Post lessons you've learned being an online entrepreneur

Good points. Using escrow services (scriptlance has one and I think many other service auction sites do as well) and copyscape definitely helps people protect themselves.

 

1) Learn from my mistakes and from my failures.

We all make mistakes, the question is how do you handle them. Do you give up? Or accept that it was a mistake, see what went wrong and try again.

2) Be persistent.

The phrase "if at first you do not succeed, try, try again" has been a motto of mine. Being persistent goes hand and hand with learning from your mistakes. When you fail, as when you fall, you have to pick yourself up and keep going.

3) Accept and Embrace Change

Technology on the Internet is constantly improving. What was new and exciting last year or the year before is now old and technology from 4 years ago is ancient.

To run an Internet business successfully you have to always be watching the Internet landscape and incorporating the new technology that works.

4) Work "ON" your business not just "IN" your business.

It is essential that you avoid getting bogged down in the everyday operations of your business. If you focus solely on delivering your existing product to your customers you will fail.

"What!" you might be say, that doesn�t make sense.

But think for a minute.

You have to do more than just serve your customers� immediate needs. As a business owner you have to also look around you to see what new products / services you can offer. You have to find ways to constantly improve your business and your offerings.

If you are not always improving, competitors will create a better product / service and deliver it to your customers � putting you out of business!

5) Consistent Marketing

Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. You need a marketing plan and on going promotions. Simply running an ad here and there is not enough to keep your business alive.

Taking the time to devise a marketing strategy that you will follow is crucial to your success. You need to determine what marketing works and then put it into place.

______________________________
http://www.yesiloveit.com

 

Great post, Nizzam!

 

So much great information here. Especially the guy that wrote the first post clearly an unselfish act. Thanks mate

1. Take time occasionally to stand back from your operations and view them in the light of your goals and purposes. Remove any grubblies that crept into the woodwork. If you don't now what I mean it doesn't matter. If you do you will understand.

 

thanks for sharing all the great motivation here guys, thats make my day...

 

Very good ideas in here.

What I have learnt?

The close friends and family are indeed the worst customers. but I managed to let them know that my work costs and I cannot jump into their projects unless I am not working for a client in that moment. That kinda made them calm down and I even had one who paid me "normally". I always let them know that it's not about meanness in here, just that I have paying customers and the moment they put the money on the table they become a priority.

Start small ..

Agreed on that .. I cannot afford too many things out of the blue, so I started growing step by step. I am still taking baby-steps, but I am developing at an affordable rate

Learn when to NOT take a client.

Since I am doing a wide range of projects I had some clients for flyer/business card design. You can see I cannot quote them as I would do for an entire site and the pain is that most of the time they treat you as if they paid 1000 USD for a design. That made me realize that I don't want to work for such a small pay and kinda gratiously sent them to a friend, thus "cleaning" my space for some web design clients that pay very well.

it's not common for me to not take on a client, but sometimes you need to see if that job is worth it ...

 

respect your clients and sell for fair prices

 

if you already get married, we have to get full support from your spouse...
it could be a good experience if your spouse give full support/help to you along the way in online business...
if no support??
emmm anyone experience this can let us know here...

 

Great thread - I'm in the process of starting my first online business and I've seen some great tips here!

 

Great tips:

I also wanted to ad that I think the number one thing is LOVING your site, you really need to share the same passion as the people who benefit from your site. It shines right through. So I guess that falls under the passion category. Its a must.

And patience...

 

always open for opportunities

 

This is a gold mine of good advice. As I am starting myself, I realized that I have loads of ideas running around in my head. The key is actually make details of it and then it becomes clearer. Will keep following this thread ;-)

 

Nice thread...
Prepare for any down-turn. It is almost inevitable that businesses go down at some point of time. Plan for any new ventures.

 

an exit plan.

 

What I have learnt, is that no matter how much time you spend planning, things do not always go to plan, and you have to be strong during the low times, when things are not going particularly well. If you have enough faith in what you are doing, you can get through these times and you are on your way to success.

