Start an Online Business from Home One of the most revolutionary aspects of the Internet is that it enables anyone to reach a massive market with little effort. This has opened doors like never before in human history. As little as 25 years ago, to run a truly successful retail business, you needed a physical location to sell your product (or a magazine with an exceptionally high exposure). You needed at least a few employees. Office supplies, utility bills, and so on. Today, however, all you need is a computer, something to sell, and the right development partner. At no time in history has it been easier to work from home, to own your own online business. Bloggers, boutique retailers, online food delivery services – it’s all possible in the modern world. Think about it – Elon Musk himself got started out of his home with a video game. Of course, he was 12 and maybe a secret A.I. in disguise, so his example is a lofty one. The overall point here is that with an cleverly designed and developed a website, app or software, you can launch a majorly successful entrepreneurial venture from the comfort of your own living room. Feel a little overwhelmed by all of the opportunities out there? Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Why don’t we go over some online business ideas, from eCommerce to marketing to service apps? eCommerce eCommerce and its mobile counterpart, mCommerce, are the current darling of the industry. They’re popular for a few reasons: • They’re relatively inexpensive to build; • People will literally buy anything, as eBay founder discovered early in the famous company’s history when a bidding war erupted over a broken laser pointer. Everyone knew it was broken and when asked about it, the winner said he collected laser pointers. So, yea, literally anything; • Marketing a website isn’t easy, but entrepreneurs of today have a much greater potential to reach a massive market. Plus, an good design practically sells itself and is one of the best ways to build a significant online presence. • Concept-to-Launch is practically nonexistent when compared to the timelines of brick and mortar stores. In fact, with tools like Magento, we can get your eCommerce website up and running in as little as 2 weeks. Marketing Affiliate Marketing is big business for home business owners. This can be done with something as inexpensive and easy as an excellently designed landing page. But ideally, you want to build up an online presence. If you have an excellently designed website that gets a lot of traffic, companies will seek you out for marketing services. One of the best ways to build up a web presence is to blog. All you need is basic language skills and the ability to write cohesively – plus an interesting insight or point of view. The good news is that with frameworks like WordPress, our developers can get your blogging website up and running in as little as 24 hours. WordPress is also an Open Source framework – i.e. it’s free for the basic setup. Even better, going from blogging to marketing to selling actual products with an eCommerce site is a natural evolution. It creates a natural growth strategy with clearly identified and achievable goals. More importantly, WordPress owns the eCommerce framework WooCommerce. WooCommerce, also a free, Open Source framework, meshes with WordPress as a simple plugin. In other words, no fuss, no muss. Good bloggers with a known internet presence are also presented with other money-making opportunities. Blogs can be picked up by larger syndicates, (as is common with The Huffington Post) and blogs can demonstrate your writing abilities to an interested party, leading to freelance writing gigs. This can be anything from website content writing to report writing. Service Apps The best feature of a mobile app is that it doesn’t need a tangible product to be successful. Thousands of successful apps offer nothing more substantial than killing time slashing virtual fruit. Gaming apps are especially useful to those with an online business and naturally lend themselves to continual and constant user engagement – a trick used by many non-gaming apps and websites today (often known as ‘gamification’). Apps for home business owners are relegated to gaming though. VR apps are going to be one of the next big things in the tech world. With a little ingenuity and innovation, a winning VR app can be created with little effort and an even smaller financial investment. This is the beauty of the tech world – most of the production process occurs in a digital space, thus eliminating many of the start-up costs associated with older businesses. Contact us if you have an idea for a VR app, or need to hire a game app developer at low-cost today. The opportunities don’t end here though. The brilliant thing about app development is that it all takes place on a computer. The only extra thing that an entrepreneur need is a development team with mad skills and that extra grit that results in wildly successful projects. The internet is the entrepreneur’s best tool for success – and we can help you properly apply it. Start Your Online Home Business with Expert Guidance SDI is a mobile app, web, and software development company with over 16 years of experience. We’ve helped hundreds of individuals get their home business to a successful launch and beyond. We build from the ground up, with frameworks, for apps, or for software. We are Silicon Valley’s tech solutions company – and we’re waiting for your call. You can reach us at 408.805.0495 or online at anytime. You can also follow us on Twitter for more helpful insider tips.