An internet business is any business that operates primarily through the internet. It can mean selling something online, whether a physical thing, a digital asset, or even your own skills. There are a lot of directions to go: online retail stores, digital agencies, e-learning platforms, software companies, and more. These businesses use the internet to reach and serve customers, to offer convenience and access, and to tap into a global market. With the internet as your foundation, you can scale quickly, adapt to changing conditions, and reach customers all over the world.
That is the definition. Let me go a little deeper and point out the kinds of things you can actually do. Each of these is huge on its own, so you will need to do your own research for the specifics, but here are some ideas.
- An online retail store selling a variety of products. It can be something you make, something you source from your community, or even drop shipped products. For example, you buy a product from a seller in China and sell it to customers in the US through your online store. This is a major business model for a lot of e-commerce sellers.
- A digital marketing agency offering your skills, such as SEO, social media management, and content creation. It can be any skill you have. Head over to fiverr.com and see how people make real money selling all kinds of skills. There are people making videos on YouTube, people doing translations, people writing content for websites. You can find hundreds, if not thousands, of ideas to do yourself.
- An e-learning platform offering courses on various subjects. This is probably one of the easiest businesses to start. Think about what you already know, put it together into a course, and sell it on the internet. Think about it. Why are you reading this book? I learned everything in here over the years, and today I am selling that knowledge as a product.
- A software company building and selling web and mobile applications. Programming will probably never go out of business. There is always demand for people who can build things, websites and apps broadly speaking, and there are tons of sub categories you can break down and figure out for yourself.
- A virtual assistant service offering administrative and personal support to clients remotely. VAs, customer support, and similar services are always in demand. There are a lot of busy people who need help managing their work, and that itself is a business.
While I have laid out a few things here, it is important to know that you often will not have a clear idea at the start. You have to begin somewhere and go. As you work on your first business, you will stumble onto the intersection of your knowledge and a real problem, and that can become your main business. Before StartGlobal, I worked on a bunch of products, and those experiences are exactly what led me to StartGlobal.
There are also many online product communities you can go to for inspiration.
- Indie Hackers. People like you, all over the world, building small businesses and selling them. Thousands of builders making small apps that earn thousands of dollars a month. You can see what everyone is building at https://www.indiehackers.com/products, and many of them are open about their customers and revenue. There is a whole community here that helps each other build.
- Product Hunt. Probably one of the best places on the internet to find new products launched around the world, at https://www.producthunt.com/. Everything from large companies to solo builders launches here. One day you might launch something here too and get hundreds or thousands of early users.
- Hacker News. Not really a product forum, but a lot of conversation happens here around products and technology. Anyone interested in tech and business should not miss it, at https://news.ycombinator.com/.
- Reddit. Reddit calls itself the front page of the internet. I am not active on it myself, but I hear great things, and there are a lot of subreddits that could be a great resource.
- Discord. Again, I am not huge on Discord, probably because I am a 90s kid, but it is huge on the internet lately. I keep tabs on everything, I am just not deep into it.
If you spend an hour or so a day on these for a year, you will have a pretty good understanding of what is happening in technology and what everyone is building. There are also many creators and builders worth following on Twitter to see what they are working on.
I have a Twitter list of 60 people to follow in the tech and startup scene: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1540878174468317185
Why there has never been a better time
If all of this sounds like a lot to build, here is the good news. The cost of starting an internet business has fallen off a cliff. A decade ago you needed money, a team, and months of work to ship even a simple product. Today one person can build and launch a real thing in a weekend, often for the price of a domain name.
AI pushed this even further. You can use AI to write your first code, draft your copy, design your images, and answer your early support. The work that used to need a small team can now be done by you and a few cheap tools. That is why you keep seeing solo founders quietly making real money. It is not luck. The leverage available to one person has never been higher.
But do not confuse cheap building with easy winning. When anyone can build, building stops being the hard part. The hard part becomes finding a real problem, reaching the people who have it, and earning their trust. Those have not gotten easier, and AI cannot do them for you. That is exactly why the rest of this book spends so little time on tools and so much time on people, emails, customers, and persistence. The tools will keep changing. The fundamentals are what carry you.