Entrepreneur is defined as, “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so.”

Being an entrepreneur requires you to take risks in your personal and professional life by creating your own path. However, there are a number of resources that you should keep in your backpack as you travel into the wide blue yonder of online entrepreneurship.

1. A Solid Internet Connection

This may seem like an obvious point, but a good internet connection is essential to running an online business. The free wifi in your local coffee shop isn’t going to cut it when your business gets up and running. You need to have complete control over your connection: from being able to reset the router to calling the ISP to order more bandwidth.

Related: Purchase an internet connection with one of our hand-picked vendors

2. Friends in IT

Whether they’re converting your website to mobile or fixing a bug in your blog’s design, you need to have someone you can call who knows their way around IT. This is especially important when your business is solely run online – a glitch in your webpage can lose you hours or days of visitors and revenues.

Even if you feel you can handle the back-end of your online business yourself, it helps to be prepared for when you hit a glitch you can’t fix. Foster relationships with several IT professionals who can provide you with aid in your time of need. Check their references to be sure you’re getting what you pay for.

3. Your Analytics Tool

Running an online business without analytics is like going orienteering without a map: you may be moving, but you’re probably not going anywhere. Your analytics can tell you more than just how many visitors you get a month.

It can tell you where they are coming from, how they got to you, who they are, what they’re looking at, and more. With this information in hand, you can make changes to attract more converting visitors and increase your revenues.

4. Social Media Tools

Social media automation tools can help you schedule your social posts to various platforms all from a single dashboard. You can control what posts go where and when they go up, enabling you to manage your social presence with little effort. You also use the tools to track your social mentions and take advantage of opportunities for marketing or customer service.

5. The Right Blogs

Stay on top of trends within your industry and in the online business world by following relevant blogs. These can range from small niche blogs to larger sites like Forbes.com or Entrepreneur.com. Reading can keep you informed; commenting can help you connect with business partners and new customers. Checkout our startup section here for more entrepreneur info.

Related: Small Business Resource Guide: Best Blogs for Online Marketing

6. Online Classes

Being an entrepreneur, online or not, means being a jack-of-all-trades. In order to shore up your knowledge and attain new skills, look into webinars and online classes that can teach you what you need to know about running a business online.

7. Your Friends and Family

According to the US Small Business Administration, one-third of startups rely entirely on owner investments and non-bank sources of funds, and the largest percentage of all startup funding comes from the personal capital of the entrepreneur and their friends and family. Look to your closest compadres for help planning, financing, and running your new business.

Related: 7 Free Business Plan Templates

8. Your Business Mentor

Get access to industry-specific knowledge and experience through a business mentor. Look for someone who is familiar with online entrepreneurship who can offer you expert guidance and quality answers to your questions.

Before you set off to start your online business, make sure that you have access to the resources you’ll need along the way. Build relationships with the right people, master the right tools, and educate yourself on how to be successful online.