With the world currently steeped in an economic crisis of immense proportions the following questions become pertinent… How can we cope individually with this worldly predicament? How can we turn individually such immense negatives into positives?While governments all round the world attempt to deal with this crisis, we must do something for ourselves both individually and collectively. And one sure way of doing so is to embark on an online business start-up. The Internet is growing every year as more and more people visit it to find information and buy goods and services. The aim of this article is to facilitate the process of starting an online business or of correcting a faltering online business.Every day lots of people like you make the decision to start an online business, yet not everyone ends up succeeding at it. Many struggle and give up after a while, while others come through with different levels of success. The problem with starting an online business is that there is too much hype and too many lies surrounding the process.The Internet is full of scam artists looking to make a quick bug, and it is easy to fall prey to these artists. The common tactic is to convince you that it is easy to make money on the Internet. All sorts of get-rich-quick schemes have been enacted on the Internet and these schemes are very enticing to newcomers. Who doesn’t want a quick way to become rich, anyway? Isn’t that the fastest way to financial freedom? However, with anything that sounds that good, there is always a catch.The person who is promoting or selling a get-rich-quick scheme is after your money, and the idea of getting rich quick (with no effort at all) is the quickest way to persuade a newcomer to buy. This tactic only works for newcomers, and it works until the newcomer grows up to recognise that there is NO QUICK WAY to make money in this world (unless through fraud or unless you win a lottery).The idea of getting sales by making get-rich-quick promises is a scam. It is a scam because the seller makes money by misleading the customer. The typical newcomer will move from one get-rich-quick scheme to another until he or she gets the message… that it is a fraud! The newcomer then gives up in frustration, or continues to search for the fundamental truths of online business success. If you are a newcomer and your first port of call is this article then you are a lucky newcomer. This article will get you out of the hands of the many get-rich-quick crooks that infest the Net. It will direct your efforts along the correct path to online business success, so that you don’t waste your money by dealing with Internet crooks.The Essence of Business PlanningRemember that an online business is first and foremost a business. This means that the traditional basics of achieving business success apply. For instance, it is well-known that a business that has no plan is almost certain to fail. No matter how small the business is, it still needs a plan. A business plan compels you to think before you act. It compels you to find out about your business area before you start; i.e. to research your business area or to establish its groundwork.A business plan forces you to think hard about your competition and how you are going to beat them in the market. It forces you to establish whether your business idea is even worth pursuing. Why start a business that is going to fail? Isn’t that stupidity?A business plan forces you to establish the expected costs and revenues of your business, and hence to determine profitability. Why run a business when, at any time, you cannot tell whether or not the business is succeeding? If you don’t know your costs or your revenues you cannot compare them together to tell whether your business is succeeding or failing.An online business is no different from an offline business, when it comes to business planning! It needs a business plan! Yet, how many newcomers do we see trying to make it online without even understanding the concept of business planning? Is it then a surprise that too many fail?A High Tech BusinessThe next key thing to understand about an online business is that it is a high-technology business. This point is all-too-often overlooked in all the hype or wild claims about getting rich quick on the Internet. As a high-tech business an online business is dominated by technological complexity. This complexity manifests not only in the process of web site research, design, and construction but also in the process of web site marketing (commonly called Internet marketing).The only way to remove or hide such complexity is to use sophisticated software tools, and the more integrated the tools are the less is the technological complexity required to achieve a successful online business. The best tools integrate the entire cycle of web site research, design, and construction with the process of Internet marketing.The end of this article refers you to the best integrated tool that the author has found for start-up and struggling online businesses. The tool integrates the entire online business building cycle and is the best tool to use for newcomers and strugglers. When newcomers have graduated into seasoned professionals (and can thus handle some amount of complexity) they can go for specialist tools that better optimise specific aspects of the online business cycle. This will lead to greater profitability, above what can be achieved with an integrated tool such as SBI!.An Intellectual BusinessThe final key thing to understand about an online business is that it is an intellectually-intensive business. This means that you must be prepared to learn a great deal of new things, and you must be prepared to develop your own understanding of the new ideas. The development of your own unique understanding is paramount, as it is the basis for differentiating your business from other online businesses. Your business must be uniquely different from your competition. It must be better, or visitors will not see why they should be doing business with you. The uniqueness in your understanding of whatever you learn ultimately leads to the formulation of your unique selling proposition (USP), which is the basis for positioning your business and getting sales.You will need to learn the fundamental online business philosophy that drives all successful online businesses. You will need to learn how to build an online business using the recommended integrated tool that does everything to handle the underlying technological complexity for you, thus simplifying your work considerably while dramatically shortening your time to success. You will need to learn practical Internet marketing skills, without necessarily being sucked into the underlying technological complexity. The recommended online business building tool handles the complexity for you.Final RemarksThis article has discussed three fundamental truths about online business success that you must know if you don’t want to fail. They are…1. An online business must be planned. This forces you to think before you act. Without this you are almost certain to fail.2. An online business is a high tech business. Newcomers and strugglers must use a sophisticated integrated tool to remove this complexity.3. An online business is an intellectual business. Be prepared to learn a great deal.