Have you ever wished you could go back in time and give your past self some advice based on what you now know? Yeah, I wish I could do that too but I can’t so the best thing I can do is give you advice that I would give to my past self all about starting an online business. if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, an affiliate site, a niche site, or freelancing whatever it is, then these are the things I wish I knew back when I first started my first online business.

People Will Doubt You

The first thing I wish I knew was that a lot of people are going to doubt you. When you’ll share your idea with someone like your friends or some random “Naysayers” about starting an online business, and they’re going to be like you’re an idiot you can never do that. They’ll probably say, you don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m gonna tell your parents so they’re gonna be like why would you quit your job? This is a horrible idea!

You might think people are going to be supportive. The chances are if you tell someone that you want to do something a little against the water flow, you want to start an online business, you want to make money on the internet, they’re going to think you’re crazy.

On the other side, there are a lot of people out there that will believe in you and they’ll get it and they’ll understand what you’re gonna do. Find those people. Even if you only find one person in your life that wants to do the same thing or understands it, go find that person or find that community because that’s going to be what keeps you going.

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener

But sometimes it is. It’s probably a joke to be made with the grass going on here. If you’ve got issues if you’re unhappy starting a business isn’t necessarily going to fix all of that. But in some ways starting a business will bring on a whole slew of new other issues and stressors and things that you wouldn’t even think about. But starting an online business, the freedom, the flexibility the stuff it gives you, I mean the opportunities, it can present its amazing.

But if you know how to handle your stuff and you’re not expecting a magic bullet then the grass is greener is pretty great!

It Gives You Freedom & Flexibility

Having an online business and a lifestyle business gives you to do things like grocery shop when the stores are less crowded. It gives you the freedom to utilize your time to make you more productive, if you love to go to the gym in the early morning or want to start reading a book on a specific topic, or want to travel the world, then online business gives you more flexibility to manage your things and make your day time more flexible on stuff that you’ll love to do.

It’s easier to schedule things because you have more flexibility and free time that part of the lifestyle even if you got your issues, that part’s great.

You Don’t Have Real Vacations

I got a question for you, how do you feel about vacations? How do you feel about weekends? Because when you start an online business and you can truly work from anywhere whenever you want, you don’t ever really have real vacations and you may work on weekends.

There is always something you could or should be doing. it’s not like you close your laptop at five o’clock, you go home and everything shuts off.  Even when you shut things off you can’t shut off your mind and that it’s a good thing. It’s good and bad like you can travel all over the world and do all the stuff you want.

But at least I’m usually thinking about work and not being able to turn that off. You could go for a vacation and travel the world or whatever you’d like to do in your life but the reality is you’re always working.

You’re always doing stuff and granted that this is just me. This is how I’ve set up my business. You might be able to do a better job at setting boundaries but depending on the type of business you create and what not. Chances are you’re going to be thinking about it a lot more than whatever your day job is and no matter where you go, no matter where you travel,  what time you take off you’re still going to be kind of thinking about it.

So pros and cons, good news bad news, but that’s something I was not prepared for when I left my day job. So you should be aware of what kind of life you’re gonna step into when you’re living with an online business.

Lifestyle Finances Can be a little Weird!

This is one that you might not normally think about but is true that finances when you’re a lifestyle entrepreneur, online entrepreneur, solopreneur whatever you want to call it. Well, they’re kind of weird here’s what I mean by that.

For me my business expenses and my expenses they’re all just kind of co-mingling. for instance, if you go on vacation, stay at a resort and do your work online. So that’s all a business expense but it feels like it’s personal stuff.

That seems extravagant but you’re like oh wait that’s a business expense. So a write-off and trying to balance how all of that works is just kind of a difficult thing. One of the hard parts about that is when you’re trying to rationalize what you spend money on. For me spending money on the business is like hiring someone and they cost say $20,000 a year.

Well, that $20K even though it’s part of the business it feels like it’s coming directly out of my pocket. So getting used to that is difficult and that’s caused me some issues where I probably haven’t invested in my business as much as I should have. Because the business and the personal stuff are so intertwined. Just be aware of that.

Start Two Businesses. But don’t Three

It’s important to mention that start two businesses. So why would I say that you should start two different businesses? Well, I think you need your passion for business. The thing that you want to do forever and you need the bridge business.

