When the pandemic took the world by surprise, many people were forced to find new ways to make money and pay their bills. Small businesses shut their doors, leaving management and hourly employees scrambling for income. Restaurants transitioned from full dining room staffs to skeleton crews serving limited menus through delivery services or curbside pickup orders. People who always dreamed of being their own boss suddenly had the freedom to make that happen.
Now that the pandemic is winding down, restaurants have full dining rooms daily, and business is returning to the office, you may think you missed your opportunity to start a business. Maybe you worked your way through the pandemic while watching your friends launch businesses or start lucrative gigs on the side. Perhaps you simply binge watched Netflix and enjoy some much-needed downtime, making the most of bad times.
Either way, your opportunity didn’t pass. It’s still there. In fact, there are some compelling reasons to create your booking pages and start your online business right now.
The World is Opening Up Again
Starting a business during the pandemic was challenging. While many people had more free time than ever, they were also locked in their homes due to business closures and curfews. That means walking into a store to buy the technology they needed or traveling to network with others wasn’t possible. Entrepreneurs were making their businesses happen entirely online while battling anxiety, depression, and all the emotional health issues that come with isolation and stress.
You have the advantage of “open” signs everywhere at this point. You can still operate entirely online and have no need for office space or a storefront, but you can travel beyond your home as needed to get your business started quickly.
Do you want to monetize a travel blog? Now is the perfect time because you’re free to travel with limited restrictions.
Do you have a great idea for a podcast that interviews educators, healthcare workers, or everyday people? This is a great time because you can network and meet a variety of people in daily life.
Even if your business idea doesn’t require interaction beyond the internet, you can still benefit from shared coworking office space or simply open stores for the technology or office supplies you may need.
Do you dream of working from the beach or while traveling around the world? That dream is back now that the world is opening up with lifted restrictions on travel.
You Know What You Want Now
If there is one thing most of us had more time to do during the height of the pandemic, it’s think. Lockdowns forced many people into periods of isolation or limited social interaction. When you spend more time on your own, introspection is a natural result. You may have started out feeling relieved for some downtime from work, but with time, your brain likely turned to dissecting what makes you happy and not so happy in life.
All of that introspection may have increased your clarity on what you want from life and work. You have a great business idea or simply know that you want to build a business that helps others or disrupts a certain industry. Whatever it is, you now have a better idea of what you want to do with your life.
All you have to do is drum up the courage to take the first steps and make it happen. That’s a powerful place to find yourself because you don’t have to spend time figuring out what to do. It’s just a matter of doing it, and now is the best time to act.
And You Know How to Prepare for the Worst
On top of a deeper understanding of what you want from life or in business, you’re likely exiting the pandemic with a new appreciation of the good times. You’ve been caught off guard and forced to pivot out of your comfort zone to survive. You’ve seen many other businesses falter because they weren’t prepared for hard times or couldn’t find a way to pivot into new territory successfully.
You can bring that understanding into your new business venture. You’re likely to start this new business with your eye on preparing for the worst. Working online is a start because future tragedies like the pandemic aren’t likely to interrupt an online business. You can take that even further by finding ways to shield your business against a variety of obstacles.
Keep your eye open for potential saboteurs and find ways to protect yourself before the worst happens. You’ll have a stronger business as a result.
Everyone is Online
The world was turning to online marketplaces long before the pandemic, but COVID pushed things along at an accelerated pace. More people than ever opened their minds to grocery and food delivery in addition to online shopping. We found new ways to buy things online that were previously thought of as only possible through in-person shopping. Sellers got more creative and buyers got accustomed to the convenience of ordering everything online.
Now that the world is opening back up, that thirst for convenience isn’t going away. Many people will continue to turn to the internet when they need to buy an item, sign up for a service, or find a creative solution to a big problem. That means your online business has a bigger audience than ever.
Social Media Interaction is Exploding
What happens when millions of people are locked in their homes for months or years with limited social interaction? In the technology age, those people find ways to connect from a distance. Many people got through lockdowns by turning on their video cameras and connecting with others through social media.
Millions tuned in to watch lives on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram when they were unable to meet friends for happy hour or even visit their grandparents in a nursing home. Many of those viewers are still using those social apps to connect with others and even discover new products and services. Interactive social media is only starting to develop.
