Thread by @DennisDemori

Things You Definitely Don't Need To START An Online Business:

- A VA
- A logo
- A website
- Paid traffic
- An email list
- A ton of money
- A vision statement
- A mission statement
- Social media accounts
- Fancy proposal or invoicing software

Things You Definitely DO Need To START An Online Business:

- A target audience (with a problem)
- An offer (your solution)
- A way to find clients/customers
- A way to close these customers (sales)
- A way to communicate your message (copywriting)
- A way to collect $$ (Paypal)

If you're focusing on anything in the 1st list, I just saved you a shitload of time

Time you can be using to make money

I've made a lot of those mistakes myself

Because you tell yourself that you're starting a "business" but let's be real - it's not a Fortune 500 company

So you can even forget the idea that you're starting a business

You just need to find customers/clients who'll pay you money

That's it

Without sales, you aren't going anywhere

Worry about all the "formalities" later when you have consistent money coming in

If you're just getting started and you're "working on your business" you're probably working on a lot of the wrong things

You need to be OK with saying "No"

You need to be OK with not doing certain things (for now)

You need to be OK with ignoring a lot of stuff other biz have

Another one I forgot:

Don't waste time with a business plan

Especially in the beginning, you have no idea what you're doing

You're going to experiment and fail constantly

Which means your "plan" will also change constantly as you adapt

Here's what you DO need:

A MARKETING PLAN

And it doesn't have to be a 10 page document

Just a few sentences that tell me:

What are you selling?
To who?
How?
And why should they buy from you?

Forget about all this formal business stuff you THINK you need to get started

- Think small

- Think fast

- Think scrappy

You need sales and you need momentum

- Constant marketing

- Constant conversations

- Constant audience building

Rinse and repeat

You're going to do the same exact marketing activities every week

For most of you, that means:

- Creating content
- Talking to potential clients/customers
- And... that's it

That's all you have to do

Pull them in with content + sell them

Rinse and repeat

What's one of the key lessons in this thread?

Business is SEQUENTIAL

In other words, you need to go through growth stages

Walk before you crawl

Because certain things are important at certain stages while other things are less important

Like math, you're not going to learn advanced concepts unless you've learned the fundamentals

And every stage of your business builds on the stages that came before it

If you're doing activities that don't DIRECTLY impact sales, you should probably cut them out (for now)