When I first started trying to build an online business, I thought I needed to have all the pieces figured out.
What sort of website should I build? How would I get traffic? What should I write about? Which tools do I need? How do I build an email list?
There was always something else that seemed important.
The trouble was, I was trying to answer all those questions before I’d answered a much simpler one:
What am I actually trying to build?
It’s surprisingly easy to get busy building an online business without having a clear answer to that.
And when you don’t, every new idea can look like something worth pursuing. A different business model. Another traffic method. A new tool. Another course promising a better way.
What I was missing was a foundation.
Not a perfect business plan or something that had every detail worked out. Just enough clarity about who I wanted to help, what I wanted to help them with, and how I intended to help them.
That’s the starting point we’re going to look at in this article.
Because once those basic pieces start to become clear, it’s much easier to decide what deserves your attention — and what doesn’t.
Start With Clarity
One of the traps when you’re starting out is thinking you need to have everything worked out before you can move forward.
You don’t.
But it does help to have a reasonable answer to three simple questions.
Who am I trying to help?
You don’t need a perfectly researched customer avatar or a detailed description of your ideal reader. You just need a reasonable idea of the type of person you’re trying to reach.
What problem am I helping them solve?
People generally look for information, products and recommendations because they’re trying to move from where they are now to somewhere better.
What are they struggling with that you may be able to help with?
How am I going to help them?
That might be through useful content, affiliate recommendations, your own products or services, training, tools, or some combination of them.
You don’t have to decide what your business will look like forever. Your direction may change as you learn more.
The important thing is having enough direction to start building with a purpose.
Not Everything Deserves Your Attention
This is where having that basic clarity starts to become useful.
Online business has no shortage of opportunities.
You’ll come across new ways to get traffic, different software, new business models and plenty of things that look as though they could be worth trying.
Some of them probably are.
But that doesn’t mean they’re right for what you’re trying to build.
Instead of asking:
Could I do this?
you can start asking:
Does this help me build the business I’ve decided to build?
That’s a very different question.
It gives you a way of judging new ideas against something rather than treating every new opportunity as another possible direction.
And sometimes the most useful decision you can make is deciding that a new opportunity doesn’t need your attention at all.
You Don’t Need to Have Everything Worked Out
Getting clear about what you’re building doesn’t mean getting everything exactly right before you begin.
You need clarity, not certainty.
Your direction will become clearer through experience — creating content, learning more about the people you’re trying to help, and seeing what they respond to.
Some things will change along the way. That’s fine.
The aim isn’t to lock yourself into one path. It’s simply to have enough direction to take the next sensible step.
A Simple Foundation Check
There’s a simple way to see whether you’ve got enough clarity to move forward.
Try completing this sentence:
I want to help _____________ who struggle with _____________ by helping them _____________.
Don’t worry about making it sound clever.
This isn’t a slogan or something you need to put on your website.
It’s simply a way of checking whether you can explain, in plain language, who you’re trying to help, what they’re struggling with and how you intend to help them.
If you can do that, you probably have enough of a foundation to start building.
And if you can’t yet, that may be a more useful place to spend some time than adding another tool, traffic source or piece of content.
Know What You’re Building
It’s easy to spend a lot of time working on an online business without ever really asking what you’re trying to build.
I know I did.
There was always another tool to look at, another traffic method to consider or another idea that seemed worth pursuing.
Having some clarity doesn’t make all of those choices disappear.
But it does give you something to judge them against.
You don’t need to know exactly what your business will look like a year from now.
You just need enough direction to know what makes sense for you now.
Maybe that’s the simplest way to think about it.
Know what you’re building before you start adding more.