Failure with Small Business

Ironman,

Your situation is really no different than almost every other entrepreneur coming online to make money.

Even though you plan to travel a lot, the niche you decide on can be worked remotely if you set up your business accordingly. So working from home or anywhere else, for that matter, is not going to limit what you should focus your effort on as long as you can get Internet access.

The first step for you (or anyone else just starting out) is this: do your market research to find a hungry audience online and learn what problems, needs, issues, and desires they have. There are lots of threads in this forum about how to do market research. Then as a marketer you can either create solutions to address their needs or become an affiliate to refer the audience to others that have products that address those needs.

The business model you choose should be identified after you understand the audience and how they best like to access information in the niche. You may choose to sell info products, e-commerce solutions, a recurring membership approach, become a blogger, provide a service ... whatever the model may be ... but it will be dictated by your niche and what the audience wants.

It's also a good idea to inventory your own education, training, experience, knowledge, passions, hobbies, and anything else that might give you an "edge" or a head start in a particular niche. Beginning from the vantage point of one with experience or knowledge in the niche (also termed "authority") is a great starting advantage. But just remember, your first concern should be the audience and what they want and desire. All other considerations are secondary at this point.

Good luck,

Steve

Here is a pic of a tent biz (if it works):\

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45286943/tent.jpg

In this case the guy is doing windshield repair, easy to learn carry in a small bag or tool kit. EZ pop up tent. Could also wax, detail or polish cars, clean headlights.

In the next year you could easily learn:

Handwriting analysis, how to read runes, interpret astrology charts. Any such skill can be used to barter, get a weekend camp ground site for free in exchange for reading runes for the campers.

Make balloon animals, at events and fairs, take donations give the balloons for free.

Now anything you DO, is going to have to be an ongoing biz, nothing passive about it, but lots of ways to pick up some quick cash. My last travel adventure was paid for with a few headlight cleanings a day, and I blogged about the trip.

Hello, I liked your positive thinking about your business. Whey don't you start a travel blog or travel based business? As you'll be travelling a lot so it might be a good idea. Thanks :-)

A travel blog would be good. You could offer tips and 'how to's' for the places you visit, or travelling in general. Best to narrow it down though, as traveling is a very broad niche. There are limitless products you can promote in traveling niches too. You could even branch out into MMO eventually, with the hook of earning money remotely while you travel.

You can earn money while you travel too. If you are a freelancer or marketer or a successful business owner then you can generate revenues and make money while you travel.

After travelling, you will have interesting and fascinating experiences. It will be a good moment to write a Travelling blog. You could offer tips and values for the places you visit. Hope you will get success

I'm going to riff on Gordon's idea.

Even if you have a decent online business, stuff happens.

Laptops get stolen or break down.

You can find yourself in places without reliable access.

You can land in situations where "wait until the funds hit PayPal" won't work.

I had a friend (since deceased) who made his living as a writer, and whose goal was to see the world up close. He had two other skills in his back pocket that kept him from being cold and hungry many times.

He could whip up a tasty dish out of almost anything.

He could fix just about any small engine, but he loved tinkering with marine outboard motors as a kid.

Writer. Cook, Mechanic.

He saw most of the world (decided to skip the two poles in favor of warmer climes) and never went hungry.

It never hurts to have skills you can sell or barter in your back pocket.

I know nothing about the travel industry, granted it is huge. However, just because you want to travel, how are you going to monetize that passion into a profitable business?

I highly suggest you read Steve B post a few times. Personally, I'm not a fan of the trying to turn a passion into a business, as it's often difficult for the average person to successfully monetize.

For the past 16+ years, I've been promoting PPL (pay per lead...lead generation) offers. This is because there is no credit card / purchase required to complete an offer. All a user has to do is fill out a form, so conversion rates tend to be much higher compared to offers that require a sale to be made.

Why beat your head against the wall trying to sell users this or that, when you can provide them with free information that they want / need and get paid well doing it. Bottom line, it is far easier to get someone to fill out a short form than to take out their credit card and make a purchase!

I favor offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them, as they have overall worked the bet for me. As they tend to have the greatest amount of mass appeal (will be of interest to a large general audience).So the potential exists to produce high volume of leads and it's fairly easy to cross promote offers.

