'Ti's the season to be jolly' - or at least that's what this season is supposed to be. However, for the many dot-coms that came crashing down this year, the holiday season is far from being jolly. Pets.com, with the once ubiquitous hand puppet, has bid adieu. Furniture.com has closed shop; MotherNature.com has liquidated, and the list goes on and on.
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The main lesson we learn from the fall of these once high-flying dot-coms is that Internet is serious business. You must first have a good business idea to succeed on the Internet, along with a plan for your business. You cannot just wake up one day and decide to do business on the Internet, launch a web site, and wait for money to pour in.

One site that recently closed posted this farewell message on their Web site: "We were unable to find an effective business model to sustain the site." Duh! After operating their business for months, they apparently had no clue what their business was all about.

As F*ckedCompany.com (the Internet dead pool) pointed out, "Here's an idea: Make a product. Sell a Product. Charge more for the product than it costs to produce." Just because you are selling on the Internet does not mean that you have to suspend all basic business principles: sell, collect and profit.

Home business entrepreneurs could use the Internet in two ways: to complement an existing business, or to launch a made-for-Internet business.

For those with traditional businesses, the Internet can be a way to increase existing sales and expand your customer base worldwide. If used properly, the Internet can be a nirvana for many home-based entrepreneurs. Without leaving the comforts of your home, the Internet allows your business to extend its reach beyond your neighborhood to a global audience. Suddenly, the world becomes your market. You can definitely rake in big bucks on the Internet while you build your home-based fortune in traditional ways.

You can also decide to launch a pure-play Internet business. However, you need to have a good business idea that fits well with the nature and characteristics of the Internet. What you sell on the Internet must fit with the characteristics unique to the Internet. As I have pointed in a previous article, the products that do well on the Internet are high-value, information-based, and products suitable for mailing. Hence, it is no surprise that Furniture.com closed shop: the cost of mailing and delivering a sofa may be too costly for most consumers. Or even dog food (even though the sock puppet was just so lovable).

It is also best if you have your own products to sell. Like the "real" world, the Internet has its share of people who want to profit from the newcomers or the "naiveté's". Some of these will try to sell you success as part of a canned marketing scheme.

Don't waste your time selling someone else's prepackaged plan. Take for example these so-called "Money Making CD-ROMs" providing you full reprint rights to hundreds or thousands of how-to reports. The deal often comes with a fully designed web site (you just need to add your name) to help you sell this CD-ROM to hapless newcomers. Try typing the name of the product in the search engine, and you will discover that thousands of other people are selling the exact same thing, with the exact same web site! As more and more people sell the same exact product, who do you think will earn from this business? Definitely not you, but the person who developed the product where you source the CD-ROM! If you want to earn serious money on the Internet, your first step should be to develop your own products and follow your dream of your own home-based business. Like any serious business, an online business demands careful planning, good management skills and financial resources to survive and make it grow. You need to have a clear idea of what your market wants, how they buy the kind of products that you sell or plan to sell.

Despite what the "web gurus" claim, there are no clear paths to success on the Internet. "What works" and "what doesn't work" will depend on your individual business situation and marketing plan, and how well you integrate Web marketing into them.