For me, it's been trying to decide in which direction to actually focus; in combination with who to actually believe. There is so much hype and conflicting information that it's hard to know who to trust.

I agree with Andre.

There's so many methods out there and so many traffic building and money-making techniques that is difficult to stay focused.

Everything takes time and hard work so I think you just have to pick a few strategies that you think will work best for you over time AND just have the discipline to not let ADD and information overflow distract you.

Social media can be a big time sink as well but on the other hand, it's important to build relations and interact with other like minded bloggers. Keeping my balance and knowing when to do what are a challenge to me.

In no particular order (despite the numbers).

1) Hustle: Starting a business (online or off) requires hustle, busting your ass, getting your hands dirty, and pushing through road blocks.

2) Focus: Single-mindedness in the pursuit of your goals. Losing focus, being flaky, having to many cans of worms open, all of these detract from building a successful online business.

3) Will: Being able to do things that make other people uncomfortable. This ties into both hustle and focus, you need the will to bust through when you're having a hard time, come up against difficulty or adversity.

4) Market Testing: Knowing that someone is willing to buy the product you are going to make before you make it for a price which is enough to grow the business. Too often market selection is overlooked or an idea is just run with before knowing if someone is willing to pay for it. (If you get into the venture capital/funding world this might not apply so much).

It's got to be getting people to care about your site.

People listen to WII-FM. (What's in it for me?)

Give them something they want, and something they care about, you're golden.

I'm currently in the earliest stages of setting up a business. I've got a full time job and am using my spare time to create content and set up what I need for the business. I find the hardest part is motivating myself to do it day after day. I know in a few years I will look back and it will all be so worth it.

@Ross: It's easy to relate to your situation. I'm also working full time and building my online business on the side. So one obstacle for me is the lack of time. I work from 9-5 (well, usually 8-4), go home and relax a bit, then head straight to my nearest coffeeshop with my laptop and start hustling around my online bisness ideas.

But it's not the lack of time that's the real challenge. For me, the real challenge has been (and still is) the fact that coming up with a good and sustainable online bisness idea (whether it's a product, service or something else) is DAMN HARD. Many of us concentrate on niche e-product creation. Some do online couching. Other's sell some kind of software. There's plenty of choise, but what makes it so hard is the fact that you need to find something that you're passionate about and still make a decent living with it. And I can't even count how many times I've come up with a "great and exciting business idea"..and then found out that the idea has been implemened by someone else.. and usually, implemented really well. But having said all of the above, I still believe it's definately worth the effort to brainstorm, brainstorm and repeat with the ideas you're excited about. One of them will eventually make it big..or at least, make's your income requirements and support the lifestyle you love to live.

@Carl: Great list. I especially think that the third one is really important. If you're not ready to really push your limits, you will propably fail. It's the line where other people quit and you keep pushing through, that makes all the difference in the world.

Keep on hustlin'!

Motivating myself to work. I've been working about 80 hours per week for the last few months while working on my business. Waking up early to write a page about our shipping policy or dealing with a small change in the design of the website is hard to do before a 14 hour day of work. Nobody is forcing me to do anything and that snooze button is so easy.

At the same time I've pretty much devoted myself to working and being productive for the past few months and for a few months in the future in the hopes of being successful faster. I've done more in the past few months to grow my business than I've done in the previous 2 years.

Yep Matt I agree. Now the problem here is be careful on the burnout side of things it can really get you once you break that 80 hour a week threshhold. And you don't bounce creatively after that atleast not for months and months IMO.