I used the word "killer" because I read somewhere that this was a power word that sells. If you do a search you will find many, many ads that use the word "killer". One of my favorite movies is the 1946 "The Killers", and I do really like The Killer's song "Somebody Told Me" but neither of these have anything to do with this hub.

Depending on the source I have read that anywhere from 95% to 99% of online home businesses fail. It is a tough statistic to track given so many businesses start and end without even causing a small ripple in the pond.

I going out on a limb here and say that 99.9% of online home businesses fail. I am counting all of those that started and ended the same day. I am even counting those who thought about it, turned on their computer, typed in "easy instant riches with no work" but decided that the 319,000 results returned were not quite enough to justify not watching reruns of Gilligan's Island instead.

Ok, first some reasons that float around the internet spinned in many ways to justify being unique.

Some people trying to sell you something will tell you that it is not your fault for failing with your online business. Absolutely wrong, of course it is your fault.

I have read that the reason many people fail with their home business is because they do not have the right motivation or drive. Even though either of these could be the reason, they are not the killer reason #1.

Some will say they failed with their online business because they did not have enough time. See the Gilligan reference above.

Lack of research sounds like a good reason, but it's not the killer reason.

Others!

Many people blame others for their situations. Sorry, but the only "others' that I know of who caused a lot of problems are lost somewhere out in the Pacific.

Lack of commitment, not setting goals, not developing a plan, not being consistent, sound like excellent reasons why people fail with their home businesses, but you guessed it, none are the #1 killer reason.

Maybe they did not envision themselves being successful. All you have to do is keep telling yourself that you are successful and suddenly everything that you ever wished for will suddenly be attracted to you. The problem is that I cannot really tell you too much about this because I am sworn to secrecy. I cannot even tell you that it was my good friend Oprah who swore me to that secrecy.

"Lack marketing skills and knowledge"

"Don't know how to sell"

"No traffic"

None of these can be the killer reason because we all know that with a simple click of the mouse the solution to these problems will be put on auto-pilot.

One reason that applies equally online or offline is not being focused. Trying to do too much rather than concentrating on specific areas and building your business one step at a time is absolutely one of the reasons why people fail with their online home business. But once again, not killer reason #1.

The #1 killer reason that 99.9% of online homes businesses fail is that anyone can start one. There really is no barrier of entry. I think the last time I checked someone was floating a number like 1,407,724,920 people online and growing.

That's a lot of people and the fact that they are online means that they are all candidates for starting an online business. Please do not accuse me of pulling an Obama here. I am not being elitist. Because the barrier of entry is so low literally anyone can start a business. Compare that to the offline world. How easy is it to start a business there? What skills do these people have to run their own business?

Assuming you made it this far and you buy into what I am saying, what does this all mean?

I think it means that if 99.9% of people fail online then .1% succeed, and .1% of an extremely large number is a lot of successes.

If you set goals and write them down, develop yourself professionally, take free or paid courses, focus, work hard, stay organized, be honest, track results, test and re-test, build in stages, be patient, know that you will fail and learn from those failures and do not give up then how can you possibly fail in the long run.

The one thing to remember is that your online success is totally controlled by you and no one else.