I recommend reading The E-Myth Revisited before getting serious. I am finishing up my MBA and always in the back of my mind wanted to start my own business, and still might if the right idea comes along and the timing is right, but this book definitely makes you think twice about it. Unless you come up with something that is truly unique and that people want, often times you end up working three times as hard (having to worry about future business growth, day-to-day operations, and being the technician in many cases) to earn the same pay/salary as if you worked for someone else.
if you're referring to the style and contents of the book, it's nothing like Tim Ferris. it's not a how-to book. it's about changing your mindset. to me, its THE business book to read.
You're an entertainer, what do you do? Musician, actor, stripper? A lot also depends on if the market you are going into has a demand. Lots of first time business owners think a bar is the way to go. But that is probably one of the toughest to start. I believe its a 50% success rate with first time business owners, possibly less. More than likely, you'll lose money in the first year. Can you take that hit? You'll be lucky to break even that first year. I'll say this, there is not a better feeling than being your own boss. Yes, it comes with many responsibilities but I think its worth it. Only negatives I see is that you don't get as many days off and you don't get benefits as you would with working for a company. Or course all this depends if your business is successful or not.
This is interesting. I'm also starting my own business, creating gaming apps for winmo7 and eventually other platforms. (I have a degree in computer science) Luckily, it's something I can do after I get home from my regular 9-5, since I don't have to manage any shops or physically have to be anywhere. Any advice from someone in the field?
As nice as owning your business sounds, it isn't for most people. People are just not willing to make the sacrifices it takes to possibly be successful in business.
I work as a dueling piano player. I don't know if you have been to Pete's Dueling Piano Bar or Howl at the Moon, but that type of show. I've been doing this for years and feel like I know what it takes to make it work. The concept itself is very successful, but location and talent are the most important factors. It would involve probably moving to another city at least for a little while. There are some other avenues that I could pursue with my talents that would take less risk and initial sacrifice, but those ideas are in the infancy stages.
maybe im too young to give advice since i just began my career. but one thing i have always been told... "Have a Plan B" don't put everything you have into your business. if it fails can you still survive?? take some risks, but be safe.
Sure. Just beware that I usually get flamed when I talk about it because most people here don't like it for whatever reason... I love to help - I wish somebody showed me this stuff when I was in my early 20's or even earlier. The way I make most of my money is that I do search engine optimization (SEO) - which means people pay me to have their sites rank higher in the search engines for the search terms they choose. I won't go into too many tech details, but we own a private blog network of high page rank sites - what this means is that for example if you want to rank high in google for "houston rockets" we would do our magic and put your site on our blog network for that keyphrase and your rankings in google and bing would increase. We also outsource backlkink packages which means, the more sites that point to your site - google thinks you are more important so you rank higher. The goal for everyone is page 1 on google. Something like this: http://supremacyseo.com Another way I make money is internet marketing. Which means I sell other people's products. For example, there is a guy who is a legend, he created the "truth about six pack abs" product and was making 1 million dollars per month. You can read his story here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/11/02/the-truth-about-abs-mike-geary/ You can do this with clickbank & actually amazon - you build a website, review a product, have a button on there that says "buy now from amazon" - they click that button and you get a percentage of everything they buy from amazon. Amazon is good for beginners, but clickbank.com is better, and then you should start making your own products and have other people sell them - that is where the big money comes in. I don't use amazon, I still use clickbank some and I have 2 of my own products for back pain and sleep related mp3 downloads. Here are some links for affiliate programs: Amazon: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ Clickbank: Clickbank.com Comission Junction: cj.com For affiliate marketing, I recommend my buddy Pat Flynn - He is the best at teaching beginners, he even posts his monthly income and where it all came from. I think he made 40k in November and he just started this a few years ago. Here is his November earnings report: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/my-monthly-report-november-2011/ Another way you can make money is CPA - which stands for cost per action so that means that you get paid when someone performs an action like submitting their email on a sign up form or downloading a toolbar. I'll give you an example. There is a coupon alert toolbar (couponalert.com) - I built a website for dog food coupons, I optimized the site to rank in the top 5 on google. Each time someone came to my site and installed the coupon alert toolbar I got $3. Doesn't sound like much, right? Well I was getting about 20 conversions per day for a period of 6 months - so that's $60 per day or $900 per month. That's passive income. Once I built the site, I could go play golf and I'd make money that day. You can also BUY google ads which is called PPC (pay per click) and advertise the CPA offers that way. A lot of these are in the dating niche - for example get women over the age of 25 to sign up for match.com and you get paid per sign up. Facebook marketing is big on this, you know all those ads you see on facebook? They are pushing CPA offers. The best places for CPA offers are neverblue.com and cpaway.com Google adsense is another way. Clutch has them on this very site. Volume is key with adsense. I know the guys at adsense flippers (http://adsenseflippers.com/) - and they make small adsense sites, make them profitable and then sell them. These guys also live on a tropical island and outsource most of the work to virtual assistants in SE Asia. Let's say you own 100 small adsense websites each making $5 per day... that's $500 per day right there - passive income and those small sites are easy to crank out - getting them ranked is the challenge but it isn't too hard. Let me know if you have any more questions, but that smartpassiveincome.com blog is the best for beginners and for those wanting to live on a tropical island and work - I think they were giving out an internship on the tropicalmba.com - Dan Andrews runs that site and he's a sharp guy. His podcast is good too - but it's not really for beginners. Good luck.
