How much start up capital is needed to start a STRONG secure online business?

Hard question. I personally test some option/ ways to make money online which are 100% outsourcable. I am almost finished and then I will make a choice and hire a small army to build as much sites till I meet my goals and of course keep test for other methods. But I am willing to spend as much as It will take to reach my goal.

I am testing Amazon review sites at this moment form Jan Roos and building Article directories and some another small test

I am slow hire people and service to build backlinks to it ...whatever it takes ( is my motto)

I personally started with $10 for a domain and a hosting provider.. Actually it was like $4.. it was a cheap hosting provider..

now after three years I have several affiliate websites and make a decent amount of money and I'd call it a "strong" business.

so as sheffernan said: if you really want to, you can achieve it!

Internet marketing is nice because there isn't that much overhead if you're willing to do all of the work yourself. Most people aren't for a number of reasons - too time consuming, don't have the skills, etc. In addition to this, you need to consider marketing costs, link costs, etc.

I'd recommend having at least $5,000 on hand if you're looking to create your own business.

It actually depends on your chosen method. There are many ways to earn money online and the cost varies. Maybe you can share with us what are you planning on, so that we can offer you a more concrete ideas. If you don't have any, what are your interests then? Thanks.

It depends on the method you want to do to make money.

I started with $0 doing CPA. I made my first few dollars through forums and such and bought hosting and a domain name cheap. Then I proceeded to make my own website and blogs and have made more money. It took time and effort learning how to do everything myself but it paid off in the end. I am a new warrior here and am now going to start building my own list and go into affiliate marketing.

You just have to start!

I think more importantly than how much money you put into your business at the beginning is now much knowledge you have about the type of IM business you're starting up in. There are many different ways people make good income here on the warrior forum, but the one thing they have in common is they know what works, even if that means they just started going for it and learned from thier mistakes to get to where they're at today.....

Once you know what you're doing then you can scale up and make as much as you can handle keeping up with. The sky's the limit at that point......

Not to say that having a good chunk of money can't speed all of that up, but once you have a good handle on things then you can be sure you'll be earning a decent amount on what you invest.

Hi BabyMama =)

You've started a great conversation here!

I am one of those people who started online with $0 investment, zero knowledge, and $0 overhead required to work online (other than my internet connection - which we paid for anyway).


I started in Feb 2007. I started using all free methods to make money online (short version affiliate marketing with free web pages) and I spent a TON of my time each day soaking any and all free information and training that I possibly could.

It took me about a year to get decent money coming in consistently. During that time, I made my own campaigns and then did anything I could to get money coming in NOW (things like being an outsourcer, an SEO intern, writing articles, etc).

Once the money started coming in, I paid myself very little and used the majority to grow my business and get the things I truly needed to have a real online business (things like hosting and domain names and an autoresponder service---- and yes, I invested a great bit in furthering my training and education).

Based on that, I am one of those people who firmly believes that you don't HAVE to have ANY start-up capital to start working online. However, you DO need a plan of how to reinvest your earnings to build your business so that you become a strong and steady business.

To me, the only thing you MUST have is your brain ready (and it will really, really hurt at times), your butt in front of the computer as often as humanly possible, and a fierce drive that keeps you from ever giving up.

Bottom line for me - the start-up "capital" required to start an online business isn't money-based. It is attitude based and time based. You must dedicate your attitude and your TIME to MAKING it work.

The Internet is the only place I know of where you can start a business for free and completely change your financial reality AND your financial future simply by having a good frame of mind and the relentless dedication to learn and do the work.

Sadly, over my years working online and helping others, I have come to learn that for many people, that investment of time and dedication is just too expensive.

Best of luck to you!

Jennifer
~PotPieGirl

I wouldn't be surprised if PotPie's example has been the same for tens of thousands of successful internet marketers. You really need so little money, if you are willing to do a lot of work.

Go to Flippa.com and look at what web sites are selling there. Look at the ones that produce the kind of income that you need.

Let's say you need $5k to $10k per month profit.

Then you should be looking those web sites.

Now from the ones that are in your ball park select the industries that you like or that you think you can like or understand.

Then see what these sites are selling for. That is what you need as part of the startup capital. Then you also have to factor in your own learning curve and add some cash to compensate that.

From the above example figures you will see that those sites sell from $30k to $200k. Make sure that you don't buy yourself a job but an investment.

HP

LOL, great question

I started out spending nothing. I used my email client as an auto-responder (it had great filters), and I place my content on an existing website. Then my husband offered me my very own domain for my birthday...

