In this post I’m going to go over 11 reasons to make money online.
Unlike many others, I don’t believe everybody should focus on becoming solely an online entrepreneur.
But one of the reasons you’ll find below will argue why I do think that virtually anybody should be making money online, be it on top of income generated through something like traditional employment, or self-employment.
My aim is to not only go with the lofty reasons, but also very practical and sensible ones that are applicable to most of you.
1) There Are No Glass Ceilings
Women and minorities, this one’s for you!
The glass ceiling in the workforce is a metaphor that prevents women and minorities from being promoted to managerial or executive positions.
Luckily, this metaphor is slowly but surely becoming more outdated, but right now it’s still a reality.
However, online, there are no glass ceilings. In general, the internet doesn’t really care about who you are.
Online, the playing field is way more leveled than in the offline world.
2) There's a Niche for Everything
One of the benefits of so many of us being connected is that, because we’re a social species, we congregate with those around the same topics and hobbies.
It may be hard to sell alligator repellent where you live, but you just know that there are people online looking for exactly that.
(Also, I don’t know why the first example I came up with was alligator repellent, but let’s just roll with it, m’kay?)
Think of one of the craziest things, and there’s probably a market for it in some way, shape or form.
3) Lower Barrier-to-Entry
Making money in the offline world can be a tumultuous adventure for so many reasons.
While making money online definitely has its own set of barriers – I talk more about that here – virtually anybody can start up something online for, compared to starting something offline, low start-up costs
4) You're the Boss
However you make money online, the decision is completely yours.
Whatever way you want that (side-)business to look like, it’s all up to you. You’re the boss.
While this can absolutely cause some stress, there’s a beauty in being unencumbered and not having to get the green light from somebody higher up the food chain than you.
5) You're Building an Asset
In the very technical term, making money online can be seen as a business. And businesses are assets.
You can grow this asset and potentially use it as leverage to get a loan, or even sell it down the road.
6) Location-freedom
With traditional employment, or even self-employment, you can only work the jobs that are available in that location, or start a business that has an appeal to the locale.
You may like where you live right now. But what about in 5 years? 10 years?
Going to move cross-country, move out of the country or take a long extended vacation?
If you’re making money online, it doesn’t matter where you physically are.
7) No Income Limit
Starting anything online takes away the income ceiling when actively trading your time for dollars like with a traditional job.
If you’re working a job at $10/hour for 40 hours/week, your income ceiling with that job is $400/week.
With an online way to make money, there’s no practical ceilings, except the ones you put there yourself.
I talk more about this income ceiling in my post on The Cashflow Quadrant.
8) Another Source of Income
This is for those that are currently employed, or self-employed.
Knock on wood, but being an employee puts you in a weak position when it comes to income and security.
A lot of businesses have been forced to shut their doors permanently due to the Covid19-pandemic.
A lot of businesses had to shut their doors during the financial crisis of ‘08.
And, let’s be honest, if an employer really wants you gone, you’re out.
So how can you safeguard yourself to that insecurity?
The answer to that question is having multiple sources of income.
Seeing income as a stool, the legs that keep the stool up are the streams of income.
When one leg is affected, for example when you lose your job, you still have other legs so you still have money coming in.
If you currently only have 1 stream of income, I strongly recommend that you start building another one, and that that one be online.
9) The Ability to Scale
When starting a physical, offline business and you want to scale it, the process itself isn’t, usually, a smooth one and can take a very long time.
Maybe it’s having to look for a bigger space, moving your entire business operations to a new location.
There’s none of that when it comes to having an online business.
If your online business is doing well, it doesn’t take a lot for you to scale it.
Scale can look like increasing your daily budget on your paid traffic campaigns, setting up a quarterly content calendar so you have a schedule of all the content you’re going to publish.
Whichever knobs need dialing up, it’s much, much, much easier to do so in an online business.
10) Never Run Out of Stock
If you have an online business with digital products, you never ever have to worry about that product being out of stock.
You can create something once, put it up for sale online, and as many people that want to buy it can buy it, because it’s usually just a couple of digital files.
11) Being Able to Pivot
Say that you start a physical, brick-and-mortar business.
You may have done your market research, you’ve gotten into a building that’s perfectly set up to serve your customers and, when you’re finally able to open for business…it doesn’t take off as much as you’d hoped.
So, you decide to pivot into a different direction, or change the business altogether.
It takes a lot to pivot when operating an offline business.
Your entire building potentially needs to be redesigned.
However, with an online business, it’s relatively quick and easy to pivot.
You can register a new domain name, set up a new website and even create a new digital product and put it up for sale all within the same day.
This can provide you, the online entrepreneur, with a lot of flexibility that you can’t get as quickly and easily with an offline business.
Which of these reasons are yours to start making money online?
Did I miss any?
Let me know in the comments section!
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using one of these links, such as from the Amazon Associates program.
