 
Choosing The Right Home Business –
Part I: Forcing You To Think
By Rick Carbone
If you are thinking about ditching the 9 to 5
crowd for the greener pastures of a home business, there
are some critical items to think about before taking the
plunge. Most of what appears below is our personal
experience as a home business on the Internet since
1998.
- Assuming
that you want more flexibility to better suit your
lifestyle always consider the amount of time
necessary to start up your home based
business. More often than not some people just dive
right in and don’t consider the start up cost in
time. This can be a significant deterrent to managing
a home business as you will spend many hours running
your enterprise.
- That
brings me to the second item, the start up financial cost.
How much will you "realistically" need to invest to
insure a successful start?
As in most speculative ventures you will
need to understand your real start up costs and how
much you are willing or can afford to lose. This is
not to say that all home business ventures lose
money, but that you should be prepared to lose money
to more accurately budget your working capital. This
is an important aspect that many home business owners
don’t consider before leaping into the
fray.
- Will you need to purchase any special
equipment? As with many bootstrap home business start
ups expect the unexpected. Will you need to purchase
expensive equipment to manage your home based
business. Some examples include MLM (Multi-Level
Marketing) type businesses that "require" inventory
or product purchases to maintain specific levels
within the MLM structure. Another example is envelope
stuffing. Sounds like a simple thing to do however
have you ever seen what 500 or 1000 brochures and
envelopes look like? Once you do you’ll want to
invest in letter folding equipment and perhaps an
inserting machine. Something you didn’t think about
before you decided to make a few extra bucks. If you
are content with spending a several hours of your
evening stuffing 100-150 envelopes at a dime apiece,
then this is the job for you.
- Product
Surveys are very popular now because there is literally no
investment and your income, in theory, is based on how much
time you invest. This brings me to another tip,
research, research and research some more before you
take on any home business
opportunity. A good example is a product survey
opportunity, the so called "typing" work at home
jobs. They sound great. All you need to do is answer
a few questions and you will get paid anywhere
between $5.00 and $100.00 per survey. Most people see
this and jump at the chance of spending an hour or
two at the computer each day and make a couple of
hundred dollars. Unfortunately that’s not how it
works. Many of the surveys run at the low end of the
pay scale, so you wind up spending more time at the
computer for only $15 or $20 a day, not exactly the
payday bonanza you were told it would be.
Everyone’s experience varies due to individual
time and effort, however most individuals are sold on the
marketing hype that accompanies each product sales
letter.
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