Building a successful home based business empire will require analyzing five key factors. Once you get comfortable with these five factors you should have a very good idea of which home based business opportunity you’ll want to get involved in!A quick warning before we get into the meat of the article. If you are considering building a successful home based business empire you’ll obviously spend some time researching what opportunities are out there. Be very careful here, if anyone “guarantees” a certain amount of income or tells you that making money from home is easy, DON’T WALK, RUN from these offers. Let’s not forget that a home based business is just that, a BUSINESS.Nothing is guaranteed in business and it’s not easy. I’m not saying this to discourage you or scare you away because there are some great opportunities out there for you to build your home business empire, but understand that whatever you choose will be challenging and it will require a big effort from you to be successful. That being said I personally know home business entrepreneurs that have earned well into seven figures from home, but I also know that they put in the effort to get the return.OK, OK you get it so enough with the lectures, let’s get into the five factors you’ll need to consider when choosing the which home business opportunity is going to help you achieve the success you want!1) What’s the initial investment? When considering this keep in mind that less may not be more. In other words a larger investment may give you a better opportunity to earn a higher income quicker. Some opportunities may not even require an upfront investment, think affiliate marketing. Whatever the size of the investment you’ll want to do you due diligence on the company your signing on with prior to getting started.2) What are your ongoing expenses? Any business owner will tell you one of the most frustrating things to manage is overhead. It’s a moving target and take a business under quickly. In considering a home based business you”ll have a leg up almost immediately here because your overhead is going to be significantly lower than a traditional business. That being said different opportunities are going to have varying expenses. I would suggest staying away from anything that’s going to require purchasing inventory. In today’s Internet world even if you’re going to sell product you should be able to use a drop ship company to help with the storage and shipping of products.3) What type of opportunity will you choose? This is a tough one because we all have different interests and passions. I would suggest spending some time thinking about what your hobbies or passions are. It’s much easier to build a business around something you love than it is to just chase money. From this perspective network marketing can be a viable possibility for a home based business empire because there is a wide range of network marketing opportunities available and you will probably be able to identify one that ties in with your passion.4) How long will it take for you to be profitable? You’ll need to run some projections here, but I would suggest that for a home based business you need to be profitable within 2-4 months.5) What equipment is required? From my perspective I don’t want to get involved in something that requires me to load up on new equipment. For one thing it’s going to eat away at potential profits, but I also don’t want to learn how to use new equipment. You’re going to have enough on your hands learning how to run your business and I would argue that you need to limit your learning curve as much as is possible to your business and how to get it to profitability ASAP!Once you have worked through these five factors you should be able to zero in on a few opportunities that meet the criteria you’re looking for. Once you’ve decided on the opportunity you’re going to choose, roll up your sleeves and have fun building you a successful home based business empire!Feel free to check out my blog at http://www.askchrispatterson.blogspot.com.