Your Idea Isn’t Unique or Compelling

Every great entrepreneurial pursuit begins with one simple thing: A great idea. You probably already have at least a vague notion of what you want your business to accomplish, but is it something truly unique and unprecedented – or has the niche already been filled by your competition? The most successful companies are often the most innovative, so wait until you have an idea that is decidedly different or you could become frustrated by your own constant attempts to make headway in a very crowded marketplace.

You Can’t Handle Competition, Rejection or Stress

To be an entrepreneur, you need to be ready for both success and its ugly stepsister, failure. No matter how much leadership, ingenuity and problem-solving you exhibit, it will amount to very little if you crumble under stress or break down when faced with competition. The business world is tough, and stumbling along the way is inevitable. Unless you have a strong, resilient spirit, you may find yourself wanting out before you even get started.

You Don’t Know Enough About Your Intended Field

While a college degree isn’t a necessity by any means, you do need to be well-educated in your chosen field. This education can come from many different sources, including independent research, hands-on experience, a mentoring situation and more. No matter how you go about getting your information, you will need to know your field well – and once you get started, understand that you’re going to learn even more along the way.

You’re Not Ready to Get Your Hands Dirty

Starting a business is hard work, and as an entrepreneur, you’re probably going to be taking those initial steps on your own – everything from branding and marketing to strategizing and networking. In the beginning you may have to attend industry conferences to hand out flyers to potential clients. If you’re not ready to commit a good deal of time to the process and pour your heart and soul into every aspect of your business, no matter how trivial, your company will suffer for it.

Fortunately, just because you’re not ready right now doesn’t mean you won’t be able to make a name for yourself as an entrepreneur in the very near future. Continue to learn, grow, create and innovate, and you’ll find a way to make it happen.

You can learn theories and processes at school but if you do not have it in you to make your business succeed, years of studying may be futile. The Internet has become a tool for a lot of people who want to start their own businesses to learn the basics of entrepreneurship. Below are some helpful websites that can help the novice businessman succeed in the industry:

On Startups

Onstartups.com is an online blog that helps people learn about some of the basics of entrepreneurship. The website has contributing writers, all of which are successful entrepreneurs in the industry. The writers give their readers tips on how to go about meetings with clients, how to deal with start-ups software, and how to advertise and make products appealing to consumers. There are so many helpful insights on the website that can help both novice and even experienced entrepreneurs improve their business strategies.

Entrepreneur.com

This website is aimed primarily at entrepreneurs. It contains a lot of helpful articles about how to make businesses succeed and be competitive in the industry. It has all kinds of helpful business-related articles. Whether you plan to start a small-scale business, or go big-scale right away, there’s a lot of helpful information on this site that can help you. You can even ask fellow entrepreneurs for tips or voice out your problems and concerns, and you can be assured that someone who has had previous experience would answer your questions.

Vator

This website contains interviews from successful entrepreneurs that are targeted to help other entrepreneurs in the industry. It can be extremely helpful for different kinds of entrepreneurs as the site contains a wide selection of information about online businesses. The Internet has become an industry in itself and those who plan to start their own online business or think of ways to make money online can visit this site and find some very helpful and useful tips.

The Internet alone contains so much information to help even the novice entrepreneur succeed in the industry. All the aforementioned sites can help a lot in making any business succeed. Though it is important to keep in mind that tips alone will not make you a successful entrepreneur, they can certainly help a lot.

You also have to know what to do and you also have to have the necessary drive to succeed. When you are at a loss, you can go to these websites and you will see that even the most successful entrepreneurs have to go through a lot of problems before they succeed and create a multi-million dollar franchise. While these sites will not make you an instant millionaire, it can definitely help get you started on the road to making your business a success.

A month goes by without any other sales regardless of how many advertisements you pay for, or emails you send. You’re almost starting to regret those startup fees for the business, website and domain registration fees, and the monthly credit card processing bill. Truth be told, you have spent ten dollars for every one earned, and the fees are due for the second month in a few days.

