The issue I see more often than anything else with new entrepreneurs is this belief there's something else they need.
Whether that's time, resources, knowledge, a partner, money, or any of a thousand other things that don't actually matter.
I think that picture sums it up pretty well.
The guy has a few dozen perfectly good ladders that could get him over the wall easily, but he's choosing not to use them.
People tell me, all the time, they don't have enough time to start their business right now.
“It's just not a good time, maybe in a few months.”
I hear people tell me they don't have enough money.
“I just need to save up a little more before I get started.”
Their work is too stressful.
“It's just a terrible time with work right now. Things are crazy.”
Or the ultimate fallback, family.
“I have a lot going on with family right now. I just can't possibly start a business.”
I'm sorry, but all of these are just excuses and made up stories to protect us from the possibility of failing.
That's the real issue hiding just beneath all of those stories we tell people.
And that's ok. Failure is scary, and our society has demonized it to such a degree that the thought of possibly failing prevents most people from ever starting.
Pay attention. This next part is really important.
If you start, you will fail, and everything will be alright.
Failure is part of business. It’s the only path to success. Successful business owners got that way because they decided to take on a problem and kept trying to figure it out until they got it right.
We call that iterating to success. You keep finding ways that don't work until you get it right.
I know this isn't the typical, “starting a business is easy, anyone can do it, rah-rah” stuff that you hear all the time, but that's not true or helpful.
Especially when you actually start your business, come up against your first roadblock and then feel like you need to give up because it didn't work right away.
The truth is, it probably won't, and that's ok.
The trick is to keep going and keep learning from those mistakes. Learn from others who are where you want to be and build a community of support.
No matter your situation or what stories are playing in your head, you can do this.
All you have to do is start.
-Jason Duprat, MBA MSA