programmer
Photographer
Blogger

Software

If you know your way around programming and computer languages, consider building a better piece of software or a web application. There are plenty of software out there that has a weak user interface (*ahem* Microsoft *ahem*) and can be drastically improved on.

A popular trend for web apps is the “freemium” model; that is, having a free option so users can test your product, and if they want more features they can opt to pay for it.

Examples:

Basecamp
PlanHQ
CampaignMonitor
Clicky

Websites

Can you build a website that connects two groups of people together? There are many profitable online companies whose model is based on matching two groups of people with each other.

One thing to consider with this business model is monetizing it. You can either charge people for using the service (Monster.com charges employers to post jobs), charge people when an actual transaction takes place (eBay takes money from the sale when the item is sold), or you can run with the free model supported by advertising (plentyoffish runs a free dating service supported by advertising).

Examples:

eBay.com
FreelanceSwitch job boards
WorldWideBrands.com
Match.com

Books

It’s easier than ever to become a published author these days. If you have a knack for writing (either fiction or non-fiction), there are resources like Lulu.com and the aforementioned Cafepress.com that allow you to self-publish your own work.

Consider the blog-to-book model, or “blook.” Write out a chapter (or part of a chapter) one blog post at a time. It’s a great model considering you’ll get constant feedback from people who are eventually going to purchase your book.

Examples:

Hackoff.com
Getting Real
Stuff White People Like

Information Products

While books can also fall under this category, information products can also come in the form of CDs and DVDs. Many people have made a name and built businesses around information products.

Take your area of expertise and create a product around it. Record an audio program or one of your seminars and package it in a DVD to teach others your skills. You can invite guest-speakers if you feel you don’t have enough expertise yourself.

Examples:

SEOBook.com
Teaching Sells
Authority Blogger

Blogging

Are you passionate about a certain subject and think you could devote the time to write dozens, even hundreds, of articles about it? You might consider blogging as an option.

Many high profile blogs out there pay at least $50 per post, which isn’t bad money for 1-2 hours of your time. You can build your own blog as well, and monetize it through selling advertisements or your own products. Blogging is an excellent method to develop a relationship with your potential customers.

Examples:

FreelanceSwitch
Copyblogger
Problogger
Startup Launchr ;)

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There you have it, ten general ideas that you can run with and use today. Which business model are you particularly interested in? Let us know in the comments and see a future post about it!

PS. We received an AMAZING response from the previous post from you wonderful StumbleUpon users. If you like this post, do the blog a favor and Stumble it!

The premise is to publish business plans and ideas that fit on a single sheet of paper on a semi-daily basis. Each post will contain a diagram outlining the business model. If it don’t fit, it doesn’t make it.

As a prize to poll participants, you will receive a free report on how I started my own online business in one weekend. Leave a comment with your email address to get it.

Tough to read? Click here and view the presentation in full-size

“What kind of business should I start?”

Most aspiring entrepreneurs ask this very question during the beginning of their journey into business. If you are like most people, the idea of starting your own business probably involves a restaurant franchise, a coffee shop, or a retail store of some sorts (such as selling clothes or books). Or, if you’re a little more in-tune with the times, you’ll be thinking of starting a technology company of some sorts and hoping to secure some venture capital funding.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these types of businesses. However, if you’re a first-time entrepreneur (and likely, you are if you’re asking this question) these businesses are a bad idea to start with. They are very risky, take a lot of start-up capital, and you’ll most likely end up doing 12-hour work days, 7 days a week. Even more so, you are betting your most important resources (time and money) on an unproven strategy.

Instead, I challenge you to think of your first business as a pet project of some sort. Something that you are passionate about, and don’t mind spending a little bit of money here and there. You’ll never “fail” — you’re simply learning.

And to maximize your chances of success with your business, here are 6 rules you should follow when you’re launching a new business.

You should solve a certain problem for a certain group of people.

Instead of thinking about business ideas, successful entrepreneurs think about problem-solving for a select group. Look to answer the question, “how can I solve THAT problem?” when brainstorming for business ideas. People are more inclined to buy when they’re in a state of looking for a solution to their problem. It’s much easier to sell the cure instead of the prevention.

Preferably, you should be a member of that particular group to TRULY know what solutions you can offer them. After all, you can’t REALLY know what sort of problems pregnant women have if you’ve never been pregnant yourself, can you?

You should be able to test the demand for your product prior to launch.

