Starting a business can be a big commitment. It is a commitment first to yourself, but also to your family, friends and professional contacts. Depending on how you set your path and priorities, it does not have to be a tedious and arduous process but it may be one that sacrifices some other aspects of your life. Before embarking on the journey of building your business it is important to think about your current (and foreseeable future) situation. This includes not only evaluating your potential hard-dollar investment, but also your time commitment and opportunity cost (money and time you could be spending doing other things) and answering many other questions that are personal to you. Here are some questions to ask yourself that can help determine your current situation:
1. How much experience do I have in launching a business?
For example, you may have never launched a business or have launched multiple businesses. Or, perhaps the product or service you want to launch is new to you. If you are innovating a new product or service, is it one that doesn’t exist or is it an improvement on one that does exist? And, is there good information available to help in the research or is it a blank slate?
2. How much time do I have available to commit to the business?
Perhaps you are working a full-time job and have only a few hours per week to give or you can dedicate yourself full-time to the new business creation.
3. What resources do I have to help me get the business launched?
For this, consider the mix of contacts (people and companies) that you may need help from to put everything together, including: strategic, motivational and educational resources, operational and technical support, legal, financial and creative resources.
4. What are the development and support requirements for the product or service?
Consider how straight-forward or complex the development of your new product or service will be, including authorship or technical designs, manufacturing of a prototype and all the other factors to produce enough quantities to prove your concept. Other considerations that weigh in include your primary business type (invention and manufacturing, agent/distributor, service retail, others), being solely online and/or brick and mortar, serving consumers and/or businesses, creating a shippable product or an information e-download, patents, and so on.
Only you will know if you are ready to start. Getting organized can greatly help in arriving at this decision. This includes organizing your externals such as your personal and professional lives. Equally importantly, it means organizing your financial life so that you are adequately taken care of while building the new venture. Clearing any mental clutter and noise is also very important. Another suggestion is to prepare yourself to let go on some aspects and delegate. This will come easier if you are comfortable with the people you work with in the early stages, if there’s a good fit, and sometimes this is hard to determine until the working relationship is established. Either way, be ok with your new role as a leader and allow enough time and energy for creativity and flexibility based on the current needs.
