Starting A Small Business


If you don't see starting a small business as an adventure, perhaps you shouldn't be an entrepreneur at all. After all, successful entrepreneurs are those who can really enjoy this feeling of flying by the seat of their pants. I can still remember the first time I decided to start a small business. In the past 30 years, I have gotten many businesses up and going, but at the beginning I was pretty naïve. . Nonetheless, it has always been my dream to start a small business, and I had resolved to make it happen.

There are a few different ways of starting small businesses. I took the easiest approach – I bought a franchise. The great thing about owning a franchise is that it gives you everything you need to succeed. You get brand recognition, a selection of inventory that is already set up for you, company policies and procedures, and plenty of advice about how to run your own business. If you are starting a business without a lot of experience, a franchise is definitely the way to go. After all, it is always nice to have a corporate model to fit into while you learn the ropes.

After I worked at that for a few years, I decided to take my business plans a little bit further. I figured that starting a small business on my own would be a way to really test my mettle. Owning your own business is much more difficult than starting a franchise. You have greater liability, more hoops to jump through and forms to fill out, and no support network from the beginning. Still, the rewards are also greater. You get to keep all your profits and, if you take off wildly, you could one day be the owner of the parent company setting up franchises all over the country.

Starting a small business was much harder than I had expected the second time. The franchise had been such a breeze that I figured that my own startup would be the same way. It wasn't. Starting a small business on your own requires much more strategy. You have to figure out TV advertising, how to hire the right employees, how to get funding, and how to compete with more established local brands. It was no picnic, and it took me almost a year before I was even breaking even. Nonetheless, in the long run it was worth the effort.