Do not create a product and hope to create a demand for it once it’s done. Ideally, you should be able to launch a dry-test before you spend valuable time and resources developing the product. Set up a salespage and launch an AdWords campaign and see how many people “purchase” your product. Don’t take their credit card information of course; simply say you are sold out and will contact them once you’re fully stocked again. Additionally, you can also list the item on eBay and pull down the listing in the last minute.

You should be able to get it up and running as quickly or as cheap as possible.

You don’t have the capital, nor the resources, to build the next PSP or iPod just yet. If you attempt to build something that huge and this is your first time going into business, your chances for failure is very, very high. Once your dry test proves successful, you should be able to quickly capitalize on the demand even if that means starting out with half a product (half a product, NOT a half-ass product). It’s perfectly acceptable to start small for now, and get bigger as you progress.

You should be able to outsource a bulk of the work.

Not being able to outsource is a common syndrome for would-be entrepreneurs. They insist on doing it all themselves, then burn themselves out in the process. Don’t be cheap, and outsource activities. Think about this as a wise investment for your business. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have launched entire businesses on the Internet by outsourcing everything, even product creation.

You shouldn’t be working on trivial things when you can save days or weeks of work by simply paying someone else to do it. So if web design or programming isn’t your strong suit, find someone on Elance who can do it cheaply. Focus your efforts on marketing and selling your product.

You should never buy anything that isn’t required until you’re making a profit.

Did you know that you only have to double a dollar 20 times before you turn it into a million? Take $1 and double that to end up with $2. Double that to end up with $4. Double that to end up with $8… By step 20, you would’ve made over a million dollars.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. The lesson here is to take the profits you’ve earned and reinvest it back into the business. Until you’re making a profit, do not spend on unnecessary things like coffee mugs with your logo on it, new desks, office rent, etc. Before you buy anything, first ask yourself this question: will the business crumble tomorrow if I don’t get this right now? If not, put it in the backburner and move on.

You should be able to scale the business.

This is perhaps the most important rule of them all. After all, you’re starting a business, not getting a job. The end goal for your company should be that it functions without your presence. Your business should function in the same way whether you’re selling 10 or 10,000 products. Be the police officer on the side of the road who steps in when needed, instead of a toll booth which all cars need to pass through.

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Hopefully, that helped you jog through your thoughts and come up with a few business ideas. In the next post, I’ll be discussing several business ideas that you can start for just a couple hundred dollars, tops.

Do you have any you want to share with the StartupLaunchr audience? Share it in the comments below!

Tough to read? Click here and view the presentation in full-size

Note to readers: This post marks the beginning of this blog officially being an interactive business blog. Future “meaty” posts on Startup Launchr will include Classrooms™, an interactive presentation such as the one included above. For more on Classrooms, click here.

You’ve got that million-dollar business idea, and can’t wait to put it to action.

This idea probably came to you in less time than it takes to snap your fingers at first. But you’ve nurtured this concept, and over time its evolved from a vague idea to a full-grown brainchild.

You’ve taken down your notes, and whatever spare time you have are spent with visions of your new company up and running. Any book with “how to” and “start business” on its front cover probably catches your eye. You’re thinking about subscribing to Entrepreneur magazine (if you haven’t already done so) and follow a huge set of blogs about business.

And there’s only one thing stopping you from pulling off this plan of yours.

“I Can’t Let Go Of My 9-5.”

What you do doesn’t really matter here; the fact is, you spend a huge chunk of your time and energy on something other than a business of your own

Maybe you’re a student in college or high school, and find it hard enough to balance school and social life.

Maybe you work a full-time day job, and can’t afford to give up the security of a steady paycheck coming in every couple of weeks.

Maybe you’ve read the statistic that only 1 out of 100 businesses manage to live for ten years or more (90% of all businesses fail within the first five years. And out of those that survive, 90% fail within the next five years), and are worried what you would do should your business not make it past that cutthroat statistic.

For one reason or another, your main responsibilities are holding you back from achieving your aspirations of entrepreneurship. And you really, really want to get started.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re thinking about starting your own business but aren’t quite ready to give up your day job just yet.

Here are four reasons to consider why starting a small business while holding on to your day job can be a good thing for you.

Learn Through Action

Before you walked, you had to crawl. Before you swam a lap around the pool, you had to wear floaties. Before you rode that ten speed mountain bike, you had to ride one with training wheels.

In the same sense, before you run your own company effectively, you have to learn the intricacies of business first. And what better way to learn the ropes than to launch and run a company on the side?

