Starting Your Business

Starting Your Business: You Will Never Be ‘Ready,’ So Just Start

You want to have your own business but you haven’t made it happen yet. There’s always something else to learn, another book to read, another seminar or course to attend, right?
Wrong. Just start. You’ve already got what it takes.
“Do I,” you’re asking?
Yes. The very simple (and sometimes very difficult) truth is that you do.
Read on …

Just Because It Seems True Doesn’t Mean It Is

“Abiotic” is a word you may not have heard before. It means “not derived from living organisms.” It’s used in relation to the theory of the source of crude oil. Most likely, you were educated to believe that oil is a fossil fuel—the residue of decayed forests and dead dinosaurs. This theory would make oil a limited commodity.
However, there have been discoveries that indicate that oil is a constantly renewing resource, created not from once-living matter but from the effects of heat on naturally-occurring abiotic substances deep in the earth.
My point is that fossil fuel, a “truth” most of us have accepted for our entire lives, may not be the truth after all. A discovery has shown us a different and compelling truth.
So what other long-held beliefs may also not be true? How about this: You have to be “ready” before you can start your business.
Would you admit it’s possible that this “truth” may be similar to the fossil fuel theory?

How Badly Do You Want It?

A lot of people go to school to learn about business, web design, coding, etc. But no school can teach you the key ingredient you need for success. Fortunately, you don’t need to go to school for it. You already know. It’s something you’ve used plenty of times.
As a teenager, I wanted an electric guitar. It was all I thought about. I doodled them on my school notebooks. I went to my friends’ houses and played theirs. I asked my parents repeatedly for one. It took a couple of years but I finally got it. I just never gave up. I never stopped wanting an electric guitar.
I will bet that there are things that you have wanted that badly too, aren’t there? You wanted them and you got them, whether it was a quarter from your mom, a car, a certain job …
I sometimes think that what keeps us young and alive is that hot, persistent desire for a particular thing.
It’s the desire for cleaner energy and an unburdened earth that keeps Elon Musk pursuing solar power, electric cars and space travel. It was the desire to be the center of e-commerce that kept Jeff Bezos pouring everything into Amazon.com.
That persistent desire—to have your own business, to bring something good and worthwhile into the world—is the thing that no school can teach you. And without it, all the education you can acquire is wasted.
Desire. Obsession. You’ve felt it. Maybe you are still feeling it. If not, just know that you can feel it.

There Will Never Be a Right Time

Accept the fact that you will never been educated enough. Or prepared enough. Or knowledgeable enough. Doesn’t matter. People less educated, less prepared, less knowledgeable than you have become screaming successes.
Henry Ford might just be the best example ever. In 1919, he sued the Chicago Tribune for libel, relative to a pair of stories the paper published in 1916 that called him an “ignorant pacifist” and an anarchist. In an effort to neutralize the libel charge, the Tribune’s lawyers set out to prove that Ford was indeed ignorant. They asked him a lot of high-school-type test questions. They requested that he read aloud from the newspaper. Among the things that emerged during his testimony was that Ford had little education. He was functionally illiterate. He knew nothing about business. After being insulted by one of the lawyers, he made it known that he had employees at his disposal who he could consult when he needed to know something about business, finance or anything else. (Pretty smart, actually.)
The point is, Ford did not let a lack of education or business know-how stop him from going into business. Think about that: He couldn’t even read this article. But you know what? He was far more interested in building a successful business than in reading business advice. (You should be, too.)

Ideas and Execution

The world isn’t sitting around waiting to give its support to the most “ready” entrepreneur. Or the one with the best idea … or even a better twist on an old one. If you’re intent on success, you have to start in spite of everything real or imagined.
And while we’re on the subject of ideas, if you’re waiting until you have a great idea before you start, well … Ford did not invent the automobile. He just found a way to build it quicker and less expensively.
So, maybe you don’t need to wait for a totally original something-or-other that everyone’s going to want or need. If there is a general product or service area that you have an affinity for, look there. There’s already companies providing it? Great: that means there’s a market. How can you do it better? Can you provide something that’s needed or wanted or desirable that the competition isn’t providing?
Those are some good questions to ask.
The world is full of thinkers. Great ideas are fewer than good ideas but ideas in general are plentiful. What is really scarce are doers—people who start, who execute their ideas.

Final Thoughts

You already have what it takes. That person you think you need to be right now, before you can start your business? You will become him or her by starting, doing and making mistakes.
The worst thing would be to look back in five, 10, 20 years and say, “I should have just went for it” or “I should have started sooner.” Better you should look back and say, “I’m glad I jumped in. I’d never know what I know today if I hadn’t made the goofs I’ve made” or “Man, do I have some hairy stories to tell about running a start-up.”

You’re ready: Go! 

All Things Are Possible

Susan Tuck

susantuck.com