The Hardest Part Is Getting Started — My Thoughts on Entrepreneurship

Today I was reading an article about America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs and once again it made me think about starting my own business.

When I think about it, I already have a lot of things that could help me in a business venture. Here’s a list:

• I am young and I could afford to take a bit of risk.
• I have quite a bit of experience working at startups.
• I have a degree in engineering and I am fairly capable with web technologies.
• I am fluent in Chinese and English and could possibly source products and services from China.
• My parents are financial professionals and could help me with the accounting
• I have a good network of contacts in the Silicon Valley through jobs and school.
• I have a hubby that is usually pretty supportive

Then there are the hurdles I need to overcome to actually go ahead and start something:

• I need an idea for a business that could be profitable
• I need to get over the fact that I would probably not make money right away.
• Eventually I need to give up my job and work on my business full time.
• I need to get over my fear of failure since most small businesses fail and I absolutely abhor losing or failing at anything .
• I need to get off my butt and execute my idea once I have one.

I think the biggest hurdles for me are that I may fail and I may lose a stable income while I focus my energy on my own business. Coming up with a business idea isn’t very hard because I firmly understand that I just have to sell a product or service that people want and it really doesn’t have to be a complex “web 2.0″ idea. The business could be as simple as buying useless cheap crap from China and selling it to people here at a markup. In fact, a lot of people and companies make billions of dollars doing this. My business doesn’t have to be huge and glamorous so coming up with an idea is easy. I have dabbled in quite a few “businesses” where I sold very mundane things and I did make small buckets of money. However, I always quit because they became too time consuming and my full time job paid much better. Running a business takes a lot of work and most of the time it is easier just collecting a stable salary. I think my mom also said that she always wants her own business, but after calculating everything she found that collecting a salary is just less of a hassle.

It is hard to convert from a wage-slave to a capitalist, and I think for me that is the hardest part about starting a business. If I did get really serious about having my own business I think I could do very well. The problem is that I may never get started.

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