The internet is barely a century old and it’s being used by more than 57% which is more than half the human race population and thanks to Google, Facebook and other Samaritan internet companies planning to distribute the internet across the globe in order to connect everyone together. What more can anyone starting an online business get from such a huge multitude of people…SALES!

While the primary agenda of every businesses is to sell more products by reaching out to more people, only a little amount of businesses gets the big share of the internet apple.

While many businesses struggle to make profit, the internet is still undeniably one of the best place to market a product for a bigger market reach. But the Internet as it is isn’t the starting point of every businesses.

If you want to start an online business, you need to first understand how the internet ecosystem works and then realize what it takes to survive the aggressive competition your infant business is about to face. As difficult as that might sound, it’s doable that’s the fact but it demands extra works. While that’s not a topic for today, the truth is that the internet is not the starting point for every businesses.

THE INTERNET IS CONGESTED

There is a saying that if Facebook had started in January 2015, there is a big chance it might never make a big mark again just as it did. You might want to argue that Instagram started in 2012 but remember this company is thriving under the umbrella and guard of Facebook.

With 4 Billion people using the internet everyday, it will be okay to say most of those people that utilizes the service are consumers that are either looking for entertainment and fun, looking for something to learn or something to buy.

While that sounds tempting, you might have to realize that majority of those people that visit the internet already have a place or two they visit each time they want to consume those categories of goods online. While Google users might appear like some aimless mad dogs who can’t even reason for themselves, you’ll be shocked that these people actually have a purpose and a particular thing they’re searching for.

Since majority of people are guilty of either not saving (bookmarking) a website they visited the last time for a good consumption, they certainly will have to Google again when next they’re looking for something similar or even that same thing hence the competition.

The internet’s competition is so fierce that any business without a good model and futuristic plans would fail even before it is launched. The congested internet is the reason why majority of internet businesses fail and the little that thrive makes a very big sales every year.

Even though there are numerous advertisements from many web hosting companies calling people to come online to establish their businesses, I can convincingly say that most of those are just sales strategies to bring people to their companies and make sales.

The over saturation of the internet’s information through to many people had made the internet a cheap place to hide out and create chaos in a modern civilized world. While I get lots of people asking me how they can easily create an online business presence that they can feed off and have a decent lifestyle through, My reply is always the same “Is the internet the right place for you?” Although my reply might be perceived as being bad or discouraging, the truth is Social media sites are the big players of the internet congestion that is taking businesses out of the internet.

Although everyone is doing businesses after all, whether it is Facebook.com or MyMomPrettyEyeBalls.com, but the fierce competition which is almost like a cutthroat can be seen in majority of these cases and since the world we live in is about survival of the strongest, then you should reconsider when thinking about starting an online business.

YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE SHADOW

It’s no longer news that there are thousands of small businesses or even single-owner businesses that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year all by staying under the shadows of the already bigger brands. I ones asked myself at some point if we are using the internet or we are using Google.

Because many people even mistook Google for the internet. That’s to tell you big and influential this company had become. I’d humbly state that Google decides even the future and success of businesses. And while Google doesn’t necessarily mean Google, owned by Alphabet, Inc., Google in this sense could mean anything like Search Engine and since many others don’t even know that Bing, Yahoo are search engines not to talk of DuckDuckGo or Yandex, Naver and those smaller country based search engines Google seems to be the umbrella term many use for search engine nowadays.

There are people that makes big bucks by just posting something funny on Instagram and turning it to a business. That’s the type of world we’re in today. While staying under the shadow doesn’t necessarily mean being defeated, it means you can create a big brand from an existing brand rather than creating a brand from scratch without any affiliation….see why Instagram went viral?

My point is whatever you want to create, it’s probably being created already or running at the top notch in the cyber space. While thorough research can get you a better idea of how the industry is going, you can as well leverage the existing platforms to create your very own business.

Let’s take a look at new industry like SEO for example, after the search engines went global, an industry was created around it entirely just as social media companies like YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat became popular. It’s worth noting that there are third-party services that makes using these platforms easier and better.

