I recently had a meeting with a wantrepreneur, (wantrepreneur is someone who has never started a company and has no experience running a company) thought he wanted to start a company. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to start a company if you have not done it before. But what needs to be understood it is not easy to start a company of any size, no matter what the product or service. Can you devote the time necessary?
Everyone who has not started a company should take a real look at what they about to do from many perspectives the most important is how much time do you have to devote to the business. Most people try and start their company while they are still employed, which is great. I would strongly recommend doing it this way if you are starting it by yourself. If you have a partner(s), then there are many other issues that come into play that I will not go into on this post.
So let’s assume you are starting it by yourself, you have this service you have become skilled at and you want to help others with your service. You need to have time to start talking to customers or potential customers, how do you bill for your services? what program do you use? Can you use the billing software yourself, have you set up a new company to do your service? The work/questions just keep adding up.. it will always be that way the first few years or until you can afford to hire some significant resources.
I point this out to show you that there are a ton of things to work on and the list will only continue to grow and you can expect this for the first couple of years or until you can hire significant resources. Get use to it, expect and plan for it. That is what starting a company is about managing lots of projects/ideas and moving them forward.
I think you get the point… Starting a company is a crapload of work and it is not for the faint of heart. The success rate and the number of people who start companies are small because it is damn hard to start a company. Be prepared to sacrifice your time from friends, family and your own time. It can be “all-consuming” but the rewards are amazing. So when you say “I am starting this “cool product/service” be aware that means you must covet the most important resource you control … your time.