In the same way you’ll never learn how to ride a bike just by reading a book, you’ll never fully grasp the principles of running a business until you actually start one. You could read all the books about entrepreneurship that you want to, and that’s fine. But the longer you delay applying your knowledge, the bigger the chances that you won’t ever apply it.

So go ahead; start a business. You’ll never get anything right on the first try anyway, no matter how hard you work at it. Live and learn.

You Start Small — Naturally

Successful businesses are never built overnight. Once they introduce their product/service to the market, companies that make it listen to what the market is saying and tweak to accommodate for their needs. This could mean changing your pricing structure, decreasing your turnaround time, improving current services, offering new products, or changing your entire business structure all together.

When you’re launching a business on the side, chances are you won’t have the resources to go after the overnight payday. You’re almost forced to start small and make necessary improvements as you go. Not to mention, a steady paycheck means you have a continuous source of funding in the case that you need to invest more in your business.

Earn More Money

A lot of people work a second job (sometimes, even a third) as means of getting extra income, so why not launch a business instead? A good business is something automated, can run and make money without you having to be there. What better way to earn more money than something you have to put in a couple hours a day for?

And once you grow it into something bigger, you’ll eventually get yourself freedom from your day job (and everything else that motivated you to go into business in the first place!). Hell, it sure beats having to clock in during the weekend.

Failure Is Impossible

Your business could end up being a flop, but you will never be a failure. You won’t be worrying your head off wondering how to pay next month’s rent. You’ll still have a job to go back to and a paycheck coming in your bank account regularly.

Of course, by starting small, you’ll see if your business idea is actually a viable idea. Somewhat related to the first point, you’ll be able to test for yourself if the marketplace will bite. If it doesn’t; no harm done, really. Just take the lessons you’ve learned and apply it to your next business. You won’t lose your shirt with a failed venture, and even if you’re at the risk of doing so you can bounce back much faster than someone starting from square one and doesn’t have a job.

At the worst extreme, you’ll find out entrepreneurship isn’t for you and decide that you’re much content being an employee than an entrepreneur (which is completely fine; nothing against employees because they make the world go round).

Conclusion

You’ll get the feel from this article that being a sideline entrepreneur means starting with a small business. And it’s easier than you thought. You don’t have to pour tens of thousands of dollars to start a business — in today’s online world, all you need is a website, a few hours of your time, and a good idea (which we’ll be discussing in the next few articles).

Scared money don’t make none, they say. And it’s true.

But I’ll be first to say that smart money makes a boatload of cash.

Let’s take a quick look at one of the more popular websites of today and see how the power of the written word propelled it to one of the most successful companies today.

Amazon.com

• Number of visitors: 50.9 million people
• Revenues for 2007: $14.84 billion

Just from memory, can you remember what Amazon.com looks like? Most people can. Go ahead, picture it.

Now imagine if Amazon looked a little like this:

For some reason, I am slightly inclined to believe that their numbers wouldn’t be quite the same if this was the case.

Do NOT be cheap. If you have the resources to do so, hire a professional copywriter.

This article was originally posted on Geekpreneur on July 2nd, 2008. Check the original post here.

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You’re two weeks away from launch date.

You’ve slaved and toiled and labored for months, and now here you are. Finally, with your latest product ready to roll. It could be a book you self-published, it could be a new website for your business, it could be software which took you months to develop. It could be anything, really.

You decided to outsource your web design, and the Indian guy you hired on E-Lance did a surprisingly good job for the $150 you’ve paid him. You snagged a snappy domain name, and now you’re sitting down in front of your laptop to write your salesletter.

Then… Blank.

*****

Outsourcing is the latest craze in the business world this 2008. The 4-Hour Workweek, the national bestseller by Tim Ferriss, dedicates an entire chapter to the art of outsourcing. It’s a crucial element in his step-by-step process into becoming part of the “New Rich” defined as “those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using…time and mobility.”

Let’s face it: sometimes, we just can’t be bothered to put in the hours to learn a new skill. Studying HTML and CSS will eat up a crapload of your time — time that could be better spent working on your business, instead of in it (which is the central theme of business bestseller The E-Myth). Many of us also do not have any artistic talent whatsoever — outsourcing your logo design often pays off in the long-run than to have lousy branding that could cost you thousands of dollars in lost sales.

But what about copywriting? What your website says about your product generates customer interest and persuades the purchase. This is the make-or-break point of your website. Should you put your best salesman in the hands of a complete stranger?

