Choose your business model
Before you spend money on a domain or file an LLC, decide what you'll sell and how you'll get paid. The right model fits the time, money, and skills you have today — not someday.
What this step covers
- Service business: you sell your time or expertise.
- Product business: you make or resell something.
- Content or creator: you build an audience, and money comes from ads, sponsorships, or your own products.
- Affiliate marketing: you earn a share when someone buys a tool you recommend.
- E-commerce: you sell products through your own online store.
- Hybrid: most real businesses end up mixing two or three of the above.
Why this comes first
If you skip this, every decision after it gets harder. Your domain, your hosting, even how you describe yourself all depend on what you actually sell.
How to choose your model
- 1
Write down what you can offer today
Start with the truth, not the dream. List the skills people already pay you for, or ask you about for free. List what you can make, fix, teach, or explain. This list is your raw material — every model below is just a different way to package it.
If the list is short, that's fine. Most businesses start from one thing the owner is good at, not ten.
- 2
Match your list to one of the five models
Service business: you trade time for money — consulting, design, cleaning, repair, coaching. Fastest to start, because you can land a paying customer before you build anything.
Product business: you make or resell a physical thing. Slower to start because you need inventory or materials up front.
Content or creator: you publish (write, record, film) and earn from ads, sponsorships, memberships, or your own products later. Slow to pay, but it builds an audience you own.
Affiliate marketing: you recommend tools you genuinely use and earn a commission when a reader signs up. Low cost to start, but income depends on real traffic, so it usually rides on top of a content site.
E-commerce: your own online store. More moving parts (storefront, payments, shipping), so it's rarely the first model for a true beginner unless you already have a product.
- 3
Run each candidate through three filters
Time: can you give it the hours it needs this month, around whatever else is in your life? A service business needs hours now; a content site needs hours every week for months before it pays.
Money: what does it cost to start? A service can start for the price of a domain. Product and e-commerce need money for inventory before a single sale.
Skill and interest: will you still be doing this in six months when it's boring? Pick the one you can stick with, not the one with the best numbers on paper.
- 4
Pick one to start, and write your one-line plan
Choose the single model that best survives all three filters. Write one sentence: "I sell ____ to ____, and I get paid when ____." If you can't finish that sentence, you're not ready to register a domain yet — go back to the filters.
You are not locked in. You're picking a starting point so the rest of the roadmap has something concrete to build on. You can add a second model later, once the first one is working.
What this step costs
Nothing but time. Choosing a model is a thinking-and-writing exercise, not a buying one. The spending starts in Step 2, with a domain (about $10–$15 a year).
The real cost of this step is the cost of choosing wrong — picking a model you can't fund or won't stick with. That's why the three filters matter more than the income claims you'll see online.
Common mistakes
- Picking the model that pays the most on paper instead of the one you can actually start.
- Trying to do all of them at once.
- Copying someone else's business without checking if you have the same time, money, or audience.
- Treating affiliate or content income as fast money. Both pay slowly and only after real traffic shows up.
Question to close this step
Which of these models matches the time, money, and skills you have right now?
Saving progress will be wired up later. For now this button is a preview, so you can see how the flow will feel.