Before starting with any home based business opportunity, you might want to understand the similarities and differences with traditional business models. Many people are turning to online home business as opposed to storefront businesses these days.Similarities and differences with traditional ones:Funds:Let us first begin with the start up costs. Most home based online businesses can be started without too much of an economic impact whereas the conventional ventures usually require quite a lot of investment. If you want to start a business on a tight budget, you might want to keep your eyes open for a nice home based business opportunity.Business failures have been related mostly to inadequacy of funds. People always underestimate the expenses which they will need to incur for starting and running a business. This can prove to be an expensive mistake for them and they will need to abandon their dreams midway. This is a classic example for poor business planning.At least in the initial stages, your profitability will depend upon the size of your investment. If you are working on a shoestring budget, you will need to apply double the efforts in order to make up for the shortage of funds. You will need to storm into the market and make a big impact with your customers. A true businessperson will emerge victorious from this character test.This simple fact holds true for all the business-models. If you do not invest time and money into building your business, it will never grow. However, home based business could possibly succeed with comparatively lesser funds.Professionalism:Many people fail with their home based business opportunity because they do not treat it in a professional manner. Just because they are working from their homes, they tend to become more relaxed. Businesses do not work this way and here they will need to take examples from the conventional businesses and best practices.Almost many people seem to think that others will build their business for them. They believe that working from home does not require much of a time commitment. Most of the times, it will be too late for them before the reality strikes in on them.When you question any successful online entrepreneurs about how much time they put into building their business, you will be astonished at their responses.Most successful home based business people, despite the business model, work long hours to build their business. If you cannot make the time commitments, you might want to reconsider before starting a business.It is quite clear that a home based business opportunity runs in the similar lines with which the traditional businesses do. The only difference possibly would be the low startup costs and lower risk factors.