Another thing I have learnt is that if you have a fantastic idea, expect it to be copied pretty quickly, then expect that copy company to stop competing pretty quickly.

 

following i what i learned from http://secgeeks.com,

1)IT takes TIME to create trust and relationships.I remember eariler days when it was very hard for me to get even a single visitors,forgot about the income.many a times my friends and other laughed at me to start such kind of site.but i had a dream of making it populer so i worked hard and today after one year,it receives 1000+ feed views daily and thousands of page views each day.its quite populer but still not at the level i want,but its growing and i m giving my best towards it.

2)Forgot about the money at first.Intially there is no money,but once you success money will follow you.i decided to share my revenue with my users and enabled revenue sharing recently.users apreciated it.

3)have a dream and work for it

4)never give up,do what you think is right.

 

I'm still a bit of a noob, but here's what's always been true for me:

1] Things never take off as quickly as you want them to. You may get the idea that fame, glory, and riches will come to you after a few hours of effort, but that's just wrong. Those who look like they *can* do that spent years upon years of effort learning, building skills, getting connections, building a customer base, etc.

2] There's a certain point (tipping point) where something you're doing takes off and becomes wildly successful. Some things might take a few weeks, a few years, or a few decades. You never really know when until it happens, but you'll never find out if you stop or give up. With some things there might be a tipping point with an unrealistic time/effort horizon and recognizing those things is important for directing effort where it will be most productive.

3] People remember who you are and what you've done. Black hat methods, underhanded tactics, and dishonest dealings might seem like a useful shortcut, but if you plan to have any longevity it's not worth sacrificing your integrity and your reputation. Customers, partners, associates, employees, suppliers, friends, and neighbors have longer memories than you might think and they like to tell their friends when they find a "bad guy".

4] However you describe it - confidence, assertiveness, refusal to give up, persistence, undauntability. Those are invaluable. People who give up or stop trying at the first "no" or wrench in the works are people who do NOT belong in charge of anything, especially a business. It's also easier to get people to believe in you if you believe in yourself - they can sense doubt and it's contagious, just like enthusiasm.

 

I'm new to digital point very impressive people here!

Don't spend all of your time trying to perfect something without doing it. Get the project/company going and make your changes as you go.. (Don’t procrastinate because you want everything perfect)

I also have had to change my thinking... People with a 9 to 5 don't get what we get... money is made, not earned hourly

Congratulations to all of you that get it!

 

Great post!

Some things I have learnt/found in my experience as an entrepreneur.

1) Exceed your customer expectations - If you say it will take a week, do it in 6 days. If they ordered 12 candles, send them 13. (You get the idea)

2) Christmas cards work a treat! I did this once for an online shop I run and all over the industry related forums people posted of how they got cards from my business etc etc. The positive publicity was invaluable.

3) LEARN LEARN LEARN

4) READ READ READ

5) If you don't know the answer to something, don't be afraid to ask someone what the right one is.

6) You can't please everyone.

7) Do not stress about what is out of your control.

8) Have a really good patent and contracts lawyer.

9) Measure, analyse and get your business into the process of continual improvement.

10) Don't be too trusting - there's no friends in business.

11) Be passionate about the project you are working on. I can not stress this enough!

12) If you only need a glassful of knowledge, make sure you know a bucketful. Knowledge is power. Especially if you need to make presentations where you can be prodded with questions on the spot.

13) Plan ahead, budget and know where your money is coming from and going to. Many businesses fail because they simply dont have a handle on their cash flow.

14) Advertising is an INVESTMENT, not an EXPENSE.



I could keep going all night.... there's a few off the top of my head that others havent covered (I dont think).

 

Awesome post, Ruby. Can't agree more. It's easy to confuse COSTS with INVESTMENTS. Big difference. Almost as big as Kiyosaki's delineation between Assets and Liabilities.