Complete and Practical Guide to Starting an Online Business from Scratch
Created on 10 July, 2024 • Scale Up Business • 18 views • 7 minutes read
Do you want to start an online business and need a guide on how to do it from scratch without any capital? If so, you're not alone and you're in the right place.
Complete and Practical Guide to Starting an Online Business from Scratch
Do you want to start an online business and need a guide on how to do it from scratch without any capital? If so, you're not alone and you're in the right place.
Starting an online business has become a popular way for many people to earn money. Besides working, they also start online businesses as a side hustle.
There are many reasons people decide to start an online business. Some feel their salary isn't enough to cover daily expenses, others want to turn their hobbies into a business, and some just want to be their own boss.
Starting an online business is actually quite easy. As long as you have an internet connection, we believe anyone can start an online business from scratch. Many young people who have just graduated high school are already running their own online businesses and earning their own income.
Here's a complete and practical guide on how to start an online business from scratch without capital. Follow each step, and you'll have your own online business.
Read slowly, pay attention to each word, repeat if necessary, and put it into practice.
6 Steps to Starting an Online Business from Scratch Without Capital
Now, let's get into the main part of starting an online business.
Even though starting an online business is easy, it's not as simple as you might think. There are several processes you need to go through.
By following these steps one by one, your online business will not only be born but will also survive and grow into a large online business.
Every big business starts small. This is a law of nature. The same goes for business. Big online businesses start small.
Even Amazon, the largest online store in the world, started in a garage. Not only Amazon, but big companies like Apple, Disney, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Google also started in garages.
Here are the steps and processes you need to take to start an online business:
- Start with the Right Online Business Mindset
- Determine Your Target Market
- Choose the Right Business Model
- Prepare Your Product/Service
- Create a Website/Landing Page/Catalog
- Drive Traffic
Let’s discuss each step in detail.
Start with the Right Online Business Mindset
The first step to starting an online business is having the right mindset.
Mindset is crucial because it forms the foundation of your actions. If your mindset is right, the following steps will also be correct. If your mindset is wrong, the next steps won't be right either.
Moreover, with the right mindset about online business, even if you fail, failure won't break you. With the right mindset, if you experience failure in business, you'll quickly get back up and fix the mistakes that caused you to fall.
Without the right online business mindset, once you fall, you'll remain down and blame the circumstances. This can be changed if you change your mindset.
Even Tony Robbins once said something like this: "Business success is 80% determined by psychology (mindset) and the other 20% by strategy or business system."
So before you learn more about starting an online business, make sure you have the right mindset.
What is the right online business mindset? According to us, it includes:
- Your Provision is Predetermined and Cannot Be Exchanged When you earn money/profit/sales/results from an online business, it's a form of provision. The amount varies for each person, because everyone's provision is predetermined by Allah and cannot be exchanged.
- Don't Expect to Get Rich Quickly Another mindset to have is to not expect to get rich quickly from an online business.
- You might have seen ads saying:
- Person A bought a house in cash in just 2 weeks.
- Person B bought a car and traveled abroad just 6 months after starting an online business.
- Person C earned hundreds of millions just from blogging.
- These are symbols of wealth. It’s not wrong for ads to highlight these achievements, because some people do achieve wealth through online business.
- But remember, they didn’t get these results easily. They also experienced ups and downs in their online business journey.
- What's rarely seen is how they struggled until they finally achieved these results. You might not know how many times person A tried, or how much money person B spent on testing, courses, tools, etc.
- If you want to start an online business just to get rich quickly, correct your mindset now. Enjoy the process of starting an online business.
- What You Build Takes Time to Yield Results In an online business, stories like these don’t happen:
- Getting huge profits from a 50k ad budget in just 1 day
- A new blog receiving thousands of traffic in just a week
- Becoming a top affiliate marketer in just a month
- Believe me, these things never happen. If they do, it’s due to luck, and not everyone has the same luck.