What did I do exactly? Well, I have it all online in a free eBook on my site, but short: I wrote tips about how to use your computer, Windows and stuff (it was before I got tired of wasting time and got a Mac), I sent it out to my list, I added adverts in the mail and later I put AdSense on my site.

This site still pays my rent.

This is not the ideal way to start a business. It worked, but it probably took more time than necessarily. Especially when I lost thousands of subscribers due to faulty auto-responders on my own domain. I was too cheap to get AWeber.

So investment neaded:

- Idea (not a million dollar idea, but a good, useful, fun for you, idea)
- Domain ($10)
- Hosting (not sure, I think we pay around $7 per month)
- Auto-responder (erm, maybe around $15 per month)

I think it actually depends on the type of online business that you plan to start.

As for me, I started with $0 capital 3 years ago and slowly expand my business with the payments that I received from my customers and get where I am today. Now I am doing my business full time and have my own office not far away from my home

What's most important is, the drive and determination that you have inside. If you really want to do something, there is nothing that can stop you.

I started with zero and made close to $3,000 USD my first month I took that entire amount and invested it back into my business.

Anytime I launch a new product and website, I usually dump about 2-3 thousand in it's first month and it really takes off from there.

I would say if you just had $1,000 and a good understanding of how to convert sales you can be off to a good start.

Basically just create something people want make the offer powerful and irresistible and use the $1,000 to send targeted traffic to it.

As far as I'm concerned the collision between internet marketing and offline is the place to be. You can turn a $100 bucks a month into $3000+ without much effort.

I've designed WordPress skins/themes and sold them. Built high-end membership sites for good money, flipped sites and worked with offline businesses.

Off liners are the best. They are willing to pay for results, they pay on time and they are easy to sell to.

Best of all, every off liner I've worked with has become a friend. Hard to beat that.

Although many recommend a learning curve.

If you have capitol is their no way to outsource all task?

Aren't there people who can write, content/syndicated articles, source niches, create a product, design websites, write sales page that converts, and, drive traffic?

Question: How much would that cost to outsource?

Anyone want to chime in on the right business model to do this?


Your welcome...

off to the beach

Hi BabyMama,

It's not how much capital in terms of money, it's capital in terms of both money and other resources like skills and time. If you go by how much money you need to start an online business, you will fall into a trap. People start with as little as $5 and end up accummulating a lot of wealth. And even the wealthy people around did not begin big. They started small and built their business to greater levels.

I once asked the same question to my weathy cousin, who told me that the best way to make money is by starting to do something. Besides, there are very many free ways of marketing your products online. Take an example of article writing, blogging, participating in forums related to your line of business, etc... All these are at your disposal. Take advantage of them. If you do not have money, then use your other resources. Have a burning desire to make money and be consistent. You will still win.

It depends...and it could be any amount actually...the important thing is if you have it...set a certain capital and then device tactics/schemes on how you are going to profit from that. This is IM failing at first isn't really new...so if you set a capital...ensure that you'd be ok if ever it all goes down the drain...anyway this is IM...you can start out with as low as 0

I can´t believe the amount of responses I have had on this thread. The amount of detailed responses has blown me away.
Thanks for all the information. It has become clear that without any action it doesn´t matter how much money you have its worth nothing. You can start from zero as long as you take action and keep building.
Products seem to be the way to go and thats what I am planning for my current business model.

In my opinion a start up capital is just an advantage when you start online.It will save you much time because you can outsource most of the things needed BUT without personal work you won't achieve anything.

When I started I worked as a waiter in a restaurant and hardly made my living with the money I was getting so I couldn't invest anything in the online business.I started with around $50 per month which included domain name,hosting company,autoresponder and a membership site which taught me everything I know.

It really depends on what your definition of STRONG is. If you are looking for a residual income stream of $500 to $1500 a month, it would be reasonable to shell out between $50 and $500. If you're looking for a higher residual income, say between $1500 and $5000 a month, look at spending between $500 and $1500 initially. The real expense is with the ongoing marketing and advertising. Expect a M&A budget of 40% initially. It can be reduced as the business gains momentum and you are reaching your income goals.

Security on an online business is a tough work. So you should start with all your determination.

Depends on how lazy/hard working you are. If you plan to outsource a lot of the tedious tasks before your business is already making money, then you'd need a lot more start up funds than usual. A couple grand or so like others above have mentioned.

