Step 1: Start a business that fills a need.

[Myrin New 0]

Most people who are just starting out make the mistake of looking for a product first, and a market second.

To boost your chances of success, start with a market. The trick is to find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem, but not finding many results. The internet makes this kind of market research easy:

Visit online forums to see what questions people ask and what problems they're trying to solve.

Do keyword research to find keywords that a lot of people are searching, but don't have a ton of competition with other sites.

Check out your potential competitors by visiting their sites and taking note of what they're doing to fill the demand. Then you can use what you've learned and create a product for a market that already exists -- and do it better than the competition.