There's probably no need to enumerate the advantages of working at home or telecommuting because you are most likely interested in becoming a home-based virtual assistant if you are reading this article.

All the same, if you need more reasons why you should start a virtual assistant home business, I'll give you some. First, this business is so easy to put up and manage. Second, you do not need huge amount of start-up money. Third, you can work independently!

So, what is a virtual assistant and how do you start a virtual assistant home business?

A virtual assistant is someone who works from her home and provides administrative and personal support to her clients. If you are planning to put up a virtual assistant business, you can consider offering services like word processing, managing databases, editing documents, making letters and reports, updating websites, establishing customer contacts and setting appointments.

If you have no experience in doing some secretarial and administrative work, enrolling in a virtual assistant course can help you learn the tools of the trade. But even if you already had experience as an office-based assistant, this course can help you gain more high paying clients who demand high quality service from a trained virtual assistant.

If you don't want to enroll in this course, you can just buy a book like diana Ennen and Kelly Poelker's book, "Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA." This gives you a guide and tips on how to become a successful virtual assistant. You can buy it from Amazon.com for only $18.87.

Apart from investing a few dollars on enhancing your skills as a virtual assistant, it's good to invest on the equipments and other things you will need in your business like a phone, a computer and Internet connection.

But more importantly, you need to have lots of dedication if you want to succeed in this business. Surely, things won't always be perfect each day, so don't be easily discouraged by minor problems.