Online Business Vs Offline Business

March 15, 2011 by 3 Comments

So, basically in this post we’re going to think about what makes an online business different from an offline business. This is Part 3 of How To Start an Online Business in Kenya.

Business is business everywhere you go, even “online”. You are basically selling something that people want. However, I would strongly argue that doing business “online” is better than doing it anywhere else. Why?

  1. It is relatively cheaper to start and run an online business. You can get started for as little as $25 (about Kshs 3,000/-) and your monthly costs could be even lower.
  2. It is also generally less difficult and easier to get people to visit your business premises – your website.
  3. It is generally easier to scale. You can have very many customers without investing in infrastructure to support them. While an “offline business” may need to get new offices to serve more people, you can just use your one website to serve more people. You can even serve all of them at the same time.
  4. You can do absolutely anything under the sun. There are endless options when choosing your business online. You can sell bananas, have a service based business, sell affiliate products or create websites that make money through the hundreds of different monetization options. What you can do is limited only by your ingenuity.

Unfortunately, this makes the idea of starting an online business so attractive that people think it is easy. This could not be more far away from the truth. I would strongly argue that doing business online is harder than doing it anywhere else because:

  1. While it is easy to get people to visit your website, it is quite difficult to convert these visitors into paying customers. In most cases, people find it easier to spend money “offline” than “online”.
  2. You are competing with the whole world. While a Nairobi-based business may have a few competitors in town, an online business probably has hundreds of competitors from all over the world.
  3. It is extremely easy to get distracted. There are so many options that many online business people simply get lost in trying to do everything.

I know you’ve read those stories – you know, those stories of people becoming millionaires overnight online. Exciting, eh? And to think that you could be next… it is indeed true that you can make millions online in a very short period of time. However, if you look closely at anyone who made millions online, you will discover:

  • That they are very smart and/or talented
  • That they followed a very strategic and focused plan
  • They work (or worked) VERY hard

As you think of doing online business, be prepared for the extremely hard work that you will have to do to see real success.

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Filed Under: Internet Culture, Make Money, Small Business

Social Media For Small Businesses

March 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I just came across a very interesting question on Quora:

Q. Social media is quite popular. However can a small business really make good use of it with limited time and resources?

Michael answers:

Having done business online as my sole occupation for over twenty years, never with more than three employees, I can speak to this subject with the advantage of a long-term perspective. Also, since my previous career was ten years as a Senior Vice President of a multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation, I have witnessed the marketing realm from the opposite extreme. With this as backdrop I can say, with some certainty, that social media is the most important and powerful innovation in online business history.

Here’s why:

  • The key to success online is the ability to be both effective and efficient. That is to get the right job done and the job done right. With social media it is possible to target your market with rifle-shot accuracy, engage with potential customers on a mass scale, provide workable solutions, and to perform these tasks without the huge capital outlay normally required.
  • Large companies are like Battleships on the open ocean. To make a change in strategy or tactics requires a long and cumbersome mid-course correction. Being small allows you to be nimble. Instead of mounting an expensive marketing campaign in a vacuum and waiting for long-term results, social media gives instantaneous feedback. An entire strategy can be reconfigured at a moments notice, and appropriate changes can be made with little delay and minor expense.
  • The technology tools are in constant transition. Today’s best solution (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) can and will change tomorrow. As a dedicated and small entrepreneur, it is possible to remain at the vanguard of technology from one day to the next, without a large employee base or stodgy corporate culture in your wake like an anchor.

Here’s how:

  • Engage, don’t sell. I won’t belabor this point, as it has been said by experts for a while now. Be creative and forget what you think you know about marketing. View your potential customer as a collaborator not a sales target. Follow the lead of thought-leaders like Scott Monty at Ford Motor Company and engage your customers from the beginning of the product-development cycle. Ask their opinions on how best to serve them, gain their trust and eventually the sales will occur naturally with little motivation from you.
  • Spend time improving your service and expertise, and while you are building a future receptive audience make your expertise available at no cost. Cultivate a long view of the process. Demonstrate leadership, not salesmanship.
  • Do something that matters. Care as much about the quality of the relationships, and your place as a member of the human family, as you do about your product and profits. Who you are is more important than what you sell.
  • Work hard. Be prepared for a period of sustained effort. Social media is simple, but it isn’t easy.

Follow these simple guidelines and success will catch up with your efforts before you know it. And once it overtakes you, it will be sustainable.

See the rest on Quora.

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Small Business

How To Make Money Online – For Absolute Beginners

February 25, 2011 by 6 Comments

When we set up this website, one of our primary goals was to teach people what we knew about making money online. This continues to be our goal – we would love to teach as many of our fellow Kenyans as possible. Over the years (its now been tow years!), by and large, we have achieved this goal. We’ve helped grow many business and shared our thoughts and ideas with even more.

However, we feel that even this is not enough. We have not been able to adequately address the needs of a person who is very new to the whole idea of earning online. What is the easiest way to start? How do you start? What do you do? Where do you go? We would love to answer these questions for everyone. we would love even more to take every one of these people by the hand and show them what to do, and how.

Alas, things have changed since the time when we started this website. We now get mountains of email daily and it is just too much work to be able to address everyone individually. And as you are aware, our previous efforts largely failed. Yes, I am talking about Biashara 30.