You float the “business” for another two months. You’ve had to cut your household expenditures and work overtime at the job you were trying to get away from, but you’re still a few thousand dollars in the hole. You start wondering what you did wrong since all the testimonials you read on the type of business bragged about making thousands in the first month. Was it a scam after all?

Actually it wasn’t a scam. You technically didn’t do anything wrong, but you did jump right into the venture without adhering to a few simple guidelines. Don’t let one bad experience turn you off from your dream of working for yourself.

Research, research and then research again

Number one: Research, research, and then research some more before committing one single cent. Look into affordable web hosting, shopping cart software (hosted and licensed), credit card processing, and anything else you can think of. Be wary of those business hosting websites which will set up the site for you and throw in the shopping cart, all for a “low” monthly fee of 9.99 USD. Remember the most important rule. If it sounds too good to be true, it actually is.

Those testimonials you read were either bought from paid writing professionals, employees (affiliates) of the company itself, or from people who had a huge amount of time, energy, and starting capital from day one. There is no such thing as easy money, or everyone with desire would already be rich.

After you’ve researched this business from front to back, look into ten other online business opportunities. One of the most common mistakes made in a business is having a small selection. That person who is looking for custom tee shirts will probably also want to look at hats, shorts, letterheads and even stationary. Don’t limit yourself.

The opposite is also true. The site with thousands of varied choices right off the bat will probably put a customer off, if not confusing them. It will also eat into your starting capital.

You will not get rich over night

Number two: Don’t go into your new business thinking you’ll strike it rich over night. This is the most common mistake people have. They’ll go into the business, spend all their starting capital, and lose interest when the business doesn’t do well right away.

It will take time, dedication, and energy to be successful. Almost no one has an instant internet success overnight. Take it one step at a time, and you’ll see results.

Believe in products you’re selling

Number three: Believe in the products or services you’re selling. Not everyone can be as smooth as a used car salesman. If you don’t believe in the products or services, how do you expect to convince others to? Yes, there are many websites out there who do huge volumes in the sale of inferior, almost worthless products and services. Put the question to your self – would you do business with them?

Be honest

Number four: This is perhaps the most important rule. Be honest. Honesty is taking that extra step to form a relationship between your business, you, and your customers. Without honesty, you’re business is just another of the thousands of websites. Take that extra time to write return policies, provide accurate contact information, and address each customer support issue as it comes up.

Sure, you could do without honesty, but where would your business be then. Those long time websites who are dishonest are well known and established. They first went online in a time when people didn’t do much online shopping. Now there are millions of online businesses, and you need an edge over your competitors.

In closing, make your online business something special. If you want to be another run-of-the-mill retailer, then don’t expect much from your customers. They certainly won’t be coming to you for the same ol’ treatment and products.

Talk to People About Their Business

When I didn’t have a business, I remember not having any ideas to implement.  I had an idea-block.  I had no creative juices.  The best idea I had was to start an IT consulting company so I could learn about business.  Why consulting?  It was what I did at my day job and I knew the game so I figured it was a good place to start.  That didn’t last very long as I was not excited about it.  Shortly after starting it, I frequented networking events to meet potential clients.  When I did that though, I learned about all the cool businesses and ideas some people were working on.  I was at a Social Media conference where I met someone from the local Small Business Center.  That contact turned out very useful later when I went go back for questions.  My network only started to grow after I created the business.  Even then, I did not know who to contact about book keeping, marketing, SEO, coaching, etc.  I would have been further had I had those contacts.

Be Inspired

Keep yourself inspired and motivated.  Let’s not consider reading the news as part of this.  By being inspired, I mean checking out the videos on TED.com.  Some of them are absolutely amazing.  There was one video where someone developed a product that does to sound what a laser does to light.  The product focuses sound waves on a particular area so only those people could hear it but not anywhere else.

