Pin 2 32 Shares

Please welcome Steve, an online friend behind MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. This is an inspiration story about starting a business. You can do it — and it doesn't have to be very expensive.

Let's face it. When it comes to building wealth and making life changing money, your day job is simply not going to cut it. While a steady job will help you pay the bills, the best way to increase your earning potential is by starting a business.

However, most people never dare go this route. Why? It's because there is this common misconception that starting your own business is risky and requires a large amount of upfront investment. The problem is that when most people think about entrepreneurship, they envision large companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. After all, what are the chances of starting the next billion dollar company?

What most people doesn't realize is that you don't need to hit a home run to start a successful business that meets your needs. If all you want to do is make a six figure income, then all you really need is a base hit. And getting a base hit doesn't require a lot of upfront investment or much monetary risk at all.

My Story

About 5 years ago, I was literally forced into the world of entrepreneurship. When my wife discovered that she was pregnant with our first child, she decided that she wanted to quit her job as soon as she gave birth in order to become a stay at home mom. But the big problem was that she made a six figure salary, a healthy sum of money that we would have to forfeit when she quit her job.

Now realistically speaking, we could have made things work on just my salary but we didn't have any desire to change our current lifestyle. For example, we could have stopped eating out. We could have pinched pennies by eating more ramen noodles and drastically cutting our entertainment budget but we didn't want to live that way. So in order to replace her lost income, we came up with a plan to make 100K in a little over a year.

Now Miranda has discussed many different ways to make money on her blog already, and she does pretty well herself as freelance writer and professional blogger. But my wife and I wanted to sell tangible goods so we decided to go the ecommerce route. After all, the best way to make money is to sell something right? So my wife and I decided to launch an online store selling wedding handkerchiefs and linen napkins to newly engaged couples who were actively planning their wedding.

Pretty random right? But this random idea made us over 100K in profit during our first year of business and has grown in the double and triple digits ever since. Today, my wife runs our business from the comforts of home, works only a few hours a day, and makes many times her original salary. And the best part is that she gets to spend most of her time with our two kids.

How Much Did It Cost To Start?

When most people think about starting a business, especially an ecommerce business, they immediately assume that there's a large upfront cost. But what if I told you that we only invested $629.90 to launch a six figure business within a year?

The reality is that starting a business online is well within your reach and there's very little risk at all. In fact, my wife and I didn't even really have to invest $629.90. We could have gotten by with far less. How is this possible? I'm going to break down the costs for you below.

The first and most important thing that you need is a webhost. A webhost is a service that essentially provides the computer on which your website is run. Webhosts range in costs but you can easily find a quality shared host for as little as $5.95 a month.

The next thing that you need is an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate is a digital document that allows all of your store's transactions to be transmitted securely. Naturally, since your shop is going to be processing credit cards, your SSL certificate will make sure that no one can steal your customers credit card information. An SSL certificate will run you about $13 a year or about a dollar a month.

The final thing that you need is a merchant account and gateway in order to process credit cards online. Merchant accounts usually will run you about $30 a month and are easily obtained online.

What About The Website Design?

But what about your website? Doesn't it cost thousands of dollars to design a great looking website? Won't it cost me an arm and leg to hire an engineer to design a usable shopping cart so I can start selling online? The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT!

The beauty of the Internet today is that there are many incredibly powerful open source solutions out there that are available for free. In fact, most if not all of the web software is already written for you and all you have to do is install it on your webhost. For example, the online store that my wife and I currently run is based on OSCommerce which is a free open source shopping cart and we pay absolutely nothing to use it.

The best part is that you don't really need to know anything about web design to get a great looking website either. By paying about 50 dollars, you can purchase a great looking pre made store template from a designer. In fact once you know what you are doing, you can easily launch an online ecommerce shop in less than a day for as little as $37 or $87 if you decide to purchase a website template.

Does This Sound Risky To You?

Do you have $87 lying around somewhere? If so, then you have enough money to start planting your own money seeds today. With such a small upfront monetary investment, there really is no reason not to try. After all, your day job will only take you so far whereas your own business has limitless upside potential.