However, if you're willing to put the hard work in yourself and be patient or you're just on really tight budget then, really, you could get started with no less than $100. You'd only need this for hosting, domain name and an autoresponder.

You also need a solid plan for getting targeted traffic to your site to go hand in hand with the low funds though!!

You asked "how much how much start up capital is needed to create a solid business model online?"...

Some solid business models need more money than others. It's not about saying invest "x" amount and you'll create a solid business model. There is much, much more to it than that.

As you know from what others here have said you can create a solid business with just a couple of dollars starting capital.

But obviously it's not going to immediately replace your income, unless you have an incredibly hot product or service that you can market extremely well.

If you have money to spend and want a solid business model have you considered buying an already established business that generates the monthly income you need to quit your day job?

That's the shortest route you could ever take to replacing your income. But you really need to know and understand all about doing business online so you can keep that business growing.

If you're new to online marketing there's still a lot to learn as you can appreciate, so starting out in your spare time investing $50 - $100 a month is a great way to get started and get an education at the same time.

As you learn and gain more experience you increase your profits until you can safely quit your day job without any worries.

Be sure you have at least 6 months of cash in reserve before you do quit.

If you can find yourself a mentor or business coach who is already where you want to be you'll be able to get there MUCH faster.

I hope this helps.

Hi Baby Mama,

This is what I can recommend for you.
1. Choose what you are interested in doing /offerring in your online business. Decide on what interests you.
2. Choose wisely your business model - what you will do, what others will do, how you will be finding clients / traffic, how you will be converting them
3. Hire a coach who will show you how to get to profitability fast. Or sign up for a program which will teach you how to do X, Y or Z and implement everything.

Step 3 is the income acceleration process for online businesses. If you want to skip it - then you've got to learn what to do on your own: test and try, fail and learn.

If you start up your business with investment of money: mistakes will cost you "dearly" to learn. If you start up your business with investment of time: many times will pass till you "nail it".

When I started my business- I invested $4500 in skills for 6 months. Then - 9 months after my first day in business - I had 50% return on my investment. In the first year - I broke even: the money that I made was just about the same amount of the money that I spent to start up. Back then - this was a "side business" so - I made sure it didn't suck up all my time and only my savings were hurt and only for a short while. ON the 2nd year I invested another $2000 in business advise but the return on investment was tripple that year because:
1. I knew what I was doing (learned it the 1st year)
2. and I knew what not to be doing and what mistakes to avoid (learned it from my coach)
On my 3rd year I took on anther business (offline) and between the online and the offline business- I doubled my time devoted to earning money and I also doubled the income. But - the input of time was too much for my lifestyle requirements.

So - I'm at the beginning of 4th year and my focus is: leverage of time. And yes - I'm willing to sacrifice some of the income I can make in order to create systems, automate content distribution and outsource most of the work that I do manually. As Rockefeller says:

This depends greatly on the type of business you want to start. I have asked this myself regarding an idea of setting up a freelancing site like Odesk but in Spanish. I am doing my research right now.

Learning the business first hand is so important. I'm starting off and making a ton of mistakes but learning from each one. I don't think there is a short cut to take on this. The faster you can make the mistakes the faster you can push towards success.

I have a friend who started off with me about a month ago. She spent $2,000 in her first month outsourcing almost everything. I think we are both in the same stage of getting our sites launched, SEO, back linking, etc... However, I can honestly say I understand the process and what's involved. She on the other hand has no clue since everything has been outsourced.

I too started with $0.

Well not strictly true I bought many "make $100000 from home" type guides and owe a HUGE amount to this forum!

No butt kissing, this forum has EVERYTHING you need to set up a strong, lasting business - people are doing it every day!

Read, learn and most of all TAKE action!

I start with the "bum marketing method" kept going and now 6 years later I don't do that bad...

Chris

Gotta say... I think a spanish language freelancer site is a great idea. Actually... probably a future million dollar idea.

As an early stage angel investor, I get pretty suspicious of any founder asking for less than 18 months of cash based on forecasted burn rate. Anything less than that, they're out looking for more money instead of running their business and anything more they're probably going to suffer from fragmented focus (too much cash burning a hole in their pocket so they start alternate internal business units before proving the first).

Even if you're not looking at a formal investment, you should strongly consider how much cash you need to run the business without drawing a salary (and actually paying an operations person to run the show if possible). This allows you to figure out how much capital you have to re-invest into the business to allow it to become self-sustaining.