Ever wondered what defines a business opportunity? It can be a number of things. One example: vending machines are being touted as some fantastic business opportunity. OK, fine; put up 1000s of such gizmos all over — and retire early!

The all-knowing Wikipedia maintains that if there exists some need for something, and money can be made by fulfilling that need, then there is a business opportunity. Take an example: skin problems — such as acne, which many people have problems with. OK, you sell them some information on how to deal with acne, or a product that gets rid of acne. That’s a business opportunity right there.

Let’s pick a different subject: how to train your dog. Many people have dogs, and sometimes there may be problems with the dog’s behaviour. Now go out and offer this audience a book with dog-training advice. Put briefly; you make dollars if you reach out and help real people solve real problems. It is a real win-win situation.

Then there is another lucrative area — self-help stuff. You see, people are always dreaming of getting better — every day and in every way. Examples: stop smoking, lose weight, find happiness, discover the meaning of life. The idea is to come up with solutions to issues like these; and if you can do it that’s the road to success.

Look at it this way: rather than offering people problem-solving things; you are giving them dreams. What do I mean by that obscure statement? Well, you see, a product is actually judged by how it makes the user feel.

The reason for people to buy something is they think it will make them feel better. And with some products, this is very obvious. So, why do you think women like to use perfumes? Indeed, what other reason is there to use perfumes etc, except to feel good about yourself.

Companies which have understood the human feel-good urge are raking in truckloads of cash. Take a simple thing like how a product is packaged. Companies spend a great deal of money just to find out stuff like what color a box of laundry detergent should have to be most appealing to customers.

Which means: when you compare the merits of business opportunities, then consider if they have the potential to make people feel better. You could for example create an ebook on how to lose weight while eating your favorite foods. Do you think you could make it so your readers get a warm fuzzy feeling about themselves — if so you are right on track.

The current recession has made it evident that even a “secure” job isn’t that secure at all. Personally, I haven’t really had any other jobs than temporary ones. And this in spite of having a Ph.D.

The reason is that in Academia you seldom get a secure position until you become a Professor; otherwise most jobs are temporary. I never reached as far as to those pinnacles of achievment. Once I had a fellowship that enabled me to spend two years working at one of the most prestigious ivy-league universities in the United States — but that was as far as I got.

Even back then I was actually fed up with Academia, and secretly dreamed of being in my own business. I thought about maybe getting a degree in Business Administration but that didn’t inspire me at all.

Let’s face it — if you have spent many precious years of your life getting a higher education, then the thought of going back to school again is, well, more like a nightmare. The thing is during one period I even had a nightmare: I was back in High School again — and that awful dream kept coming back! Not too pleasant, I’ll tell you. It felt more like something from the “Groundhog Day” movie, where one day endlessly keeps repeating itself.

OK, I did at least manage to get out of Academia and get myself a job — in a small fledgling Biotech company. For once I liked my bosses — now things began to look quite promising. Unfortunately this came crashing down a year later. The company went bankrupt, and I no longer had a job.

My ex-bosses were nice people but they didn’t know how to run a company. They had spent money recklessly on fancy offices and such, oblivious to any warnings.

And now what? Well, I was frantically trying to find some business opportunity, something to get me going fast. For several reasons, I had no other options. Now I wanted a work from home business. I was totally fed up with spending my days in some office, having to deal with office politics and so on.

Luckily, I had an Internet connection and I had been playing around with HTML coding. Plus I was well aware of the possibilities of selling things on the Web.

Now I had the good fortune of reading an ebook about how to make money as an affiliate — by marketing other people’s products and services. This particular ebook, by Rosalyn Gardner, is nowadays rather outdated, since the Internet changes so fast. A couple of years back, I’d say it was a useful course.

Using that information I was soon able to make some decent money as affiliate for web hosting companies. Finally, I was able to work from home online and set my own hours. This is my idea of freedom! At this time I have a whole bunch of blogs and web sites — one of the blogs is dBusinessOpportunity.com.

Summing up: in case you are one of the many people who are searcing for a business opportunity online, then I suggest you take a look at affiliate promotion. You can choose from an astronomical number of things to promote.