Probably like many people, I have “dabbled” off and on with ways to make a little extra money from home for years. I’ve sold jewelry, make up, prepaid phone cards (really got burned on this one), Amway, and I’m sure two or three other things I have long since forgotten. The names don’t really matter – the end results were always the same. Talk your family and friends in to hosting parties, you pack up and lug your stuff, spend time away from your home, end up giving the hostess “great deals”, and you make no money.

For quite some time now, I’ve been watching the advent of the internet change the face of marketing. It has opened up limitless possibilities to start and successfully run your own home based business. Enter a new dilemma – how do you know which opportunites are legitimate and which ones are scams?

I’ve got some great recommendations of areas to evaluate based on an article that was published by The Harvard Business School. I’ve broken them down in to a series of 5 articles, and shared how I used them to find products and businesses that were a good fit for me.