4 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Own Business

[mirindimo]

1. Do I have the foundation I need to start right now?​

The best time to prepare for launching your own business is while you’re still working another job. With steady income as your safety net, you can experiment and take risks with various business opportunities before going solo. Use this time to build on your experience and establish a customer base. This is also the time to save money. You’ll need enough for business start-up, but don’t forget what you’ll need for the ongoing cost of running your business. New businesses need time to become established, and yours will not be able to grow if your new income is paying for your day-to-day expenses. By the time we quit our day jobs, we had been running our book business on the side for four years. Our financial safety net was enough to cover our running costs and living expenses for one year, plus extra so we could continue to buy inventory.Note: This is also a good time to think about other expenses you’ll be taking on (health insurance, retirement savings, office rent and materials, etc.) These are often the easiest expenses to overlook when your employer has been providing them up to this point.2. How do I handle the unknown?When someone asks us for advice on starting a business, we tell them our horror stories: low sales months, deadbeat clients, the economic crash of 2008. This works as a litmus test of sorts, to test their readiness for dealing with challenges. The best business owners rely on their creativity and determination to get themselves through tough times. Do mistakes halt your progress, or do you treat every failure as a learning experience? We pressed our friends and colleagues for their horror stories first. Ask yourself (or other business owners) “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” and “What’s the strangest thing that can happen?” When something goes wrong in your new business, there won’t be a superior to help you out. Write your own policies and solidify your business practices before these situations arise. Thinking about worst case scenarios can ready you for unsettling situations, and you’ll be less afraid of the unknown.3. How will I fill my day?One of the perks of business ownership is that you can manage your own schedule, but it could take some time before you’re used to this. Give yourself some structure before you fall head first into a time warp. Good business owners are naturally independent and self-starting. Do you have the training and expertise to be a good leader and a competent manager? I find that if too much freedom is getting the better of me, giving myself more structured hours increases my productivity. Treating my home office like a real office (and getting out of my pajamas) helps, too. 4. If all else fails, what’s my exit strategy?This is not to get you discouraged before you even begin, but another part of preparing and planning ahead. Even solid business models can struggle, so consider ways of reducing your expenses to get yourself through lean times. If you can’t trim expenses, save for a larger safety net before you start (see Question #1). When you leave your job, make sure not to burn your bridges. Keep in touch with your old employer, especially for the first few months. If all failed for us, we planned to return to our old trades, and possibly move out of NYC for a while to reduce our living expenses. Thinking about our Plan B motivated us to work even harder so we could avoid resorting to it.Running your own business takes much more than having passion and the belief that you will fill a need in the marketplace. Instead of taking a shot in the dark, plan your moves carefully to reduce your risk of failing.

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source: JMG | Click & Get it

 

[Mjamaica]

Good advice for those are still working and want to start a bussiness

 

[Rejao]

Hizi ni theories tu, kila mtu ana njia zake za kufanikiwa. Ukijaribu kusoma most of great investors wanakuambia waliquit job or school kwanza then wakaenda kuanzisha biashara. Kwahiyo hii inategemea.