How to Evaluate a Business Opportunity Before You Start

How to Evaluate a Business Opportunity Before You Commit Your Time and Money:

How to Evaluate a Business Opportunity Before Starting an Online Business

I recently published a book on Kindle dissecting the most popular business opportunities online, and why some advice you get doesn’t fit the scenario or choice you are thinking about.

Before you start, I want to tell you a little about why I wrote this book. I’ve been working online for decades. During that time, I’ve experimented with a lot of different ways to make money online.

• I’ve tried things.
• Some worked.
• Some didn’t.
• Some made money.
• Some made very little.

Some consumed far more time, effort and energy than I ever expected, and caused me a great deal of stress and frustration when they didnt work at all….

That’s one of the reasons I wrote this book and its to help others avoid bad choices and decisions…There is certainly no shortage of information about making money online. There are books, courses, YouTube videos, blogs, social media posts, success stories and countless people explaining why their particular method works.

Some of that information is genuinely useful, and some of it isn’t. Sometimes the problem isn’t that the information is completely wrong. The problem is what it leaves out. The online world is also full of advertisements making big promises about how easy it is to make money. Some are simply misleading. Others can be outright scams.

But even when an opportunity is completely legitimate, there’s often another problem. You don’t necessarily discover what’s underneath the promise until you’ve already invested your time, your money and your energy. That’s the part of online business I want to examine in this book.

1. Not just what the opportunity promises.
2. What you’re actually signing up for.
3. business opportunities.

If you’ve ever searched online for ways to make money, work from home, start an online business or build something of your own, you’ve probably seen the promises.

• “Earn commissions by recommending products.”
• “Become a freelancer.”
• “Build a YouTube channel.”
• “Sell digital products.”
• “Start dropshipping.”
• “Become a virtual assistant.”
• “Build an AI business.”
• “Create an online course.”
• “Publish books.”
• “Work remotely.”

All of those statements can be technically true, but none of them tells you what you’re actually signing up for. That’s the part I’m interested in.

The headline isn’t the whole opportunity!

A business opportunity can sound incredibly simple when it’s reduced to one sentence.

1. Become a freelancer.
2. Sell digital products.
3. Publish books.
4. Build an AI business.

But what happens after you decide to try? That’s where things get interesting…

• What work appears?
• What skills suddenly become important?
• What costs arrive?
• What assumptions have you unknowingly made?
• Where does the customer come from?
• Where does the money actually come from?

How long might it take before you have meaningful evidence that the idea is working? What do people discover only after they’ve already committed their time, money and energy?

That information is often much harder to find than the original promise.

I’m not going to tell you which opportunity is best…

1. This is where Book Two deliberately takes a different approach.
2. I’m not going to rank the opportunities.
3. I’m not going to tell you which one you should choose.
4. I’m not going to pretend that one business model is automatically right for everybody.
5. I’m going to dissect them.

The book examines ten real-world opportunities that people regularly consider when they’re looking for ways to earn money, build something of their own or work online. Each opportunity goes through essentially the same examination.

We’ll look at:

• The promise
• The actual work
• The hidden work
• The skills and requirements
• The assumptions
• The real costs
• Where the money comes from
• Where customers come from
• What evidence matters
• The smallest sensible test
• What might make you continue, change direction or stop

The objective isn’t to prove that an opportunity is good or bad. It’s to understand what the opportunity actually requires.

Before committing months of your life to an idea, what is the smallest sensible way to find out more?

• What can you test?
• What can you learn?
• What would count as useful evidence?
• And what would tell you that you need to change direction?

My experience is included — but it isn’t a prediction…

At the beginning of each chapter, you’ll also find my personal notes. I’ll tell you whether I’ve personally tried that particular opportunity, whether it worked for me and whether I made any money from it.

But I’m not presenting my experience as proof of what will happen to you.  Your circumstances are yours.

That’s important. I’ve spent a very long time around online business. I’ve tried different approaches, made mistakes, learned things the hard way and discovered that some opportunities look very different once you’re actually doing the work.

You don’t need another person telling you what to do!

You need better questions.

1. Is this opportunity suitable for my circumstances?
2. Do I have the skills it requires?
3. Can I afford the real cost?
4. Where will my customers come from?
5. What am I actually going to have to do every week?
6. What evidence would convince me that it’s worth continuing?
7. What would make me change direction?

And perhaps: What would make me stop? Don’t blindly follow the advice. Examine it first.

My book simply takes that approach and applies it to ten business and income opportunities that people are already considering. Click below to grab it and save yourself a whole lot of trial and error.