10 Common Mistakes to Avoid as a First-Time Online Entrepreneur
Trial and error is an inevitable cycle in online business
Most people start their online venture with a problem-solving idea and a zest for location independence, flexibility, and access to global markets.
Whether you’re into blogging, e-commerce, content creation, or web development, online business has a lot going for it.
Lots of novices, however, fail to elevate their project to the next level. This often stems from rookie mistakes such as not devising a long-term growth strategy, not getting proper assistance, or shoving out too many freebies.
For most successful online entrepreneurs, these missteps are part of the inescapable journey of trial and error. They are, nonetheless, avoidable.
Throughout my 5+ years in online business, I’ve made most of these errors at least once.
In hindsight, I see them as useful but not ineludible. If you comprehend their nature and motives early on, you might be able to bypass them.
On this basis, try to avoid these 10 mistakes commonly made by first-time online entrepreneurs.
1. Not planning long term
Most online ventures are characterized by 3 stages. The launch phase, the grinding phase, and the sunrise.
According to many authoritative resources, the sunrise — that is, the moment your income soars over your living costs — will only occur after around 1,000 days.
This is why your long-term plan needs to be in place from the moment you press start.
Let’s take the example of a personal development blog. You’ve launched your blog with an ample assortment of in-depth articles and you know which topics you want to discuss.
Your monetization tools include ads and affiliate links. You know that your ideas will last for approximately one year if you publish 3 articles a week.
Fast forward 12 months and you’re facing a wall of obstacles. For your blog to succeed, you’ll require a powerful SEO strategy. Your posts will need to put down long-lasting roots on Google’s page 1.
You also need to think about the perdurable value of your blog.
Is most of your content evergreen? Did you plan for niche-related guest posts and insightful quotations on your site? Did you set out ideas to expand your topics in case of readership drought for one particular subject?
All of these questions will pop up once your blog enters the grinding phase. And this is exactly where most bloggers fail.
During the launch phase, everything looks rosy and you become blinded by growth in traffic and social media following.
Many bloggers, however, lack a long-term strategy to navigate the grinding phase. This is why they won’t be around when the sun eventually rises.
2. Waiting too long to launch
The decision on when to launch is a common struggle among first-time online entrepreneurs.
Let me tell you a little secret. There is no such thing as the perfect moment to get your product out into the world.
You might wonder whether you should start your online store with 5, 10, or 20 products. You aren’t sure how many videos you should have on your Youtube channel before sharing it with your friends.
All of these questions beat around the bush. The timing of your launch is important, but the quality and desirability of your products and services will ultimately determine their commercial success.
Whatever your business, you will progressively enlarge your offer and your first product will never remain your only product. This is why you should launch as soon as reasonably possible.
To help you some more with the timing of your launch, consider the following points:
- readiness: this goes without saying. You don’t want to launch an unfinished product. It doesn’t have to be perfect — it will never be — but it should be ready for the public.
- external circumstances: the Covid-19 crisis might not be the best time to launch a new travel app.
- your plans: find out what date suits you best. It most definitely won’t be your kid’s birthday.
- selling periods: if you are selling a specific product — prints of your photography for example — there are certain periods of the year during which you’ll have a bigger chance of succeeding. Christmas and Easter are generally good times for those types of products. In addition to that, Mondays are usually seen as the worst days to launch a new product.
3. Trying to do everything yourself
Going in all alone is doable in the beginning, but at some point, you’ll need an extra pair of hands.
Like in any brick and mortar business, the larger your enterprise becomes, the more you’ll need assistance in the form of people managing your communications, your finances, and your administration.
Sure, it’s practically impossible to hire a virtual assistant in your first 6 months. The financial strains are too tight and the project doesn’t show signs of requiring external support. This, however, will change at some point.
A good rule of thumbs is to consider hiring someone when you realize that you are spending more than half of your time on work that isn’t related to your main activity.
For instance, a consultant who spends more hours with taxes, client communication, and sponsors than actual consulting should consider hiring a VA.
4. Giving up too soon
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ―Confucius
This might be the single biggest mistake first-timers make in the world of online business. Your revolutionary idea takes time to get off the ground and you start to feel crestfallen.
My grand plan will never materialize, and I will have to go back to that evil boss who fired me 2 months ago.
This brings us back to the supreme importance of having a long-term strategy. Whatever you do, there will be bumps along the way and you’ll have to surmount them.
The good news is that lows are generally followed by highs — it’s a matter of not succumbing to small failures.
This reminds me of a friend of mine who makes travel videos on Youtube.
In the early days of her channel, her family was very critical of her “exposition” and the videos rarely surpassed 1,000 views. She soldiered on.