Read Books Recommended By Business People

There are tons of good reads.  They must be engaging, easy to read, entertaining and fun.  Did you know that there was a book read by entrepreneurs that caused more businesses to start than any other?  That book is Atlas Shrugged.  Or how about a book written by the founder of Tripod- the original website authoring tool way back in the 90′s.  His book is a very entertaining account of stories and lessons the successful entrepreneur learned while building the company.  The book titled, Lucky or Smart is about how entrepreneurs should learn to realize they are getting lucky in business.  Other great reads are: Rich Dad Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

Do Something From Your Bucket List

You never know how much time you have when you do start to build a business.  Take the time when you have it to do whatever you want- travel the world, jump out of an airplane, train for a marathon, learn a new skill, etc.  Once the business starts, that’s your bucket list.  And it could take a long time before you can check it off.

Brainstorm Ideas For Your Business

Finally, brainstorm for your new business.  Go to a place where you enjoy and can think.  I like to go to a park by myself with a pen and paper and write things out.  I leave all my electronic gadgets at home, sometimes including the phone.  List out all the things that you spend most doing.  Then list out all the things you like doing- your hobbies.  Start asking questions like, “How could I make money doing X” or “What’s one thing that I can cut out to make me happier”.  You get the point.  Figure out who you are.  I don’t know myself as well as I do until I started doing more of these exercises.  Ideas start to pop up.  Some of them will be fluff, but some might be winners.  With the winners, take them and start doing your market research to see if that idea is viable.  It is it, that could be your business and then this list will be obsolete.

So if you don’t have a business yet, go talk to people who do have businesses.  Ask them tons of questions- the most famous being, what advice do you have for people looking to start out?  Build a network of entrepreneurs around you.  Birds of a feather flock together.  Get inspired.  Pick up a book and enjoy it.  Go check something off your list of things to do before hitting 30 (or 40, or 50, or 60, etc.).  And finally, start thinking of business ideas.  As for me, I wish I had more of a business network when I started.

Q: Is Stiqr your first businesses? What have you done before?

A: Stiqr is actually our third business together as partners. Myself and Jae started working together straight out of high school and started our first startup called YRLESS, a Wifi-Hotspot provider. Something we see everywhere now but was just gaining traction at the time. Our second startup was a web hosting company called Simplehelix, where we provided high-end premium web hosting space targeted toward users wanting Magento as their e-commerce platform.

Q: Did you always see yourself as an entrepreneur. What do you think where the most important experiences that lead you to become a successful entrepreneur?

A: I didn’t know of the word entrepreneur until I took some business classes at college but I always knew I wanted to work for myself. I can’t think of one specific experience that has lead our success but I strongly believe it is the mindset one keeps. It’s about wanting to solve the problems that you see in your life and knocking them out one by one. Small or big, you are solving problems and some of the problems apply to a larger radius than yourself.

Q: Were you a good student? What where your favorite subjects in school?

A: School was never my favorite place to be. I’ve always wanted to get out and work on real life problems. I felt that school, especially up to k12 moved to slowly and did not teach me any real skills and got bored extremely fast. I loved my programming and science classes as I was able to apply them to make real things in life.

Q: How did you get the idea for Stiqr?

A: Although I love coding, coding can be tedious. Especially when it comes to coding up HTML & CSS for a design that you have already mocked up in Photoshop. So many times have I just wanted to move an image or an html element a few pixels but caused me hours of pain. I knew I wasn’t the only one that shared this pain and me and my partner decided to move forward with it.

Q: What have been the most challenging aspects so far of Stiqr?

A: Identifying our target users and which feature sets to further develop. We have a technology capable of blending in to improve and solve many other problems on the web. We are currently in the process of collecting feedback and weighing our choices.

Q: What has been the most successful way for you to promote Stiqr and acquire new users?

A: The largest source of our traffic came from a coverage done by us at go2web20.net. There coverage then extended to many other blogs and news writers writing about us. Another great source was from asking our fremium users for feedback and giving them the option to tweet and spread the word for a our premium account.

Q: How do you plan on monetizing Stiqr?

A: Our current model may change in the future but we stand at selling domain licenses. We are working to further develop our product for a subscription model to make sense and even a new marketplace to open up rev-share model.

Q: What would be your most important advice you would give to a young entrepreneur?

A: Build connections. To elaborate a little and not stating the obvious, it is crucial to start when you are young. It is the perfect playground for it and the opportunities for connections are far easier to come by. Time factors into a large portions of what a connection is and having that strong foundation to start out with, will be your greatest asset as an entrepreneur.