- What you build and do in an online business takes time and process to yield results.
- Failure is Not the End of Everything Finally, remember that failure is not the end of everything. With the right mindset, no matter how many times you fail, you’ll get back up. Fail 10 times, get back up 11 times.
- If you want to learn more about the right online business mindset, watch this video. We hope that after watching it, your online business mindset will be stronger.
Determine Your Target Market
After having the right online business mindset, the next step is to determine your target market.
Many people rush into deciding what to sell. They only think about what can be sold online.
However, deciding who you will sell to is more important than what you will sell. If you start with the product, you’ll only target people who need that product.
For example, if you decide to sell baby shoes, your target market is new mothers.
But if you decide who to sell to first, such as young mothers who just had a baby, you can sell many products, not just baby shoes. You could sell:
- Milk and breastfeeding supplements
- Nursing clothes
- Bottles and breast pumps
- Educational videos about baby care
- And more
To determine your target market, create a BUYER PERSONA. A buyer persona is a profile of the person who uses/buys your product or service.
To create a buyer persona, detail at least these four aspects:
- Demographics: Age, gender, marital status, number of children, residence, education, income, occupation
- Interests: Hobbies, communities, magazines/books read, favorite personalities, music, TV shows, favorite foods/drinks
- Behavior: Social media used, smartphone used, operating system, etc.
- Goals: Dreams, desires to be fulfilled, problems to be solved
For a detailed guide on creating buyer personas, watch this video.
Choose the Right Online Business Model
Once you have the right mindset and target market, the next step is choosing the right business model that fits your target market.
It's like a journey. If you're in Jakarta and your destination is Bandung, you choose which route to take before getting into the vehicle.
Similarly, in online business, choosing the route is like choosing the business model. Here are some online business models to choose from:
- Freelancing
- Online Consulting
- Digital Agency
- Affiliate Marketing
- Donations
- Sponsored Articles
- Membership Website
- Premium Forum
- Sponsorship/Endorsement
- Online Selling
- Advertising/Display Ads
Choose one model that you can handle. For example, if you're good at graphic design, choose freelancing. If you're good at writing and influencing people, choose display ads or sponsored articles.
Prepare Your Product/Service
After completing steps 1-3, the next step is preparing your product or service.
If you chose online selling in step 3, you need to prepare a product. There are three ways to get products:
- Make your own product
- Buy products from others and resell them
- Use a dropship system—selling products from others without having to stock them
In terms of product types, you can sell:
- Physical products
- Digital products
- Services
If you chose affiliate marketing, register with affiliate marketplaces like JVZoo, Ratakan, I daff, Clickbank, etc., or register with standalone affiliate programs.
Create a Website/Landing Page/Catalog
Once you decide what product to use for your online business, the next step is creating a website, landing page, or catalog. This will be the medium to communicate what you offer. In a traditional business, this is like your store or display case.
With a website, landing page, or catalog, people can read your offer, see visuals of your product/service, and take the action you want.
Here are some ways to create these:
- Create an account on marketplaces like Bukalapak, Tokopedia, Shopee.
- Create a social media account on platforms like Facebook, Instagram.
- Create a website/blog using WordPress, Blogspot, Medium.
- Create an online store using WooCommerce, Yukbisnis, Shopify.
- Create a landing page.
Drive Traffic
The final step in this guide is driving traffic.
There are two main ways to drive traffic: organically and through paid methods.
Organic Methods: Organic traffic means bringing in traffic naturally without spending any money on ads. Here are some ways:
- Share your website link on social media (e.g., Facebook status, Facebook groups, Instagram bio)
- Blog walking
- Be a guest writer on other blogs and place your link there
- Be active in forums like Kaskus and embed your link in your threads
- Broadcast emails
- Share links in WhatsApp groups
- Answer questions on Quora and embed your link there
- Apply SEO techniques
Paid Methods: Paid traffic means using paid ad