In case of home business, I am always wary of pre-launch hype from marketers I have never heard of. If they don’t have a name in business, how do I know their product will be any good? It could just be a way to get information, get you to download something, etc., rather than introduction of a real, quality product. Pre-launch marketing does get used by reputable marketers too, but not very often. After all, if you’re offering a quality product do you really need to get people excited about it before they can see it. It might be fun, but not all that necessary. Pre-launch hype also has a way of annoying potential customers, as they wade through months of excessive advertising and spam about product. It generally makes much more sense for a company to launch a product when ready, rather than give a buyer time to change his or her mind because they’re tired of hype.

There is no guarantee, however, that a given opportunity is a scam just because it looks like one. It is possible to misjudge, but you have to decide if you would rather miss an opportunity that could hurt you financially or destroy your reputation if it is a scam than take a chance on it. If too many warning flags go up, it is probably not worth it in my opinion, but you have to decide for yourself.

2) Products: a) If you are planning to sell some type of product on your site, you are going to have to find a place to get these products. There are a lot of companies that will “drop ship” their products for you. It’s really simple: You sell their product on your site, you collect money from your customer, you place order for this product from your supplier and they package and ship product straight to your customer. Most of them will even show your company name as return address. You pay your supplier wholesale cost of products sold and you keep difference between retail prices you charged your customers. b) Affiliate programs go beyond drop ship companies. You promote their products, customer clicks on your link to purchase product and affiliate company will handle payment, ship order, and send you a commission check. c) Drawbacks: Making sure your supplier has product readily available when your customer is ready to purchase.

3) Advertising: a) There are tons of places online that you can place free classified ads. Simply do a search on your favorite search engine and you can spend days submitting ads all over Internet for your product or service. b) Search engines: Getting your site listed in major search engines is a must. But once you get them listed, will anyone know you’re there? Think about your own search habits. When was last time you searched through more than a few pages of results to find what you were looking for? Optimizing your website to get high search engine rankings can be a VERY time consuming affair. There are many resources available to help, but it still requires a lot of time. c) Traffic Exchanges: You can join one or more of many different free traffic exchange programs. Simply put, you click on other websites to earn credits. When you earn credits, you site is listed on site and some one else will click on your site to get their credits. d) Drawbacks: Free advertising can and does work but it will cost you a lot of time in process.

In conclusion, I would say that yes, a person can indeed build an online business without a monetary investment. But going into it with some foreknowledge of necessary personal characteristics, process and time investments can aid you in being successful. Be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time. Search out many free programs and make decisions wisely. Even though program may not cost you money, it will cost you time.

One last recommendation if you are considering trying this method: when you begin to see a profit, immediately invest a percentage of that money back into your business. You’ll soon start to realize that many of necessary business-building routes become shorter when you buy resources rather than rely solely on free ones. Your business will still have not cost you anything “out of your own pocket”, as you’ll be utilizing your first profits made from your time investments.