As a freelance copywriter, “Is it really necessary to outsource my copywriting?” is a question I’ve encountered several times. I put together a list of six pros and cons to ponder about when it comes to writing copy to hopefully help you towards a decision.

Pro: Land a professional copywriter and you will get professional results.

Copy isn’t just about words.

While the words you choose are crucial, it’s more than just that. The purpose of effective copy is to build instant credibility, make a compelling statement, tell a persuasive story and last but not the least, get your reader to take action. It answers any objections your reader may come up with, increasing sales in the process and reducing the amount of returns and refunds.

A lot of my clients became clients simply because they have no idea what to write on their website. Many people make the mistake of thinking that their copy should be about them. They talk about the company and its history, or launch a tirade on the X-amount of features their product has. Professional copywriters know and understand that to get a person to buy, they must know the benefits of what you can offer them. People don’t buy quarter-inch drills — they buy quarter-inch holes.

A professional copywriter will take your product, understand the benefits it has to offer, and most importantly communicate those benefits to your readers in such a way that it inspires action from them. Many times, the sales you’ll achieve from hiring a professional copywriter far outweighs the cost of hiring him in the first place.

Con: Professional copywriters who know their worth are very expensive.

Michel Fortin charges at least $3,000 per job. Dan Kennedy costs about $9,600 per day. The rates for other, lesser-known copywriters are lower, but you can expect to be billed at least a thousand dollars for one quality salesletter.

This can be out of the budget for the startup, who often is bootstrapping his operations and can’t afford to eat up a huge chunk of their budget on any one endeavor. Hiring a professional copywriter is sometimes more of a gamble than an investment, as you don’t have a guarantee that sales will come in as a result of hiring him.

Pro: You’re focused on the things that matter.

Marketing/advertising and copywriting are two very different things. Marketing and advertising brings people to look at your website, where your copy can do its job of convincing the customer why he or she needs your product.

Both activities eat up a lot of time, money and effort. You might have the best salesletter on your website, but if you don’t market the damned site itself then nobody’s going to see it. Outsource your copywriting, and your priorities can be spent on growing your business and selling more of your products.

Con: Quality copywriters are hard to find.

On the other hand, there’s no sense in spending all that time marketing your website if it can’t do a good job of selling your product. Almost anybody can come up with hype-laden copywriting and outdated methods of persuasion, and many groups of people are particularly turned off by this type of copy. They do not want to feel like they’re being marketed to, even though they are.

In addition, copywriters who REALLY know their stuff are quite a rare breed. I love the folks at Elance, but a majority of them come from third world countries without English as the first language. I’m not bagging on these people (after all, I come from such a country myself) but the chances of you hiring an overnight copywriter are much, much higher. If they’re making basic grammatical mistakes, how can you expect them to write effective sales copy for you?

Pro: You know your product well.

Who better to write about your product than you?

Since you know the ins-and-outs of your product, then maybe you’re the best person to communicate those benefits to your customers especially if you yourself are part of your target market. You will know their pain points and the specific problems they encounter, and you’ll be able to express how it is exactly your product can help them get rid of these annoyances.

Knowing the product inside and out, you’ll also be able to highlight specific features and tell your readers the exact benefit for them. A copywriter who has two weeks to write something about your product might not be able to dig in as deep as he should be into your business, and might miss a couple of important points that he should otherwise emphasize.

Con: You know your product too well.

If the hypothetical situation in the beginning of this post resonates with you, then chances are it’s because you know your product too well. Can such a thing really happen?

Unfortunately, yes. It’s tough to realize it, but your mind could be so entrenched in the details of your product that looking at it from an outsider’s perspective is damned near impossible. Much more writing about it so an outsider will understand. It’s now your baby, and nothing less than perfect is good enough for it. So you delay releasing it and work on your copy for a little bit. Then you realize you’re not satisfied, so you delay it again. All because of that oh-so-evasive salesletter.

You could also be so overworked from making your product that the last thing you want to think about is writing the copy for it. You could be so sick of thinking and writing about the topic your ebook is about that you just want to flush everything down the toilet. Good luck writing persuasive copy then (it is exactly because of this why I’m an advocate of writing your copy first, or at least before you’re in too deep of the product creation process).

*****

If you have any doubts, maybe reading The Amazon Effect will convince you. But all in all, the decision whether to write your own copy or hire a copywriter to do it is up to you. Thoughts? Post them in the comment section, folks.