You need the thing that’s going to get you from point A to point B. So this is why I’m such a big fan of freelance writing because generally speaking freelance writing is the easiest way to make money online. It’s a skill you’ve already got. There’s a huge demand for it. So if you’re looking for some security if you’re looking for some income quickly. if you’re looking to build some skills then freelancing is the best way to do that. You’ll set up a freelance services website that’ll serve as your training ground, that’s gonna help you learn copywriting, design SEO, how to be persuasive, how to get clients, all of that stuff.

While you’re doing that and while you’re learning all of that. There’s probably something that you’d love to start a site around gardening or sports or basketball or video games or whatever it is, and you should start that on the side. Think of that as the free time hustle.  It’s like I’m just going to do this whenever I feel like I’m not going to worry about money that’s what’s happened with all my businesses.

So start the freelancing stuff help that gets to the point where you leave your job, you can pay your bills, you’ve got some income and then you can start transitioning into the lifestyle passion business whether it’s e-commerce or membership site or a blog or whatever it is. So start two but don’t start three it’s too many. The goal is to wean yourself off the bridge business once you start getting traction with the other one.

There’s No One Way to Build the Business

Keep in mind that there is no one way to build a business. The way I teach is to be different than the way the next person teaches. So don’t worry about finding the one right way because even if you follow everything that I say, it’s still gonna be different than the way another person follows my stuff. Everybody’s got their way but I will recommend rather than bouncing around from YouTube video to video, blog to blog post, and trying to figure it all out on yourself, I recommend finding one person you trust and are comfortable following along, whether that’s someone in your personal life, or a mentor, or someone online or whatever. Follow their plan from the beginning to the end because that’s going to be much more effective than trying to piecemeal it all together.

If you ask me can I get all this information online for free I’ll say yeah! Probably 90% of it you can find online for free but the benefit and the reason that it’s worth spending the money on aside from access to some premium stuff you feel important to get, but at a later stage, not at the beginning recommend.

I’m certain for sure what I’m saying, there’s no one way to build the business. There are an infinite number of ways you can build a successful online business and so just be aware of that and stop trying to look for the one correct way because your implementation of my correct way is going to be different than my implementation of it. So just keep that in mind.

You Don’t Have to Be Passionate About Your Bridge Business

I spent a lot of time questioning freelance, writing freelance, SEO, like I don’t love this stuff, is this worth my time? and here is my response, you don’t have to be passionate about your bridge business. You just have to be passionate about the opportunities that it gives you.  I wasn’t passionate about Freelancing at the beginning, but the opportunities that it gave me to work through that thing that I wasn’t passionate about it, but I didn’t hate it. It was well worth it.

The Work Isn’t Hard

The work starting online is not hard. It’s not hard blogging, not hard freelance writing or any online stuff you want to be in. What is hard is consistency. Being consistent and putting in a little bit of effort every single day for days, weeks, months and years is the hard part.  If you can do that by being consistent and putting in the work every day for a year or two, you will have a certain level of success.

So be consistent because that is the single most important thing that I’ve learned in doing online business. The biggest thing that separates people that are successful from people that aren’t successful is consistency and perseverance.

Start a Blog

Again going back to advise that I wish I could give myself is starting a blog. The blog is the single best thing you’ll ever do for your business and your personal development.

If you don’t like writing then a YouTube channel is the best alternative these days. Starting a YouTube channel it’s been in some ways just as influential as starting a blog.

Giving yourself a vehicle with which to be creative but giving yourself a way for people to connect with you that have similar interests is so hugely valuable. so regardless of what you do, Freelancing, niche sites, e-commerce, membership sites even if you have a day job even if you just want to stay in that day job, start a blog or YouTube channel or a podcast or an Instagram account that you take like a little more seriously than just your account honestly is life-changing, game-changing. The places that will take you and the people it will introduce you to.

So those are the points I wish I knew before starting an online business. If you don’t listen to any of that if you don’t remember anything else then remember this;

Celebrate the small wins

Learn from your mistakes.

And remember the juice is worth the squeeze.

Remember that movie, the girl next door kept saying that the juice is worth the squeeze. It’s true for me.

With all the ups and the downs,

With all the good and the bad, it has been worth putting in the time,

Putting the effort into going through the stress to start an online business.

I’m Ali and I aim to help you build a small business that lets you work from anywhere and spend more time doing the stuff you love because that’s what life’s all about.

Further Reading: Robert Kyosaki on PHD, Poor Helpless & Desperate