I know almost next to nothing about programming, etc., but why would you start with windows mobile? I know a lot of developers are turned off by Apple, but I believe the statistics still strongly support the fact that the Apple app marketplace still is the most successful, economically, for developers. here's a recent article debating the topic: http://www.geekwire.com/2011/apple-ios-developers-money-android-developers
I hope to move to the iPhone eventually, but its a matter of familiarity at the moment. The XNA environment that Microsoft uses with their SDK is pretty easy to use and ports easily between the XBox, PC and Winmo7. C# is also easier to learn than Objective C (used to develop iPhone apps). I'm also very familiar with XML. The SDK also uses Silverlight XAML, which is similar. I've already made my first "training" game; a simple Space Invader type of game.
good luck firecat! my only advice: 1) Make sure you really want it. Signing leases, hiring staff, firing staff, dealing with the day to day. Downside risk. You'll be doing less of what you've done well so far -- entertaining -- and more coordinating and managing. Different challenges. 2) Understand and monitor your business. What is your break even? How are your sales? Why are they down? How will you change that? Track your info...and address stuff immediately. All the best to you. If you go for it....give it your all!
Sounds very interesting man. Thanks for taking the time. I'm currently working on some software for the medical industry that I'm hoping will get me on the road to self employment. I will check out some of those links you posted though. Interesting for sure.
I have been fairly lucky to have my own business for a long time even though I am pretty young. I started out in college with a small IT company consulting and doing graphic design for club flyers and parties. I have always tried to do my own business as opposed to work for a company. Right now I do a lot of consulting and building my own web marketing sites after I learned the industry at a job. I tend to learn and then build it out on my own. Right now the work I do is from the house and I don't have to be on top of it 24/7 as with my last venture. The last one I had was Live Sports Cafe which was in downtown Houston. i was one of the owners there since the beginning. Some of you used to frequent there but a lot probably didn't come to downtown much. Bottom line a restaurant or bar is beyond a full time job. You basically don't have a life. There is a ton of waste, lost revenue, theft, expenses that you just don't know until your a part of it. It's not something you can really let someone else manage because with that much cash coming in and out there is theft all over the place. You are there from morning till the next morning and get no rest at times. I had to deal with that and I had 2 other partners helping me. Bottom line you have a ton more things to worry about at the end of the day but the rewards can be there if you can build something good. Unfortunately for me we had a lot of highs, then a ton of lows when Downtown went south.
I am interested in what you are doing there, as I am now active in a similar field. Is it still secret or can you tell us more?
My Dad ran a remodeling business with wealthy clientel in River Oaks. He never ever had a day off. He was able to support himself and support his workers with fair pay, but he was never able to get the business to a point where it could run without him. The major problems he had were finding competent reliable employees who could do what he needed them to (painting, drywall, plumbing, etc.), keeping track of his expenses, and maintaining cash flows. He's an old school sort of guy, so digital accounting of these items was always a bit beyond him. At any rate, he ran the business starting in the early 90's and stopped doing it around 2008. He's now a building manager for a retirement home. He gets time off, and lives a less stressful life.
I am currently in the process of starting and running my own business. I am getting into the Promotional Items business. It is primarily a vehicle to putting my invention into use. [It is the primary promotional I am looking to sell] My Issues are 1. Personality - by nature I try to be modest and low key. Not being the 'salesman' type I think is killing me. I am not the guy to do alot of self promotion. Which leads to me not properly promoting the business. Beyond that it is start up capital issues but those are things that I think can be overcome. Getting my product into retail stores without a record of sales is difficult as well. Alot of retail processes to learn and Even the processes of dealing with government entities and businesses in general. Starting as a Nobody [an unknown entity with not history of success] It a bit daunting. So Marketing and Advertising is key. Getting the name out there Rocket River I am currently working on the personality disorder. The Modest man receive modest returns!
I don't have my own business but I was manager of an ice house for a few years and I am now a real estate agent, self-employed. I will just say one word, accountability.
No secret or anything. There are a couple of companies out there doing things similar. It has to do with automating as much of the process for claims with Medicaid as possible. Like I said there are companies out there that do similar things, but not quite how I'm going to be doing it. They also charge a ton and I'm hoping I can get my way in there with a lower price point, but with more to offer from an automation stand point.