After quitting her job in 2017, she traveled to places like India, Kazakhstan, and Thailand to work on her videos and to become a respected member of the Youtube community.
The first few months abroad were tough. Her channel started to grow but her expectations had been shattered. She was robbed twice, threatened by stalkers, and she had to face a near-death experience.
Her best friend told me that she was in tears, ready to come home and give up for good. At the end of the day, she didn’t.
2019 became her best year and her channel finally made enough for her to travel and live comfortably. Her videography skills improved and she became better at managing the safety aspect of her trips.
She now has over 100,000 subscribers and a decent income. Why? Because She didn’t quit. And neither should you.
5. Not managing the finances properly
Lots of aspiring entrepreneurs are lured into online ventures by low financial barriers.
I will only need a few hundred dollars to start my online business.
This might apply at the outset, but the more your undertaking grows, the more you’ll need investment and proper financial management. The same goes for taxes.
As a colleague of mine once said, “Three things are certain in online business: death, taxes, and newbies not managing their finances properly.”
I never had problems with this because I have a background in financial law. Before and during my first side hustles, I worked in financial management and tax law. Surveying the health of my finances was nothing new to me.
Lots of content creators, however, are so obsessed with their art that they neglect the boring part. The consequences can be profound.
On this basis, set out a financial plan from day one and get your taxes in order before enjoying substantial cash flows.
Let’s put it this way: if a river risks flooding, you build a dam. You don’t wait until the flooding destroys every surrounding village. The dam won’t have much to protect afterward.
6. Getting stuck on details
Another major struggle faced by first-time online entrepreneurs is the obsession with details.
I’ve been there. I remember spending 7 hours on potential fonts for my new blog. My clock suddenly revealed that I had wasted an entire day.
The next day, I devised a plain solution. I looked at a few blogs I liked, inspected their fonts, and used similar ones. Problem solved.
On par with the headaches of launch dates, details often prevent creators from producing high volumes of content.
How do we tackle this predicament?
There is no wonder weapon, but the most effective way is to settle for the 80 % rule. Ask five trustworthy people whether they would launch the product or service in its current state. If 4 out of 5 acquiesce, you’re good to go.
7. Giving away too much for free
Inexperienced online entrepreneurs sometimes forget that they are running a business, not a charity.
This might sound harsh, but there is no point in giving your audience everything for free. The challenge resides in identifying the right moment to charge your customers.
One method that worked well for me is the clear separation between free and premium services.
If you own a content-focused business with a large audience, at some point, you’ll need to operate this division to remain profitable.
This could involve a paid subscription section on your blog, online courses with your most instructive material, or a Patreon account.
8. Not thinking enough about the customer
“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” — Jeff Bezos
Us writers are especially guilty of this. We love our words and we treasure our messages. We believe in writing first and selling later.
If my articles are well-written, unique, and valuable, people will read them.
Unfortunately, the “built it and they will come” strategy can only take you so far. No matter how great your product is, you’ll need to solve a problem that customers have.
I realize that it’s a tad overwhelming in the beginning. You simply want to produce fresh and engaging content without thinking too much about the reception.
This will work for a couple of months, but if you are serious about turning your activity as a content creator into a prosperous business, you have to put customers first.
In this context, wrapping up a couple of freelance gigs in your respective fields can help you identify customers’ needs.
9. Not networking enough
Many of us enter the online world because we like to work alone. Some of us might be perennial loners, others might simply enjoy the company of themselves.
We are not cocktail party aficionados and we despise cubicles. All well and good, but this shouldn’t prevent us from networking amongst one another.
No matter which online sector you’re in, there will be like-minded individuals who can help you progress.
Whether you like networking or not, it will undoubtedly save you heaps of time, money, and effort if you can utilize the knowledge and skills of a competent peer to advance your quest.
Vice versa, the experience you get from helping someone who might not be on your level is an underrated source of soft skills.
Stop thinking about competition and start sharing your knowledge. As long as you don’t possess the recipe for Coca Cola, nobody will steal your ideas.
People will, on the other hand, give you something back tomorrow if you help them today.
10. Trying too hard to be different
In online business, the second mouse often gets the cheese. Lots of young, hungry entrepreneurs want nothing more than to revolutionize a niche or to create a new one.
In short, newbies are trying to reinvent the wheel.
This modus operandi hardly ever bears fruits. The more feasible approach is to enter an existing niche and to find your angle.
As an example, some of the most successful authors today — people like Tim Ferriss — entered the personal growth niche between 2005 and 2010.
They didn’t dream that topic up. They merely had an interesting standpoint on existing issues.
By forging their particular path inside an already flourishing niche, they managed to get their message across to a pre-established customer base.
The main challenge was to sell an improved version of a well-known product. That’s what Ferriss did with his first book.
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