While I’m not trying to tell you to let go of your lifelong dream of maybe creating a better and faster Google Search engine alternative, you might want to consider how far Google has come and if your service is really going up against that.

PIRACY IS KILLING THE INTERNET

With such a large amount of users of the internet everyday, security is a very serious issue which shouldn’t be taken lightly. Thinking about bringing your business to such an unsafe environment mean you’ll have to invest more time and money in ensuring absolute security of your website which can be tricky and daunting unless you really can afford paying agencies to just monitor and fix everything on your behalf.

While privacy and identity theft are some of the few ways by which internet fraudsters defraud their victims, a recent scenario was with popular media company GSMArena whose YouTube ads revenue was hijacked for a whole year without the company knowing. FireEye, one of the biggest cybersecurity firm in the US got hacked and so many other big time hacking spree happening lately around the world.

Then you might get to ask yourself whether you even stand any chance of making it in such environment since the million-dollar investments that’s been built on the most secured infrastructures still got hacked out not to talk of your cheap hosting plan on GoDaddy right?

That might be a tough way to look at things which could derail your chance of ever trying to own an online business at all. Then there is the issue of complete dependence on bigger tech brands which you have to subscribe to their plans or get wiped out by serial cybercriminals.

THE TIME, MONEY AND THE DEDICATION

The internet is a very time consuming venue to build a business especially for a starter who have only little capital to work with. Starting on your own without any financial backup from any other bigger brand can be devastating especially if you’re the sole proprietor of your business.

Take an e-commerce business for example, you need to manage the inventory, customer service and support, have a better idea of webmaster tools and SEO, promote your products through social media platforms and with all that, you still need to be ultra-consistent with it else, your time will be wasted for no reason.

That is why it’s required to really be well prepared before taking on the internet business operations. And again, if you’re the type that gets discouraged easily due to failure, the internet business is not for you because you’ll fail many times when you’re starting your internet business especially as a bootstrap.

Which is why a diligent amount of hard work as well as dedication is required for the success of any online business in such a seriously toughened environment.

And lastly, you need to set aside some bucks to make things happen. For example, you need money to host your website, develop the website and even to market the business. In short, you can’t be 100% perfect in all of these fields that is why you always need n extra hand to help you out with getting the maximum number of viewers and visitors to your online business.

You must also think in the long-term because there are no shortcuts to online business success especially this time around when there are millions of others to compete with. While majority of the websites you’ll stumble across online are mediocre, being outstanding means you’re doing something differently from the rest of the pack.

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The deadly respiratory disease has sent the entire world economy down to recession with millions of jobs lost and hundreds of thousands of lives lost with millions of cases worldwide. Many small businesses were wiped out during the pandemic and majority of businesses that doesn’t have an existing internet recognition basically got ousted while companies like Amazon, Zoom, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other big tech companies continued to gulp up billions of dollars in revenue.

This is possible because of the human reliance on internet. Thanks to the internet, people were able to live through the pandemic, get to constantly stay in connection with their loved ones, have food to eat and something to get themselves entertained.

I believe the 2020 pandemic which isn’t over yet has thought a lot of entrepreneurs a lot of hard lessons to always prepare for the worst even when everything is always good and in difficult times comes difficult opportunities which can become a goldrush when crushed.

The internet will be a great place to start your business and that is the fact. Meanwhile there is more to it than just setting up a WordPress website on a US$1.99 webhosting plan. You need to do more in terms of researching the industry and how to be outstanding in the market.

Value is the key to every business success and when you find the value to render to your audience, they’ll definitely pay you for our service. Amazon is known for always delivering as quick as possible which is very necessary during the pandemic.

Gyms, restaurants and parks were closed which means owners of such businesses need to innovate and adapt to the new dynamics, Apple took over that opportunity with the Health+ app whereby people continue to get professional tutorial about healthy living all virtually without needing to physically meet their fitness instructors.

Adaptability is the key because the truth is things will always change and whenever such happen, those who can adapt survives while those who couldn’t will get wiped out to the background. And that is why you need to understand the dynamics and how well to place yourself in the ever changing world.