Southbay Woman magazine published my article, “Web-Based Microbusinesses” in the July 2006 issue. Here is an excerpt:

… What I have seen in the past decade is an emergence of women owned
“microenterprises” or “microbusinesses.” Microbusinesses are often home-based, and can be
on a part-time basis. This has made microbusinesses especially attractive to women entrepreneurs. With widespread Internet access, starting and sustaining web-based microbusinesses have become a reality for many women entrepreneurs.

If you are interested in starting a web-based microbusiness, setting goals is an important first step. Do you want the microbusiness to supplement your current income, and by how much? Will you eventually want to run the microbusiness full-time? Can you foresee the microbusiness turning into a traditional “brick-and-mortar” business, perhaps a physical store, in the future?

An obvious question you may have is, “Where do I start?” Start with what you enjoy and love doing. This step can be tricky, because we immediately tend to give ourselves negative feedback, like “… but who can make money doing that!” A career or business coach can be helpful during this phase. A coach can provide a sounding board for you and help keep your inner critic when brainstorming for ideas.

Once you have generated an inventory of activities and skills you enjoy, look for ways to create a product or service around it that you can offer to others. Sometimes the Internet adds a new dimension to an existing activity and creates new business opportunities. For example, if you enjoy scrapbooking and decide to build a webbased microbusiness around scrapbooking, you can offer both physical and virtual scrapbooking products on your website. If you enjoy teaching others how to scrapbook, you may teach scrapbooking and offer tutorials or tools through your website.

As a microbusiness owner and coach, I am continually amazed at how web-based microbusinessess had helped women entrepreneurs create viable ventures from skills and activities they enjoy, and enable them to share with customers all over the world. As you strive to “live your inspiration” every day, web-based microbusinesses may be a vehicle that provides you both inspirational and financial sustenance.

By Jane Chin PhD, in Southbay Woman Magazine.