Have you ever thought about starting your own online business?There are a lot of benefits to running your very own business from home. Most people that go down this track want to either have more spare cash to pay bills etc while they still hold down a full-time job, or want to give up the job they are grinding away at, and give themselves a lifestyle and income that they wouldn’t have been able to achieve will working for someone else.There are 2 different online business models that you can choose from:1. Physical Products.This is a business similar to having an eBay account where you sell a physical or tangible product that you have in stock, and sell it via an eBay Auction or some other way, you have to manually ship the item or items to the persons address as specified. This business model requires you to be hands on and available each day to post out the order. You have to either purchase your products from a wholesaler or you manufacture them yourself. Either way you look at this type of business model, you cannot really run it from just a notebook computer and an internet connection. You have to be available and put in the manual work so your items can be posted or you will quickly get poor feedback, if you are using eBay to run your business.2. Digital ProductsThe other type of online business model is digital products. This is where you supply products that are in electronic form. Examples of this would be, eBooks, Videos, PDF documents, training courses and membership sites etc. In my opinion, this is the better online business model out of the two to choose from. It allows you to setup your business to run automated, meaning, once set up correctly, you do not actually have to do any manual work or shipping. You can even have any questions that get emailed to you answered automatically. Technically you could be making money while you are asleep or are on holiday in the Bahamas! The trick to this is, you must find a great mentor or coach that can show you how to do this the correct way. Copy their business model, and you really can have a lifestyle that you gives you a lot of free time to spend with your family, or pursue anything else that you enjoy.What are some of the pitfalls of starting an online business?As with anything on the internet, you should go look into any online business opportunity with both eyes wide open. There are a lot of people out there that are happy to relieve you of your cash, only never to be heard from again!Do your due diligence. Find out about the company offering the service. Ask for testimonials, and when I say testimonials, I mean from people that you can actually contact and ask questions. Anyone can put a testimonial on their website saying it was from Joe Blogs from Sydney Australia. People that offer their testimonials should be willing to talk to you and share their experience, otherwise it doesn’t really mean much does it!Search for the business name on Google. You will be surprised at what you can find about a company when you make an effort to look them up online. If there have been people that have been associated with the business in the past, I am sure you will dig up some info on them.Just keep in the back of your mind…. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.Email the company contact or member that is promoting the business. Ask them questions about the business. If they are legitimate, they will not have a problem talking with you. Be wary of the business opportunity that tells you that you need to purchase their product or opportunity before they can discuss anything with you. From experience, these types of people or businesses have something to hide and should be avoided at all costs!As I mentioned earlier, there are many wonderful benefits to starting an online business, but they are certainly just as many pitfalls. Never take any business opportunity on face value. There is no need to lose the shirt off your back if you follow the guidelines I have mentioned.One online business company that I can thoroughly recommend is The Six Figure Mentors. This is a group of online businessmen and women that are truly earning six and even seven figures online. If you would like to find out more about this company, please click the link in my resource box below and sign up for the Free Videos. These Bootcamp videos will show you their complete business, and how they actually achieve this. This is a must watch if you are serious about generating an online income, while learning from some of the best internet marketers around.