Some verticals that I have done extremely well with are: education, insurance, loans, debt, credit, mortgage, assistance, discount offers, homeowner offers, etc...

In addition to the above, free website sign ups (dating for example) is hot. Look at what sites are advertised on TV. Promoting a well-known brand is far easier than something generic. eHarmoney, for example, has been killing it for me for years.

Free trials (weight loss) can work well. A user pays like $5 or so for s&h and they get sent a product with a $50-$60 perceived value. Again, what's hot...what is Dr. Oz talking about?

Lastly, you have products that are either unique and can't be obtained locally (once Walmart has anything similar, it's dead), solves a house is on fire problem or is something that is able to be obtained at a deep discount.

The key point to all the above is that mass appeal exists.

To generate traffic, I acquire fresh / targeted 3rd party data (email), which is data that users have provided permission to receive messages from third parties. Which can be obtained for very specific verticals and then you send out a relevant offer.

So if I'm getting data for auto insurance, I send an auto insurance offer. If I'm getting education data, I send an education offer, etc, etc... After a certain period of time passes and they fail to respond, then you start cross promoting offers that have mass appeal.

In addition, you are always segmenting openers / clickers- removing unresponsive users. That way you are building smaller but much more responsive lists and you should eventually be able to send less and make more with each mailing. Essentially you are converting the data from quantity to quality.

Basically, I'm monetizing the data on the front-end with PPL offers because they offer the path of least resistance to generating conversion / $$$ and convert the data into cash producing assets. Then further monetizing it over the long run with additional PPL offers and offers that have mass appeal.

Obviously, there is a lot more to it, but done right it can be extremely profitable. Everyone that I know that is in the business and knows what they are doing, for the most part, does 6-7 figures. While that is a huge range, much comes down to one's ability to scale and effectively manage/build the infrastructure needed to scale.

Anyway, something to think about.

Many people have same this problem for first time..
Find your mentor and company service for help...

I am not the type of person who craves attention so I wouldn't feel comfortable posting pictures of myself through my trips and posting on my blog besides, who is going to take the photos for me....

How about taking a class from a start-up expert? or hiring someone? you know those experts that teach how to start online business. Ive seen a ton of ads about that. Would you recommend a good one?

Here's the thing - you seem to be changing your mind quite often and until you settle on one thing and work at it, you won't know what you are able to accomplish.

ONE WEEK ago you were asking what to name that same business....so you named it, got started and failed in a week? That's not good.

Yesterday you asked about learning e-commerce and your reason was

Which is a good rationale for starting your own business. But today it's that you want to travel - and there's nothing wrong with that, either.

Wanting to travel and work for yourself are great motivators to start your own business. But "needing" and "wanting" a profitable business doesn't make it happen.

You need to consider options, then narrow your options and do the study and testing and work required to become profitable. You' re getting good suggestions but only you can take an idea and run with it.

Decide how much you need to be earning online to travel next year - then focus on attaining your goals. If you don't, you won't be traveling next year.

As an alternative you might also look for part time jobs in parks or other areas of this country or international work - where you could have an income and time to explore a new area for a while.

I found it interesting that Gordon mentioned balloon twisting. I used to do this when I worked as a magician doing birthday parties.

You can buy a bag of 260 balloons and a hand pump for less than $20. Then go to YouTube and learn to twist a few animals, swords and some fancy hats.

Then you can stand on a busy corner (you might need a license - varies from place to place) or ask if you can work at a restaurant. Tips will usually bring in more money than charging.

Won't make you rich but it is a cheap and easy way to earn some extra lunch money while you travel

Rose

You actually got a great plan, mate.

Why don't you do travel blogging? Shoot some nice pics of the places you've been, create some content about your experiences in the place (food, hotel/accommodation, tours), and publish it on social media. You can also do vlogging as it's another way to potentially earn money online (through Google Adsense), especially if you have managed to build a good following.

Alongside this, give out tips and guides to these places, and insert some affiliate links in between.

Buddy, it'll take quite much work to get this done, but as you establish this business and identity as a travel blogger, good things will soon come after.