In the last year I have started two virtual businesses. I’ve been heavily involved with both of them for a certain period of time, and then, once things seem to level out, and starting running on their own (and after I’ve hired people to run the businesses for me!), I step away, manage from a distance, and move on to the next project / start-up.
I love doing this…!
The First
The first was Virtual Staff Finder. This is a service that I started up purely to fill a gap that I saw in the outsourcing market, where my team of qualified sourcing experts match busy entrepreneurs with experienced, home-based virtual assistants here in the Philippines.
When I start it, I said I’d be happy with servicing 10 clients a month. We are currently serving an average of four times that amount, and it continues to become more and more popular!
The Second
This one has been in beta mode for around 4 months now. I am literally 4-6 weeks away from a full-blown launch of this new company, that I feel will revolutionize the way people outsource project-based work. I mean, its gonna be in a class of its own.
We’ve been testing our products and services with existing clients and a few newbies, and so far everyone has nothing but awesome things to say about the quality of the work, the speed at which its completed and the service in general.
More info on this soon, peeps.
What IS a Virtual Business?
This might differ from one person to another. However, my definition of a virtual business is that of a business entity that does not require YOU, as the owner of the business, to be present on a regular basis at any one location, in order for the business to function properly and ultimately make you money.
It doesn’t need to be ‘online’ (ie. an e-commerce store). It can even require office facilities. However, if as the head-honcho you have the freedom to come and go as you please, work from anywhere you want and fundamentally run the business at an arms length – THAT’S a virtual business.
Coming Soon: Virtual Business for Virgins!
I’m around a month or so away from finishing my first ‘real’ online product. I had actually wanted to get this out months ago, but, as you can tell from the first few paragraphs of this post – I’ve been busy building my virtual business empire!
This is going to be an eBook, Audio and Video content based product, and will talk you through how I’ve set-up my virtual businesses, and the steps you need to complete to be able to do it easily, and quickly (under 30 days, actually!) for yourself.
To help me finish things off and come up with a couple of hypothetical case studies to include, I’d like to ask you this question today, and engage in another one of our, always-popular, VBL Discussions.
If you were to start-up, or even just start PLANNING the start-up of a virtual business tomorrow, what would it be?
Over to you…
