How most businesses should start to avoid failure

The art of entrepenuership requires real creativity.  This is not just in whatever business venture you choose to start, but in every aspect, including how to live your life while you grow your business.  In my last blog I spoke about using creative self funding solutions.  This entails a few different methods.  All these methods require that you at a minimum gather between $10,000.00 and $20,000.00 on your own.  There's really no way around it, in this day and age, you can't sell a dream and expect everyone to jump on to your bandwagon.  You have to gather funds. We're going to refer to this as the "initial deposit on your future business" or IDFB. There are costs that you need to foot - no one else.  We'll go into depth on this in another blog topic, but you must be prepared to pay for business related costs. 

These factors have to be adhered to:

1. The best way to gather your initial capital is to work for someone else - in other words - have that dreaded job.  It's important.  You need to self sustain your living costs while saving money for your business venture. 
2. Important:  You need to lower your cost of living expenses to save for your business.  Think logically:  Given current economic conditions - whose job is secure?? Primarily the President/CEO/Business Owner of the company you're working for - not yours. 
3. Never give up your dream of owning your own business.  Keep your eye on the ball.  Whatever difficulties you are living in at the moment, remind yourself that they are short-term. Your goal is to make your business venture happen.  Don't let nay-sayers dissuade you.

Let's work on getting your IDFB.  There are various methods to raise your capital. 

• You can work and with your earnings save the money.
• You can gather friends and/or family and make them your partners/investors. (show good faith by depositing their money in a bank account, and give them the bank and account number information)
• Take the money from your 401K.
• If you're eligible to get a refund on your tax return, take that refund and add it to your IDFB. 

There's one thing that I will always advise NOT doing, and that's getting into debt initially to start your business.  Saving is essential to proper entrepeneurial ethics. It looks great on your Business Plan.  We'll address the need for a Business Plan in another topic.  If you need to get more capital to fund your business - NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE will give you money if they haven't seen that you've sacrificed your own money for your business. 

Why is $10,000 to $20,000 the magic number you need to have?  Because you have to save 10% of what you will need in total to start your business. Most small businesses need $100K to $200K to start.  If you're business plan calls for more than that, you need to gather 10% to start.

Once you've attained your IDFB, then we can talk about how you can effectively make that money grow to self-fund your business.  There are very reputible businesses in the United States that will allow you to invest in their growth and get excellent returns.  We're going to explore in more detail, each one of those business opportunities you can profit from.  Keep tuned for our next blog.