Any advice to someone who wants to start an online business?

Please do not go and spend money on getting people to do websites for you.
I just give you some advice about it may it will help you.
Your best investment in the process of setting up your business is to learn how to use word press yourself.
It’s really helpful for you
1) you do not depend on another person to maintain the site for you.
2) you do not have to pay anyone to make changes for you when you want to change the way it looks
3) word press is widely supported and has a lot of ecommerce ready templates to use (most of the time they are free too!!)
4) it is cost effective. I never have to pay for word press stuff. The only thing I ever paid for my online business .The domain name which is actually free when I sign up with my current web host.

Tips on learning to use word press, If you do not like to learn it online by trial and error, then go and buy something like “word press for dummies book”

Word press has a lot of plug and play plug-in which you can use to make your website e-commerce ready. (FREE!!).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_business_directory
You have bought the web site domain name; you just need a good web host to house your website now. A good one is lunar pages .com because they are adult friendly .Even if you do not sell adult related products it is always good to know that you have the flexibility. Now they are on the “unlimited” roll. Which means unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space and unlimited add on domains. All for 4.95 per month)
at the end of all these. You will become skilled in word press (a new skill to acquire on your own) and also manage to set up your business.
http://www.izzonet.com/streetwise-ecommerce/building-an-online-business

I did my business this way. I started with zero word press knowledge and two months later. I am pretty good now without even have to go into coding.