Startups.ie

[business man]

I am interested in setting up a online business but I am not sure what I should set up. Has anyone any ideas? I dont really care what the business would sell as long as it would have a chance of doing well in this bad economic climate. All ideas welcome. Thanks

[Stephen]

Hi Business Man,

Thanks for your post. Well the good news is that it has never been easier or cheaper to start a business online. Programmes like Wordpress have made the process of getting online much much easier. In fact with a bit of determination you could have a new online business up and running by Monday if you wanted..

I dont really care what the business would sell as long as it would have a chance of doing well

To be honest I really think that you should have some interest/knowledge of the product or service that you are intending to sell otherwise you will probably lose interest after a couple of weeks. I have set up websites in areas that I enjoy namely entrepreneurship and wine. As I am passionate about both of these subjects I enjoy 'working' on the sites. So my advice is to start looking at what you are good at/ passionate about. Thousands of people have thrown up sites trying to sell DVD's, books etc in the hopes of making a quick buck 99.9% make nothing.

If you are still totally stuck for any ideas try searching overseas i.e www.google.com.au in Australia and search top new online business etc and see if some bright spark over there has hit upon something that you could replicate here...

Hope this helps,

S

[Vin.f]

My advice would be to find a niche, something that is relatively underdeveloped but has enough resources available to make a real go at it or something that hasn't been developed at all but there is a need.
I usually go through a thought process at the start, in a field I'm very comfortable with and then try and find some gap in the market. Then I head to [url =https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal] googles keyword tool[/url] and start researching specific keywords for that niche, Ill take the most searched keyword and then search through google itself to see what pages come up, If only a handful of pages come up then there's a very good chance that you could succeed if you develop, if nothing really relative comes up, you've found your niche!
I know your looking for ideas but once you start researching, the thought process evolves along with your ideas and your understanding of that "need", eventually you should have a great idea come to mind that will have you chomping at the bit.

But, as Stephen put it, you really need to be passionate about what your going to develop.

[Barry]

Hi Business Man,

I've going to reiterate what the others have said: what are your passions? What areas of that passion are under-explored? Can you become the expert in that niche in Ireland?

An example, a friend of mine loves wine and is a young guy (~24). He thought that, in Ireland, wine is associated with stuffy red-nosed snobs who use words like "robust" or "assertive" to describe a wine. He felt that Joe O'Soap, who likes wine but is slightly intimidated by the wine culture, didn't have a resource that dispelled wine myths and brought them through the basics of wine appreciation. So, with the view of becoming a respected resource in the industry and finding a career in the future in an area that he loves, he started a blog http://www.mygrapeescape.ie. He has since been sent crates of wine and brought on an all-expenses-paid tour of a French vineyard.

Passion plus perseverance equals success.

Good luck with the brainstorming.

Barry

[healthwebsite]

Dear Business Man,

Starting an online business can be challenging,i.e. finding a good web developer, hosting, web address, etc. I have an idea for a business that you could start, but I would rather discuss it with you via email. This is a membership style website which affords you the opportunity to receive residual income, and there is no merchandise involved (meaning you don't have to deal with drop shippers, or trying to figure out where to store the items you are trying to sell). Please contact me at laurieed2002@hotmail.com and we can discuss further, my concept. I hope to hear from you soon....