One of the first and most important decisions you must make if you are considering a work from home business is to determine whether that business will be service or product driven. In some cases, you may do a bit of both, such as a mobile pet groomer who sells shampoos and makes money from both the service and the products. If you have a clear business idea in mind, this will usually be enough to determine whether your business will be product or service oriented.

Then there are many cases where the idea is not so clear. For example, someone may want to use their artistic talents to make money, but they do not know yet whether this would be best accomplished through a service like interior design, or through designing a product like stationary. This is a critical question that must be clarified early in any business-planning process.