14 smart strategies for launching a successful online business

Fast Company

2 days ago

Launching an online business means making bold decisions from day one—what to sell, who to target, and how to stand out in a crowded market. The most successful founders don't wait for perfect conditions; they validate demand early, build trust fast, and solve real problems better than anyone else. Every move is intentional, and momentum matters more than perfection.
To help you cut through the noise and gain traction, 14 Fast Company Executive Board members share hard-won strategies for building online businesses that last.
1. DIFFERENTIATE WITH A BETTER SOLUTION AND SMART DISTRIBUTION.
As with any business, the key is solving a real need better than existing options. Then focus on awareness—ensuring customers know you exist, and on easy, low-friction ways for them to try your product. If you nail both in a cost-efficient manner, you'll have most of the battle won. – Alejandro Botto, Kyte Systems Inc.
2. FILL A NEED FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS.
Start simple and focus on meeting a specific customer need. Launch with only the essentials, listen closely to early feedback, and use agentic AI tools to handle repetitive manual tasks so you can focus on improving the product or service. – Unnat Bak, Revscale™
3. START WITH A SMALL, ENGAGED COMMUNITY.
Create a product that has been designed and optimized within a small community first. For example, think Honest Co., Amazon, Glossier, Chubbies, and so on. They were created by socializing the product idea, getting feedback from a smaller community, making it better with insights, and then going broadly online. – Rich DePencier, Talking Rain Beverage Company
4. BUILD AN AUDIENCE BEFORE THE BUSINESS.
Don't build your business first, then hope they'll come. Build a topic or problem-and-solution-focused audience or community first. Be generous, add value, and cultivate authority and credibility. Glean insights about their needs and the current state of solutions and gaps. Then, give them a solution that does not yet exist, in the way they most want it, by inviting them into the process of development. – Jonathan Fields, Spark Endeavors | Good Life Project®
5. SOLVE A PAINFUL PROBLEM, NOT JUST ANY PROBLEM.
Revenue follows when you fix what actually hurts in someone's business day. Target urgent problems—things that cost them—then solve them. Most online businesses chase traffic instead of solving real pain. Deliver measurable results, not promises. Transform your client's bottom line and they become your marketing. Build from proof of impact. – Dr. Camille Preston, AIM Leadership, LLC
6. ESTABLISH TRUST FROM DAY ONE.
As this will be a new business, one key to making it successful is building trust from day one. Share testimonials (preferably video testimonials) and awards, and build social proof. In today's online world, people are skeptical about buying from a new online business, and they have many options. Therefore, credibility builds confidence, and confidence brings clients. – Pedro Barboglio, Remote Team Solutions
7. OWN YOUR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS.
Don't build your business on rented land. While Amazon and other platforms offer quick reach, true wealth comes from owning the customer relationship. Build a brand so compelling that people seek you out directly—that's how you create lasting value. – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications
8. BUILD A LEGAL FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH.
Focus obsessively on products or services that solve identified customer problems. To be effective, find trusted partners who can manage other critical aspects of the business, such as legal support, so you can stay focused on growth. From day one, establish a legal foundation that enables scalability, ensures compliance, and makes it easy to expand services or add partners as your business evolves. – Daniel Lysaught, LegalZoom
9. RESEARCH BEFORE YOU LAUNCH.
Make sure you have a real product-market fit and a go-to-market strategy. Don't launch just because it feels right. Take it from someone who does this for a living. Solid research and strategy are what separate successful businesses from the rest. – Al Sefati, Clarity Digital, LLC
10. START SMALL, THEN SCALE WITH STRATEGY.
Start with a focused niche, then test a low-ticket digital product that solves a specific problem. Utilize organic content and SEO to establish trust, then scale your efforts with email marketing and affiliate partnerships. I launched my company this way—testing, refining, and layering revenue over time to grow intentionally. – Kristin Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
11. VALIDATE BEFORE YOU BUILD.
Test your idea with a simple landing page, waitlist, or MVP. Real interest—emails, pre-orders, clicks, and so on—tells you if it's worth scaling. This saves time and money by proving demand before you go all in. – Alexander Kwapis
12. PRIORITIZE SECURITY FROM THE BEGINNING.
Build security into your product from the start. Many SaaS teams delay it until they are required to do so. This results in rapidly attempting to implement security measures on a product that's already been developed and/or scaled, which ends up costing more money and time. Not implementing security up front almost always results in further security issues in the future. – Justin Rende, Rhymetec
13. CHOOSE SERVICES THAT WORK ONLINE.
Focus on services that can be delivered remotely. For example, software-based data recovery is more suitable for online businesses than hardware-based data recovery, since the latter requires shipping hard drives back and forth, increasing costs, time, and complexity. – Chongwei Chen, DataNumen Inc.