The 7 Mistakes I Made When Starting My Online Business (And How to Avoid Them)

I've made most of the mistakes available to someone building an online business. Some cost me weeks. A few cost me real money. All of them taught me something useful.

Here's the honest accounting — so you don't have to make them too.

Mistake 1: I Tried to Build the Perfect Product Before Launching

I spent six weeks refining my first ebook before I told anyone about it. I rewrote sections, redesigned the cover, changed the title four times. When I finally launched it, I made $17 in the first month.

The product wasn't the problem. The problem was I had no traffic and no audience. All that extra time on perfecting the product was procrastination dressed up as productivity.

What to do instead: Get a good-enough product live as fast as possible. Your first product exists to teach you, not to be your masterpiece. Ship it, get it in front of real buyers, and iterate based on actual feedback.

Mistake 2: I Picked a Price That Was Too Low

My first product was $9. My thinking was: "It's cheap, so lots of people will buy it."

What actually happened: at $9, I needed to sell 56 copies to make $500 in a month. I barely had traffic. And the buyers who paid $9 seemed to value the product less than they would have at $27 or $37.

What to do instead: Price based on the value of the outcome, not your anxiety about whether anyone will buy. Start in the $27–$47 range. Raise it once you see it converting.

Mistake 3: I Started Three Traffic Channels at Once

I tried to build a blog, run a Pinterest account, post on TikTok, and be active on Twitter — simultaneously. I was bad at all of them.

What to do instead: Pick one traffic channel and get good at it before adding another. Depth beats breadth in the early stages. I got real results when I stopped spreading myself thin and committed to SEO + email only.

Mistake 4: I Ignored Email From the Start

I told myself I'd set up email capture "later." Later arrived at month 6. By then I'd driven thousands of visitors to my site with zero ability to follow up with them.

Every visitor who left without buying and wasn't on my list was gone forever.

What to do instead: Set up email capture before you start driving traffic. Even a simple opt-in form with a freebie. A list of 200 engaged subscribers is worth more than 2,000 social media followers.

Mistake 5: I Underestimated How Long Content Takes to Work

I published 8 blog posts in my first month and expected Google traffic by week 2. It didn't happen.

SEO takes time. Most blog posts don't rank meaningfully until 3–6 months after publication. I knew this intellectually but didn't feel it until I lived through it.

What to do instead: Treat your content investment as a 6–12 month project. Commit to it knowing the results are delayed. The posts you write today pay off next year.

Mistake 6: I Didn't Test My Checkout

I launched my second product and spent a week waiting for sales. Eventually a frustrated customer emailed me — the download link in the order confirmation wasn't working.

I had never actually gone through my own checkout as a buyer.

What to do instead: After every product update or platform change, buy your own product. Make sure the confirmation email arrives, the download link works, and the experience is smooth. It takes 5 minutes and can prevent a week of missed sales and unhappy customers.

Mistake 7: I Gave Up on a Product Too Early

My third product launched to crickets. After 30 days with 3 sales, I buried it and moved on.

A year later, I rewrote the product description, raised the price from $19 to $47, and updated the title to include a specific keyword. It's now one of my consistent sellers — $300–$600/month.

Nothing changed except how I positioned and described it.

What to do instead: Before abandoning a product, run it through a diagnostic. Is the product itself the problem, or is it the title? The description? The traffic source? The price? Usually the product is fine — the positioning needs work.

Every one of these mistakes came from impatience, fear, or both. The impatience to skip foundation steps. The fear to charge a real price, ship before perfect, or stay with something when results were slow.

The antidote to most online business mistakes is simple: slow down, pick one thing, and do it properly.

If you're ready to start, MadeThis gives you everything you need — madethis.com