Everywhere you look these days, between unemployment, mortgage foreclosures and investment losses, people are getting beaten up. In so many cases, older workers have seen a lifetime of scrimping and saving blow up in their faces and RRSPs and 401Ks have plummeted in value. It’s bad enough that it had to happen, but think about all the people on the cusp of their retirement, who suddenly won’t have enough money to make the ends meet. Will they need to keep working till they drop dead? There has to be a better idea.
That’s a question that a lot of the early boomers are wrestling with right now and being what they are, a generation that has set the pace from the day they started walking around with unfashionably passive peace signs, they will as a group find the answer. Luckily, the means to save the retirement plans of a generation is close at hand. It’s a communications tool that has opened up an option that didn’t exist 10 years ago. I’m talking about the internet and I believe that we are about to see an unprecedented explosion in the number of home internet businesses.
Maybe you question my prediction and simply don’t see how a group of semi-seniors will make the leap from email to ecomm. Or maybe you just can’t imagine people who are already overworked, coming home to work a few more hours on their own and being successful at it. But really, you need to remember what’s at stake – their retirement- and then put it into perspective. By that I mean it won’t be necessary to these online businesses to drive a six-figure income. The kids are already in college and their going to downsize anyway. It’s just a matter of making the loose financial ends meet in the middle. And to do that, the internet is a perfect medium to foster a new twist on the mom and pop corner store.
Consider this:
1. Many different business models will fit the internet from a niche retail site or maybe something with a bigger range of merchandise in a similar vein. You can sell information products that relate to business experience or hobbies or just something you feel passionately about. It can be one freestanding product or a series or you can form a membership site when people will pay to learn from you. You can sell unique objects or antiques or other collectables via eBay or Amazon.
2. The beauty of the internet is that it’s so big it will support even the small ecentric niche products what you’d go broke trying to sell from your local strip mall. You don’t need a product or idea that everyone is interested in, because if you can capture just a tiny percentage of a percentage, it’s enough.
3. There’s a phrase used in business start ups called “barriers to entry” and a further advantage to the internet is that there are actually very few barriers to entry. You can start a business on a relative shoe string. You don’t need staff or offices or even inventory for many retail sites. It isn’t free by any means, you will have to spend some money and you’ll expend a lot of effort learning new things- but it can be done if you have the heart to do it.
4. Another reason that home internet businesses will grow is the availabity of software that you don’t need to be a propeller head to comprehend. If you’ve never touched a computer in your life, it might be a bit too much to bite off, but if you can run a word processor or spreadsheet, you’ll be able to figure out the software you need to manage to open up your own business. There will be a lot to learn- and those who aren’t willing to learn will either never make the attempt or will make the attempt and fail.
Reading over what I’ve written, it might seem that I’m trying to push you into starting up an online business. I’m not. But I am predicting, without any hesitation, that in the next few years we’re going to see an explosion of growth on the internet in terms of new one person businesses and I’m also suggesting that if anyone looks behind who is fueling that growth, they won’t find a host of bright-eyed twenty somethings behind it. They’re find their somewhat jaded parents, some of whom are going to get a second chance to be bright eyed kids again and that’s kind of cool.
Tags: baby boomers home business, home business start ups, Homebased Business, internet business, internet start ups, online business opportunites, online home business, online retailing, online retirement businesses, part time retirement income, retirement savings, social trends