Are you struggling with how to choose online businesses that are the best fit for you?
I've been there.
When I first started thinking about starting a side hustle, I had no idea what that might look like other than I knew I wanted an online business.
I didn't want to be tied to a job anymore, that much I was certain about.
But how do you know what is the best business model for you?
There are so many ways to find that out, that it can be overwhelming.
Which is why I want to provide you with some online business models that you can look over first, then provide you with some ideas about which ones might work best based on your personality type as indicated by the Myers-Briggs personality test.
If you've never taken the Myers-Briggs personality test before, then you should do that first! The best free version I've come across is the one by 16Personalities.com.
It takes about 20 minutes to go through the test and they give you a nice breakdown of your personality type in the form of four letters plus an additional letter for even more insights.
These letters represent different aspects of your personality based on how:
- You interact with the world (introvert/extrovert)
- You absorb information (sense/intuition)
- You make decisions (think/feel)
- You organize (judge/perceive)
Once you've got the personality test results back, jump back here and read on to discover the best online business for your personality type.
Side Note: I'm an ENFJ-A, which means that I'm Extraverted – 74%, Intuitive – 64%, Feeling – 78%, Judging – 68%, Assertive – 82%. I'm certain that if you've spent a little bit of time around here at Hustle and Groove, this will make sense!
Table of Contents
5 Online Business Model Options
To choose an online business, you need to understand the five different business model options available to you.
Let's dive into them now.
#1: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of my favourite online businesses.
It's easy to get started in and requires zero start-up capital. You can literally start by posting something on social media, so you don't even need a website.
Affiliate marketing is where you find a product or service you love and recommend it to other people. In reward for making that recommendation, the company that owns the product or service pays you a commission.
Pretty much every product or service you can think about has some form of an affiliate program.
There are even businesses that have started that help other business find affiliate offers, these are called Affiliate Networks.
The best way to make affiliate marketing work is to see if the current products and services you're using in your home or business, have an affiliate program. If they do, sign up for it and then start incorporating it into your website, blog posts, social media etc.
If you want to learn more about Affiliate Marketing, check out this post on Location Rebel that is the complete guide!
#2: Ecommerce
Want to sell a physical product? Then Ecommerce is the right online business model for you.
Shopify is probably one of the biggest ecommerce platforms available. It allows you to set up your Ecommerce store with zero dollars upfront and there are a ton of apps you can install to make your ecommerce store sing.
It's very much like having a retail store, only it's fully digital. Which means no messy overheads to worry about.
You can combine running an ecommerce store with affiliate marketing above, or with #4 below.
Your goal is to find a product (or create it) and then drive traffic to your store to get people to buy it.
Generally, this involves paid traffic, like Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads and can be very lucrative when you find the magic recipe of a hungry target audience + a product they need.
If you think this might be something you wanna get involved in, check out this in-depth post from Empire Flippers on the Ecommerce Business Model.
#3: Software as a Service (SaaS)
If you fancy yourself a bit of a coder, or you have a great idea for a software program and have a friend who can code, you might have yourself the basis for a SaaS online business.
This type of online business model is extremely popular right now and quite lucrative if you've got the funds to get started.
The beauty of the SaaS business model is that it has a rebilling feature, as in, it's a monthly recurring fee.
You probably access a SaaS product every day and don't even know it!
Here are some popular SaaS products you could be using:
- Slack
- Shopify
- MailChimp
- ConvertKit
- WordPress
- Hubspot
- Dropbox
- GoToMeeting
- FreshBooks
- Scrivener
I could go on! The reason these are so popular right now is that it allows small business to have a high-level infrastructure with having to pay the high level IT costs normally associated with them having to build their own software.
If this something you'd like to learn more about, you can read the blog post on Neil Patel's blog about how he did it from scratch.
#4: Content Creator
This is where I got started, as a content writer (freelancing) for a few clients back in 2012.
Being a content creator isn't just about writing a few blog posts here and there though, it's about creating content that connects with your audience.
You can do this by writing blog posts, creating social media posts, writing books, writing sales copy, YouTube scripts etc, etc.
Basically, anything to do with writing and you're a content creator.
People pay money for you to create content. You get to choose what that content looks like based on your own skills.
You can learn more about what this might look like for you via this blog post on Social Media Examiner, which did a deep dive into this back in 2017, though it's still relevant today.
#5: Productized Services
If you're a freelancer currently offering website services, virtual assistant services, photography services, basically any service offering, then you should be looking to productize those services!
Essentially, you'll take your one-to-one client service, such as blog editing + image creation, and package it up into productized service.
This limits scope creep… you know what I'm talking about. When you start off the job with a brand new client that was meant to be only website design,
but quickly turns into copywriting and social media marketing, things you don't always offer and take up waaaaay more time than what you'd charged the client for originally.
By productizing your services, you create packages based on what the most common service requests are; that can also be customized (through upselling).
A great example of this is WPCurve.
If you want the full deets on how you can go about doing this for yourself, check out this detailed blog post on Empire Flippers.
Now that we've covered some of the more popular online business models, let's dive into how to choose online businesses based on your personality type.
Choose Online Businesses Using Your Personality Type
Remember, you'll need your 16Personalities.com test to get the best out of the options listed below.
Your personality test results focus on four main areas, split off into 8 more options. Here they are again:
- You interact with the world (introvert/extrovert)
- You absorb information (sense/intuition)
- You make decisions (think/feel)
- You organize (judge/perceive)
16Personalities adds a further letter after the initial Myers-Briggs normal test, that gives you even more information about who you are.
Using those additional letters, we'll dive into which online business model would suit you best.
Analysts
From the list of online businesses above, the two that would be the best fit for your personality are:
- SaaS (software as a product)
- Affiliate Marketing
Both of these online businesses allow you to use your analytical prowess to make a profitable income online.
Diplomats
From the list of online businesses above, the two that would be the best fit for your personality are:
- Content Creator
- Affiliate Marketing
Both of these online businesses allow you to use your diplomatical viewpoints to make a profitable income online.
Sentinels
From the list of online businesses above, the two that would be the best fit for your personality are:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Productized Services
Both of these online businesses allow you to use your caring, nurturing nature to make a profitable income online.
Explorers
From the list of online businesses above, the two that would be the best fit for your personality are:
- SaaS (software as a service)
- Ecommerce
Both of these online businesses allow you to use your bold, risk-taking nature to make a profitable income online.
Now you're equipped with the information you need to choose online businesses that you can get started with today.
Action Step
Your immediate action step depends on one thing: whether you have taken the 16Personalities.com test or not. If you haven't, then that's your immediate next step.
If you have, then your immediate next step is to go back and review your profile and then check out the online business models and pick one to get started with!
