Good points Larry.
Another way to start off small, free and easy if you don't have site building skill is by starting off with a
Squidoo Homepage lens or a
Hub Page.
These are good to start off with because they get traffic and fairly good search engine rankings plus don't require any design work. You just need to write content. BUT they work best if you have a good targeted niche and you still need to write good content and do keyword research and write good titles.
Do double check the rules for each to be sure they don't prohibit affiliate links. I'm almost positive they both do but have not checked lately. If the primary goal is to get friends to sign up and do the selling for you (which normally does not work very well) then doing a free site like this - at least for starters makes sense.
Then after you find something that works well on the free site - build your own site and link your Squidoo lens or hub to it.