Work from Home Business/Service

Discussion in 'Starting & Running a Business' started by telejazzer, 20th Mar, 2017.

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  1. telejazzer

    telejazzer Member

    Joined:
    21st Jun, 2016
    Posts:
    17
    Location:
    Melbourne
    Hi All,

    It has been a frustrating 5 years for me dealing with I believe to be incompetency in the industry I'm in so I'm setting up a business to fill the gap that I've identified. This is basically a combination of field work for data collection, analysis which I'll do from my home office and e-learning via online course and webinar.

    I'm also looking at affiliate marketing programs and e-commerce but there's so much content out there and I'll be taking my time on this as I'm not familiar with it as much as I want.

    Does anybody here have a home based business?
    How do you find it?
    Challenges?
    Positives?
    Negatives?
     
    telejazzer, 20th Mar, 2017
    #1
  2. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

    Joined:
    3rd Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    4,579
    Location:
    Sydney
    I've been working from home for the past 17 years - the first 7 as a remote/mobile employee while at IBM, the last 10 as a self employed consultant - and more recently operating my websites PropertyChat and InvestChat (and others) full time.

    In the next 12 months or so I'm likely going to get to the point where I need to look at moving into an office as I start to expand my business and take on employees, but for now, I'm working from home.

    The number one thing you'll need to deal with is isolation - there's no water cooler chat when working from home and sometimes you really need some human interaction (beyond spouse/kids if you have them!).

    How much this will affect you will vary a lot depending on the nature of the work you're doing and your personality.

    Networking / meetups can help - and there are plenty of online hangouts where like-minded people gather and share water-cooler talk. I have a number of chatrooms that I hang out in during the day for those moments when I need to connect with someone. It helps that part of my business is actually operating those chatrooms :D

    My number one advice is don't spread yourself too thin - if you don't know exactly what you want to do you can end up wasting a lot of time trying all the latest "fads" for making money online. There are a million different websites and course out there promising to teach you how to make money online - and most of them are based around setting up websites to sell courses which teach you how to make money online :eek:

    Don't get sucked into the easy money circles - real businesses take real effort and are based on real people adding real value to other people and other businesses.

    If you have real skills and a well defined market which you know intimately - then why not just focus on that and build your business around the gaps you've identified?

    Don't start until you've got the capital behind you to be able to focus full time on making your business a success - otherwise you'll spend so much time trying to find ways to supplement your income that your core business will never grow.
     
    Simon Hampel, 20th Mar, 2017
    #2
  3. telejazzer

    telejazzer Member

    Joined:
    21st Jun, 2016
    Posts:
    17
    Location:
    Melbourne
    That's what I've been finding out as well. So much content out there that you probably have to dig through a lot of crap before finding something that works. The e-Commerce (eBay, Amazon) side of things sounds more viable but there's a lot of groundwork to do before it becomes worthwhile. I'm setting it aside at the moment.

    I've been finding out that what's easy (or easier but it does take time) for me to do, the majority of people in the industry find difficult to comprehend. Because it seems easy, I tend to undervalue my worth until a psychologist friend of mine stated that "just because you find it easy doesn't mean there's little value to your clients". Changed my mindset since.

    I'm starting as a consultant and there's little overhead. I already have the necessary technology that I need and then some. I have a supplement income where I don't have to think much.
     
    telejazzer, 20th Mar, 2017
    #3