I’ve spoken about the concept of financial leverage in pretty rudimentary terms. I’ve also spoken about the need for more entrepreneurship in our daily lives, both as a competitive tool against personal malaise and as a way to earn some additional, sorely needed cash.

John Chow listed his five requirements for investing in a new business and sure enough leverage showed up as one of them. Except in this case, he wasn’t talking about financial leverage, he was talking about business leverage. In other words, when you start a business… does it have the potential to distribute product globally? or are you stuck in a small niche relegated to a few geographical locations?

Now, of course I disagree with some of what he has written, but a lot of it makes sense.

He looks for 5 things:

1. Low Startup Costs
2. Exclusive Rights
3. Business that Runs Itself
4. Global Business
5. Portable Business

Translation: In more general terms, he’s talking about an Internet-based business. On that count, I fully agree. The web has enabled scores upon scores of people to while away their leisure time and start businesses that they were passionate about. The startup costs are low (the cost of this blog was under $100, including hosting and domain), the business can run itself to a certain point (search engine traffic, etc…), and the Internet makes a business both global and portable at the same time (does your customer really care where you sit?).

Add this all up and it’s never been a better time to take stock of your personal finances, shift some capital from cash to investing, and open up your online shutter. I have loads of ideas and I’ll be speaking about them as we move forward in this personal financial world known as capitalAI.