But we have a plan!
We have been secretly developing a resource – you may even call it an online course – that is targeted at absolute beginners. The aim of this resource would be to act as something of guide that will teach what we feel is the easiest and fastest way to make money online if you are a beginner. Sounds interesting? Here is what it will cover:

First, I must say that we believe the easiest and fastest way for absolute beginners to make a significant amount of money online is to get an “online job”. This is what will be the focal point of the guide, specifically:

  1. Getting Started : Understanding the freelance world – international business hours, worldwide clients, international currencies, language problems, range of clients (professional and personal), working at home (separating your home and work lives)…
  2. Preparation for working online: Study yourself, your abilities, what you will/can and won’t/can’t do (working hours/days, combining skills, price range). Are you more specialised in languages, programming, graphics, marketing, media… Several sectors or specialised. Qualifications, experience, references… Skills requested online – a few examples of sectors.
  3. Your Presentation: Photo, logo, profile, message presentation, website…How to write, what to write (and what not to write!)
  4. Where to work
  5. Employer relations: Clarity, efficiency and cordiality (explaining relations and approach, the employer’s point of view)
  6. Getting paid : Payment (online payment methods, payment through freelancer websites and withdrawals)
  7. Protection and Security: Escrow, feedback, work samples, privacy policy
  8. Copyright issues
  9. Etc

Why did we chose for this guide to be about getting an online job? If you go any site that deals with only jobs – freelancer.com, or guru.com, or elance.com, or anything else – then you will find that these sites are vibrant markets and that people make significant amounts of money through them. We believe that when you are getting started, making money through such sites is the easiest way that you can go. It also opens your eyes to see what can be done online and you will be able to later transition to doing something else.

What do you think? Interested? Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you can up to date on developments regarding this project.

Filed Under: Biashara 30, Internet Culture, Make Money

How WooThemes Quietly Built A $2+ Million Per Year Online Business

February 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

The WooThemes story is an incredible story right from here in Africa! This is the story of how a young South African built an online business that makes USD 2 million plus a year. You do not need to be in the USA or Europe and get massive amounts of funding to build a wildly successful online business. You just need to believe in yourself, and go do it!

Click here to go see the video interview with WooThemes co-founder that details how, exactly, they built their online business.

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Make Money, Small Business

Tandaa Symposium on Growing Your Brand Online

February 9, 2011 by 1 Comment

The content of this post is courtesy of Tandaa.

Delivering your brand promise in an increasingly digital world requires a whole new marketing strategy.

A recent TNS study* indicates that internet usage in Kenya has more than doubled in the last two years. An estimated 4 million Kenyans have access to the internet and according to TNS, 76% of Kenyan internet users are on Facebook. With increasing access to laptops, broadband internet and web enable mobile phones, Kenyan consumers are changing the way they interact with their favorite brands.

So should your brand be on Facebook? How should you manage your Twitter handle? The first Tandaa Symposium of the year will explore the opportunities and risks the Internet and social media offer Kenyan brands today.

The internet may seem like an overcrowded platform in which to compete. With real-time news, celebrity gossip and millions of intriguing web pages to browse–not to mention engaging and all consuming social media sites–attracting and holding consumer’s attention may seem like an uphill task. But today’s savvy marketing or brand manager must find innovative ways to maximize online spend in a crowded and competitive platform.

Beyond offering a platform to communicate your brand promise, the Internet, especially social networks, also offer the unique opportunity to better understand your customer. The data and insight from online social interaction with consumers can contribute significantly to how your company designs new products and campaigns.

Understanding how to effectively grow your brand online is therefore crucial for every marketing or brand manager. The Tandaa Symposium will give you insights on how to update your marketing strategy to make the most of today’s digital world.

Register Here.

Filed Under: Internet Culture

New Free WordPress e-Commerce Theme: Begi

February 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

Begi e-Commerce theme

Begi e-Commerce theme

Another day, another freebie 🙂

Begi is a clean, minimal and highly customizable WordPress e-commerce theme. It is based on Vanilla Cart whose development ceased a while ago.

Theme Features

  • Clean, minimal and stylish
  • Drop-down menu support
  • 2-column layout and widget-ready sidebar
  • Support for WordPress 3.0 custom menus
  • Support for custom backgrounds
  • Styled to work elegantly with DukaPress

View the live Demo
Download For Free

Simply put, this is a ready made online shop design that you can use for free, just download and set up! Here is how to get started in 10 minutes or less.

If you are familiar with WordPress, you may be interested to know that instead of downloading a whole new theme, you can use DukaPress Styles to make DukaPress look GOOD on your current theme.

Filed Under: Internet Culture Tagged With:

New Free WordPress Theme: Sanaa

January 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Sanaa DukaPress Theme

Yep, we have more freebies for you – another free DukaPress theme!

Sanaa is a WordPress e-commerce theme, powered by DukaPress, that is based on the old Crafty Cart. In the words of the original creator, “It’s a fresh flavoured retro style perfect for selling t-shirts and handmade items, designed to be a starting point for your online shop.”

Theme Features

  • Intriguing “retro” design
  • Drop-down menu support
  • 2-column layout and widget-ready sidebar
  • Support for WordPress 3.0 custom menus
  • Styled to work elegantly with DukaPress

View the live Demo
Download For Free

Filed Under: Internet Culture Tagged With: ,