Seven Basic Principles Regarding
Doing Business on the Web

This doesn’t mean you want to hire me as your CEO, anymore than you’d hire a sportswriter to manage the Yankees. It does mean I’ve seen some patterns repeat over time. I call these patterns "Clues," and when I see them I can usually figure out where a story is going.

I’ve been on the Internet Commerce beat since before the beginning, since 1985 by my count. I remember WAIS and Gopher, CompuServe, PARTIcipate and The Source. I’ve filed stories at 300 baud -- that and $1.50 will get you a ride on the subway.

My time on the beat has helped me refine some basic Clues into principles, ideas you can use to troubleshoot your own plans, or those of your friends and neighbors. They’re not guaranteed, but if you follow them you’re less likely to lose your way.

Before stepping up to those principles, however, I want you to look in the mirror and ask yourself a hard question. What is it you really want to do? Me, I want to write. You may prefer teaching, or engineering, or selling. But if the thing you most want to do is not run a business, stop before you start one. Because no matter what illusions you may carry into this trip, doing business is a full-time job. You can’t be a journalist and a businessman (or woman) -- you’re one or the other. It’s the first mistake most businesspeople make. They want to do X, but can’t find someone willing to let them do X the way they want to do it, so they launch a business that does X, and very soon they’re no longer doing X at all. They’re doing business -- or "bidness" as I call it -- and that’s all they’re doing.

That’s not to say the Internet can’t help you if you’re just interested in a freelance career, or if you’re looking for a job that really fits your personality. The Web is an incredible tool, no matter what your parachute may look like. It just helps to know where you’re going before you jump out of the airplane.

So, you really want to do some bidness? OK, get out that three-piece and let’s go over the basics. No matter what you’re selling, whether it’s a product, a service, or just yourself, the basic principles of Web Commerce will remain constant. A website is your store, the heart of where you do business, so let’s build one. The links that accompany the text will help illustrate each point. (Just open a new browser window on ‘em, or print this out and follow along…I’ll wait.)

1. Every successful Web store is designed from the user out. (http://www.qvc.com) Don't ask, what should I do? Ask instead, what do people want? Then, make sure what you give them is first-class. If your aim is true, you'll quickly draw competitors anyway. If your aim isn't true, you have no chance if what you offer isn't top-notch.

2. Make sure you have passion for your subject. (http://www.wilsonweb.com) I can't emphasize this enough. Web sites, magazines, and TV shows all require someone at the top who lives and breathes the subject. They also require someone who lives and breathes the subject of business, someone who lives and breathes the subject of sales, and someone who lives and breathes the technology. These are the key personnel ingredients in any successful Web business.

3. It’s not clicks, page views, advertising, or marketing that makes the Web go. It’s transactions, stupid (http://www.dell.com) . If your Web process isn’t leading to sales of real products or services, you’re fighting for a tiny portion of the Web’s potential. You’d better have a huge market share to stand a chance.

4. You don't need a lot of money (http://www.stupidpc.com). Instead you need enough money to fund a coherent strategy, and a specific (preferably unfilled) niche with a clear transaction flow. Then you need just enough money to implement the strategy.

5. Get your terms straight. A database (http://www.oracle.com) carries your stock. An "e-commerce" program (http://www.icoms.com) is your cash register. "Personalization software" (http://www.netperceptions.com) is your sales clerk. HTML (http://www.w3c.org) is just the glue that binds all this together. Don't let this industry's double-talk force your eye off the ball.

6. The usual rules apply here as elsewhere. (http://www.bsa.scouting.org/) Have fun. Don't spam. Don't fear failure -- it happens. Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself. Remember that a good name is more important than money, and if you have the former, enough of the latter will eventually come to you. If it sounds like everything I know about the Internet I learned in kindergarten, it’s true....

7. The public Internet is just the tip of the Web iceberg (http://www.officedepot.com/). The biggest money these days is being made on private networks, connecting corporate supply chains and sales channels.

Beyond these basic principles, I figure, the world’s open to you. There’s a lot I don’t know, a lot of online stories yet to be told. I hope yours will be one of them.

Dana is also co-author of Web Commerce: Building a Digital Business, an excellet book. Read our review.

Read additional articles from Web Marketing Today, Issue 50, November 1, 1998