Here are five great reasons to start an online business…

1. To Capitalise On A Niche Interest Or Passion

There may be insufficient people locally who share your interest or passion, but through the web, you can attract like-minded people from around the globe.

2. To Benefit From Low Overheads

Bricks and mortar businesses often carry high overheads. You can usually run a web business (at least in the early stages) from home using the resources you’re already paying for.

3. To Make A Passive Income

Your websites and other online cash generating facilities will be working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Once you have the ball rolling, it often just needs minor adjustments to keep the money coming in.

4. For Job Security

Whether the web business is a full time one or a part time venture, it will give you more control and security than you would otherwise have. Nobody cares how things work out for you like you do.

5. For Freedom

With a web based business you can work from everywhere and anywhere that has a reasonably fast connection to the internet. It means you can live and work where you choose.

You probably haven’t heard of America’s fastest growing city. It’s called The Villages and is near Orlando in Florida. What’s interesting is that The Villages is primarily a retirement community with a reputation for attracting  active retirees. Given that the attrition rate is likely to be high (a lot more deaths than births!) it’s growth is all the more impressive.

The success of places like The Villages is additional proof that there’s a great deal of money to be made in satisfying the needs of an ageing population.  They have increasingly specific needs and money to spend – the perfect scenario for finding lucrative market niches. If you’re looking to start a new enterprise, you would be well advised to research the needs of this very important group of consumers

Sara Blakely became the worlds youngest billionaire at 41 when she turned $5,000 savings into the fortune making Spanx hosiery business. She offers the following advice to anyone looking for fresh ideas to supercharge the performance of their business of enterprise:

“I stop what I’m doing, close my eyes, and ask myself, ‘if nobody showed me how to do my job, how would I be doing it?’ And then I see what surfaces. We’re all on auto-pilot, and we’re doing things because somebody else showed us  – or told us –  how to do them.”

Blakely says that creative ideas come when you think differently, not necessarily complexly.

I think the key is to look to do things that are unorthodox or different. Do what everyone else does and you get what everyone else gets.

The fact that B&Q announced the closure of 60 stores recently may not be unconnected with the results of a survey I read recently – Briton’s are falling out of love with DIY and young folk in particular are reluctant to take on simple jobs like shelf hanging and minor household repairs themselves. It seems like the coming years will see an increased need for ‘handymen’ (and women of course) who can complete the simple jobs which the new generation can’t, or won’t, do for themselves.

If you have some basic DIY skills, making an independent living may be no more difficult than offering these skills to householders. For the more ambitious, I think there’s an opportunity to build a network of handymen under a national brand and identity.

There are hundreds of ways to make money online but  for most you need your own product or service to promote. Here are three methods you could start making money with tomorrow which need neither:

1. Become An Online Re-seller

An online reseller purchases items and resells them on sites like eBay to make a profit. Sellers determine the price and the value of items they sell, so it’s important that you have a good idea of what the product is worth. Depending on the volume of your business, reselling on eBay and other sites could become a lucrative full-time job.

2. Become An Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest-growing ways to earn money online. As an affiliate marketer, your job is ‘middle-man’ linking up a buyer and a seller, and taking a commission on the sale. Clickbank is a good place to look for affiliate partners.

3. Take Online Surveys

You don’t get rich taking surveys online, but it’s an easy way to earn a little cash on the side. A Google  search will throw up plenty of companies offering cash and other incentives  for taking online surveys.