We can’t all be self-employed webmasters, although I’m sure we’ll all use the internet as a tool to further our businesses. But I think people who are outside the industry seem to liken “the internet” as a type of Shangra-La place where the streets are paved with gold and everybody can launch an internet start-up and quit their job.

That seems to be the indication from this Financial Post poll that found:

“About 900,000 Canadians who plan to start a business by the end of 2008 are among 3.3 million who are looking to be their own boss within the next five years. The biggest growth in desired self-employment was in Internet and online services, while interest had fallen in arts and crafts, retail sales, business services and management consulting.“

Which is interesting to me because ironically, now that I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy some success in building an internet business, I have spent the last couple years diligently looking for offline investments.

But I cannot stress this enough: I wound up self-employed in the internet sector because I was working in the business and had experience and knowledge there. The surest path to successful and sustainable self-employment is by sticking to what you know. Don’t just pick some sector because from the outside looking in it seems easy and lucrative. Nothing is once you get up close and into it. If was truly easy and lucrative, everybody would be doing it.

Mark Jeftovic has been a self-employed internet professional since 1994, currently he is the founder and president of easyDNS Technologies Inc., the DNS hosting company and domain registrar. His personal blog is at http://mark.jeftovic.net