Beginner's Questions - Amazon Affiliate Program

You can choose both subjects but separate them in two websites. You have to choose 2 niches and build two websites. Your domain names depend on what niches you choose. Maybe you can ask the community here for the suggestion of the domain name after deciding your niches. As for the language to use, if you are choosing between Croation and English, English is the better one because as you said English market is too big. Whether the market is too competitive depends on the niche you choose. Even if it's competitive you can attract visitors by choosing less competitive keywords to bring traffic to your website.

I see your research is too broad. You should keep it simple by just following 4 steps:

1. Choose a niche.
2. Build a website.
3. Promote your website.
4. Make money with the visitors you have on your website.

OK, you're doing better. But you're still not quite there. Let's go back to the three most basic elements in a business model:

1. What are the needs that your customers have?
2. How are you going to meet those needs in a way that is better than the competition?
3. How are you going to monetize your work

What you've described above sounds like a start to answering question two. You have some interesting experience in two very different topics, and that could potentially be very helpful. I say "potentially" because experience in itself isn't necessarily enough. Nor is it necessarily necessary. It all depends on what you do with it. And while you've started to answer question two, I'm still not sure you have a clear formulation in mind for question one: What are the needs that your customers have?

I've always liked case studies when learning or teaching. So perhaps a very short case study would help:

A Brief Case Study: Uber

I'm almost certain that Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp had never driven a Taxi when they decided to start Uber (https://www.uber.com). But they did almost certainly have experience needing a cab, having trouble finding a cab, and being charged a lot more for a ride than they thought it was worth. Which brings us to:

Step One: Identify a need.

People need an easy, convienient and cost-effective method of door-to-door transportation.

Step Two: Figure out a way to meet those needs better than the competition.

There are lots and lots of vehicles sitting idle at any moment of time. And those vehicles often have owners who would be willing to drive people who need transportation for a small fee. So Uber's solution was to connect the vehicle owners to the people needing a ride using a smartphone app.

But of course, a big part of step two is separating yourself from the competition. So saying you're going to connect people to drivers is one thing. But how is that going to be better than the competion? Well, it turns out that Uber is usually cheaper than a taxi. So that's one thing. It's also usually easier to find an Uber than a Taxi. So that's another. But of course, Uber isn't the only company in the world trying to connect drivers to people needing rides. There's Lyft and a whole bunch of smaller operations.

This is where Camp and Kalanicks experience does become important. They may not know much about driving taxis, but they sure do know technology. Prior to Uber, Kalanick started the peer-to-peer file sharing company Red Swoosh. And Camp founded Stumbleupon. Moreover, their prior success coupled with their tech acumen helped them to secure necessary funding early and often. In other words, it didn't matter that they had no prior experience driving a taxi. Instead, they matched their own skills, talents and resources to a new solution. They made sure that their app was slick and easy to use. They used their funding and their connections to barrel Uber ahead as the market leader.

Step Three: Monetize your work.

For Uber, monetization is pretty easy. Take a cut of the fee customers pay out of every ride. Naturally, it's a little more complicated than that (as really everything in this so-called case study is), but that's pretty much it.

So what does this mean to you?

You're probably not going to start the next Uber. Your business may not be as big or ground-breaking or complicated. But even so, it had still better meet a real need for real people. So again, what's the need?

You talk about writing or reviews: Do people need information on the health or parenting topics you know so much about? What's wrong with the information/reviews that's already out there? (Look at the potential competition!) Is there just not enough of it? Is it poorly written? Is it hard to understand? Is it hard to find and sort through? Is it only available in English? In other words, what is the customer need you're trying to meet with your writing or reviews?

You also talk about certain products. But the same sorts of questions apply here too: What's wrong with the products that are currently out there? (Again: look at the potential competition!) Are the products themselves not good enough? Are they hard to find? Is it difficult to figure out which products are the best fit? Are product sites hard to navigate? Is product information only available in English? Again, what's the customer need you're trying to meet?

If I were you I'd start modeling at least two businesses, one for each of the subjects you have expertise in (and perhaps another one or two if you are just stricken with a new idea). Modeling is cheap. It's easy. It's fast. Just get out a pen and paper and start brainstorming.

Start with the need, move to the solution, finish with the monetization -- for each of your ideas. You can probably be done in a few hours or a day or two at most. Time well spent, in my opinion.

Once you're done, sleep on it for a night or two. Then go back to it.

After a second look is there anything you should add or change to each of your ideas? And then, of course, evaluate your ideas: Which of the customer needs are most compelling? Which of the solutions is most likely to have an impact on your customers' lives? Which of the solutions is most achievable given your own skills, talents, and resources? Which of the monetization methods is most realistic and most sustainable? Drugs, for instance, might be tough to sell or promote for legal reasons. And as you mentioned, even if there's a need for information in your native tongue, the market size might be too small. But I really don't know -- and you won't likely know until you've done the work I've described above.

So now that you have (at least) two ideas modeled, is there one of them that strikes you as a potential winner? Unfortunately, it's quite possible that after sketching out these ideas, neither seems very compelling. That's perfectly OK.

There's no law that says that every person should be able to start a successful business at any particular moment in time. Some people just aren't natural entrepreneurs. And even for some natural entrepreneurs, sometimes the timing just isn't right. For instance, if Camp and Kalanicks had tried to start Uber before the iPhone came out, they would have failed hard. Lots of conditions have to be right for your business to succeed. And sometimes those conditions are completely outside your control.

So if you find yourself unconvinced that your business ideas are any good, congratulate yourself for having the self-awareness to recognize this fact and move on. At worst, you lost a few days working -- but that's far better than spending weeks, months or years on a project that is never going to go anywhere. And you can always think of new and better ideas later, so that when you do find yourself ready to start a business it's with a solid plan that's going to give you the best possible chance of success.

That said... Maybe one of the ideas does have real potential... Maybe it really does meet a need... And maybe you've really hit upon a good solution -- a good solution that you've got the skills, talents, and resources to pull off... And maybe, there's a way to monetize all your work... If that's the case, it's time to get to work!

I'm not going to go into all the steps you'd need to take to get your idea to work. If your business model is any good, most of them should be pretty clear anyway. But before I go, I'd like to suggest that you keep your business model handy. And be ready to modify it. It's almost certainly the case that you've made some very incorrect assumptions about what your customers' needs are, how to solve them, or how best to monetize. Or maybe what you have is correct, but very, very incomplete. That's OK. Nobody gets it 100% right the first time. Nobody. But as you work more -- and especially as you get your product, service, website or whatever in front of real people with real needs, you'll learn, you'll adapt, and you'll adjust.

So at the end of the day the business model that you end up with may look very different than the one you're planning now. That's perfectly fine. But you do have to start somewhere.

And that place is almost aways with the customers' needs.

Good luck!