Have you ever asked this question and been stumped by one answer or another? I most certainly have! So how does this apply to creating an online business?
What I’ve learned in creating an online business is that you can go two ways to start. You can come up with the business model first or the idea first. I personally prefer to add a little something else in there as well, which is to figure out which market you’ll be targeting. Who’s your ideal buyer persona? Does your market have the compatibility to fulfill your goals? How big or small can it be? In asking questions about which market we’re going to target we can decide which location is going to work best. The cool thing about an online business is that you can be living in Texas and be targeting people in Brazil or in the UK. The flexibility is immersible, but the target we pick will make a big difference.
To answer whether an idea or a model is better, I would answer that by saying that it depends! For example, if you’re thinking of a totally new product that has never existed then you might focus on the idea in order to not miss out on your window of opportunity. You’ll only have so much time before it’s taken so act quick! If you want to create a business that is in competition with an existing product and already has a good market, then maybe a model might be the way to go. Doing so will give you time to figure out where your finances will be distributed, if you can afford it, and what kind of strategy you’re going to use.
Here are a couple articles that our Web Business Creation class used to know what business models are on the web and what kind of ideas you can generate.
What would say is most important? Creating a model or focusing on an idea first?
Alex's Web Business Experiences 