What does that mean for you creating an online business now? It gives you so many opportunities to connect with your audience and put a relatable face to your new brand. It also allows you to create marketing campaigns around live broadcasts or video clips containing images and music with a little text. You don’t have to show your face or use your own voice to successfully market on social media.
If you are willing to show your face to promote, then simple things like answering questions from curious viewers to cooking tutorials in your own kitchen will grab attention fast. Throw in some plugs for your new business once you get people curious about who you are and what you’re doing in life.
Prices are Going Up Everywhere
Are you feeling the pinch each time you go to the supermarket or buy new clothing? From housing to everyday expenses like gas and food, most consumers are feeling the pain of inflation. If you’re rethinking your budget and spending a bit less on luxury expenses, you aren’t alone. That just makes now the best time to launch a new business online.
For starters, many online businesses can deliver some monetary rewards rather quickly. You don’t have the expense of renting space and setting up offices or buying merchandise to fill a local store. While most online businesses do come with some startup costs, there are many options that allow you to get going quickly with a simple website and perhaps some booking pages and knowledge of online sales funnels.
Now is the time to start supplementing your income with your own business. Starting now will require you to do as much as possible yourself while getting smart and creative with marketing. You may rely more on your own face and voice through social media than paid ads. The great news is that you have those options and new businesses can survive difficult financial times thanks to the many resources available online.
The sooner you start your new business, the sooner you start earning modest profits. Those profits will grow to create greater financial stability for yourself and your loved ones.
Support for New Ventures is High
For entrepreneurs starting businesses prior to the pandemic, success was often defined as a solitary or even lonely experience. Stories of friends and family members who never visited a loved one’s new website or purchased their products were everywhere. So many new online business owners wondered why their success brought little encouragement and support from loved ones.
That was back when working online wasn’t as common or as well understood. The idea of working for yourself online or even traveling while earning money was envied. Many people didn’t understand how it was possible, let alone how it all worked or how much support was needed to start turning a profit.
Today, starting an online business is a lot more common. Most people know at least one person who makes most if not all of their money through the internet. Securing a home or auto loan while working side gigs or working as an independent contractor or sole proprietor is easier than ever.
Many people are more willing to invest in small businesses because they now have a greater appreciation of the struggle and understanding of how it all works. Now that so many people were pushed into exploring alternative ways to make money, the concept of working for yourself is familiar. Support for local ventures is growing because so many people have benefited from that support themselves.
Launching is Easier than Ever
The 7 Day Startup by Dan Morris outlines a fast but ambitious process to launch a new business in just one week. The idea is to create the very basic version of your product and get it into the existence quickly. You don’t spend time testing ideas or agonizing over packaging or changing the words on your website 100 times. You simply put together a basic version of your vision and get it out there quickly.
Once you launch, you can see how your product or service is experienced by real buyers. That gives you the information you need to adjust your business for growth. You have a viable business in under a month if not from that first week.
How is this possible? It can happen today in many industries due to the technology available to all new business owners. You can set up a website or blog in a single afternoon with all the social media accounts you need for marketing in place. YouTube will walk you through endless technological dilemmas while online guides help you find opportunities for peer funding and small business loans.
You can even hire virtual assistants to help you jumpstart your business quickly. If you have the startup capital, you can even work with social media influencers and affiliate marketers to gain traction quickly. Setting up booking pages, filling your blog, and writing emails for your marketing funnel are all things that you can do with the help of an experienced assistant or writer.
Everything you need to launch quickly is out there right now, and it doesn’t cost as much as you might think.
Where Do You Start?
Once you decide now is the time to start a new business, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed or a bit intimidated. After all, you already have competitors and they are so far ahead of you, right?
Take a few deep breaths and forget about your competitors for now. They all started exactly where you need to start now: an idea to solve a problem that many people are struggling with right now.
Yes, you just need to focus on developing one idea that will work well for an online business. Once you know what problem you’re going to solve and your solution for the problem, you can start thinking about ways to beat your competitors and grow with time.
For now, simply develop your idea. If you already have an idea, then it’s time to take action. You can’t do it all today, but there is something that you can accomplish before bedtime.
