Copyright 2006 Guillermo Puyol
Many people sometime in their lifetime consider starting a business of their own. Lately, these entrepreneurs at heart tend to resort to the internet as the medium for their businesses. Unfortunately, most of them fail drastically. The reason for that most of these people fail is not lack of effort, knowledge or business background; it is their business plan. Some of these eager individuals are so enthusiastic about their new quest, that they forget to stop and come up with a plan. Now, I dont recommend you over-plan things to the extent that your idea will sound impossible. But do consider whether or not your business idea has the following parameters.
First of all, your idea has to be something that excites you and drives you. You have to be completely passionate about what you want to do in order to be successful at it. It is very hard to find a successful entrepreneur that doesnt like what he is doing. When you think of a business idea, consider whether you would be happy doing that for the rest of your life. Is your investment buying you freedom or is it buying you a job? It is interesting to me to see the number of people that invest their life savings in a business that doesnt appeal to them; you see them buying franchises to become professional burger flippers, pizza toppers and chicken fryers, and they slave away firing manager after manager in order to make their business successful.
Once you have found an idea that sounds exciting, you should try to determine whether you can afford to carry it out. In this stage of the process it is necessary to find out how much will it cost to launch the business, but most importantly, how much it would cost to keep the business running. At first it is very likely that you will not be profitable; you have to make sure you have enough capital to run the business for at least two or three months without making a penny. It pays to be pessimistic when it comes to this. You should find out whether you are going to need partners, investors or creditors in order to finance your operation.
Another point to consider is how much work (labor) will take to keep the business running. If you are going to require a customer service department, or shipping department, then you must see how many people you will need to employ. This will be closely related to the budget aspect of your business plan; the more people necessary to run the operation, then the more money you will need to start out.
Last, but not least you must consider the most important aspect of all the one you have no control over: time. Do you have the time to manage your business or will you have to hire somebody else to manage it? The more time your business takes out of you, then the less time you will have to start another venture.
In conclusion, you want a business idea that drives you, something that is within your budget, it doesnt take too much labor to keep it running and it is time friendly. Only with a business model like this will you be able to succeed online. |
