If you’re a mom who wants to work at home (whether you’re leaving corporate America or simply don’t want to go there), you probably have all kind of questions as you consider this for yourself. It is my intention and hope to help answer some of these questions for you on this blog.
There are often questions of legitimacy about various work at home options, sometimes coupled with the issue of money. I mean, if you spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a franchise license, you know it’s legitimate, right? Having to invest a large sum of money seems to give an undertaking credibility. And if you want to work at home producing and/or selling something clever you create, like (…well, I’m not a clever creator so I can’t even name anything, but think crafts or sewing 
) you would need to invest in a beginning inventory at the least (and maybe production equipment and more). But is it necessary to have that kind of financial positioning to legitimately branch out on one’s own?
No, of course not. It depends on the type of at-home work you’re interested in, naturally. But there are many legitimate work at home business opportunities that do not require a lot of start-up capital. If you begin a home business offering a particular skill or talent that you have (pet sitting, website development, home organization, party planning or any other of an almost endless list of possibilities), you may have minimal start-up costs, like advertising, a basic record keeping system and maybe a computer and/or website. But those costs are not likely to be high.
The same holds true for many internet marketing work at home options, like affiliate marketing, where you advertise the products or services of one or more companies (say, on a website you own on a related topic) and then receive a commission on sales from your advertising. In researching other work at home mom blogs recently, I have seen many affiliate marketing home businesses in action.
Another home-based business for the work at home mom that is certainly legitimate and does not require a great deal of start-up capital is in the arena of network marketing, an industry with the upside of franchise operations (business processes and infrastructure that are already in place) coupled with the flexibility of being a self-directed entrepreneur and the advantage of being positioned to capitalize on the marketing potential of the internet.
OK, I’m probably a little biased. This is where I have happily landed as a work at home mom. And to get comfortable here, I actually had to overcome some pretty significant prejudice against the legitimacy of this type of home-based business. But I did my due diligence, broadened by horizons a little bit, and am better for it in many ways (and all without having to invest a large sum of money to have a successful business!).
You too can certainly have a legitimate home-based business as a work at home mom without investing a great deal of start-up capital. So don’t let the money issue deter you!
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