Advice

A good friend, Dyann, is thinking about starting her own business. She sent me an email saying she wanted to pick my brain for advice. While I'm pretty sure I'm NOT the person you want that kind of advice from, here are a few random thoughts that someone may be able to glean a tiny nugget of inspiration from.

Just do it - There are lots of people who will tell you that you need to do copious amounts of research and develop a well thought out "business plan". There are also lots of people who have 'business plans' and no business. I myself have several 'business plans' that never came to fruition. Yes, you need to know what you are going to sell and who you are going to sell it to (so you don't open an "All Pork" restaurant in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood for example) but you can spend years and years making plans and never actually do any of it. Many entrepreneurs just went out there and did it. They had an idea and they went for it. Sometimes all the planning can lead to fear and discouragement before you even get started. In today's "marketplace" thing are less traditional and structured than they were before so you can go about things less conventionally than before, like making your business plan up as you go along. (Note: If you need loans and investors, you do need a business plan in hand.)

It's okay to fail - Sometimes you can have a great product and it still doesn't work out. For example, years ago my Uncle told us about this company he was investing in that had a machine you could dump your change into and it would count the change and spit out a voucher you would redeem for 'folding money'. They would put these machines in grocery stores. My parents thought the idea was weird (because it would cost you to use these machines instead of just rolling your change and taking it to the bank like people had done for years) but I thought it was genius. And it was. There are Coinstar machines in grocery stores around the country. The problem is that the company my uncle created wasn't Coinstar. It was a rival company and Coinstar was able to get their machine to market first. So my uncle's company died and someone else got rich. Now please don't feel too bad for him, he has a place on the beach in Hermosa, a Porche that's paid for and he travels the world whenever he wants. Because he understands that not everything is going to work out every time. He acknowledged his loss and he moved on to his next idea. It is okay to fail, as long as you get past it.

Don't underestimate the power of the Internet - Because my start-up costs were so low for my business (since I bake on-demand I don't have inventory to go bad, I just have the rent at the bakery I rent space from and my Internet costs for the website and marketing) I could take a chance and see what happened. So I thought it could be months before I got my first order. Well, it wasn't months, it was actually before we opened. But it was the second order that surprised me. It was from someone in New Jersey. And the third was from someone in Kentucky. The Internet has literally made it a small world after all. So use the tools that the market has to offer (I can't say enough good things about Google Adwords!)

Be prepared to give up your 'free time' and your brain - I am thinking, constantly. It's always been that way but now my brain is focused on baking all of the time. What should I change, what should I do next, how can I do more? It invades my every waking thought and my dreams as well. And the little Internet business that I thought would take up no time has consumed my life. That's going to happen, especially when you are a sole proprietor. You're it. But when (see, I said when, not if) your business takes off, you get to reap the rewards (see beach house, Porche and travel above)

Don't stop there - Be ahead of the curve. Plan for success and what you are going to do next. My uncle (yes, he is my inspiration for business models since he has owned many a company and made many of them incredibly successful, to the tune of money that most of us can only dream about) doesn't just stop when he has a great business venture happening, he looks and sees how to improve, expand or even move on to the next big thing. Bill Gates didn't just stop when he sold his first PC, did he? I'm looking at how to grow my business and to do so I have a second entrepreneurial idea. Will it work? We'll see...

Surround yourself with great people - I have an incredible lawyer. Honestly, she is wonderful. She specializes in business formation. I'll give you her number. I have a terrific accountant. I use a great web hosting provider. I have great inspiration and advice from my uncle. I have an incredibly supportive network of friends and family. Honestly, I couldn't do it without them.

So what does it all come down to? Be bold, be brave, believe.