Online advertising might seem like the obvious solution for the small business owner, but one shouldn’t overlook the importance of offline advertising mediums such as billboard signs and mail distribution lists as well as the placement of local flyers.

The internet is a big place, and there is a lot of traffic, but getting prime advertisement placement on high traffic sites can end up costing big bucks. An advertisement for your small business placed on a billboard near a local highway on the other hand could afford you the confidence that your ads are reaching their intended local market.

E-mail in the 21st century overshadows the classic snail-mail of yore, but snail-mail has its advantages. Modern email services and browser settings heavily limit the amount of “spam” users receive. A mailing list on the other hand guarantees you’re getting the information out to a customer who cares in a flyer they can hold in their hand and bring to your business with them on their visit.

Well-placed local flyers can also voice your message effectively to consumers as they regularly frequent other businesses like grocery stores and shopping centers. A posted flyer on a telephone poll next to a busy street can produce more traffic for a small ad as well.

If your business is working a kiosk at an event, a vinyl banner is always a crucial part of your business’ image. Banners also work great for advertising on the sides of buildings where there is a lot of consumer traffic. There is also a market for vinyl wraps for automobiles.

One of the most timeless methods of classic advertisement lies in radio. Don’t just choose any old radio station to promote your ad; find out what your customer is listing to, who is your target market? Place your advertisements accordingly and you’ll be sure to have them find ready ears in listeners commuting to and from work on a daily basis.

Advertising couldn’t be discussed without mentioning television. A television commercial is one of the most effective and experienced forms of advertisement familiar to man. As with radio ads make sure you find the right station or channel to advertise with. There is no point in putting a car insurance ad on during a cartoon marathon. Think about your target market.

It’s not. Easy that is.

And one of the biggest banes of our unique breed’s existence is when the unthinkable happens.

Techie failure!

This is one of those doomsday events that can literally happen to anyone, no matter who you are.  Imagine pounding away on a project currently under a tight deadline… that blog post that needed to be up like… 3 days ago…

Or that ebook project you’ve finally moved to the front of the line… or even that huge project you’re partnered with so-and-so on, that is supposed to be launching in 24 hours!  Yikes!

Suddenly your PC blacks out, and all that blessed hard work is finito in the blink of an eye.  Gone.  Down the drain.  Never to be seen again.

Ouch.

It happens.  And often explaining what happened can be mortifying, somewhat akin to explaining to your teacher that the dog ate your homework or something equally lame.

Luckily, there are a few preventive steps you can do to decrease the chances of this situation happening to you. And failing that, learning what to do when a technological nightmare does happen is just smart business.

Learn how to do basic computer maintenance

Admit it.

You’re one of those folks that tends to backburner silly little things like “computer maintenance”.  After all, why should you be bothered with such trivial matters when you have soooo much stuff to do, right?

Wrong!

Once a week, you should give maintenance it’s very own time slot. Yes it will likely eat away a few hours a week of your life but you’ll be thanking your lucky stars you’ve done this when you see someone going ape**** over their problematic computer, while you go on about your business as usual!

Some of the most basics things you can do include disk defragmentation, disk check-up and disk clean-up. However it does depend on your OS so check what’s applicable for your system.  One useful tool I like to use is System Mechanic.

Just be careful with the registry cleanup.  I’d recommend not using those particular features as more often than not registry changes end up messing up your computer even more.

Make sure you have substantial security features installed

You probably know how important it is to protect your computer from viruses but what you may not know is that aside from those nasty little buggers, there are other dangers lurking behind every mouse click.

Let’s say you’re surfing away when you happen across a seemingly cool video. After you click the link, things keep popping up in your window and going all wonky. Not only can this be annoying but it can seriously damage your computer.

Protect yourself by knowing how to update your anti-virus and keep your Internet monitor on, with firewalls up.  Also, get some malware protection and autorun blockers. The latter is important if others tend to jack their USBs into your computer on a regular basis.

One great anti-virus program I love is VIPRE.  It’s fast, lightweight, and effective.  You can also try Avast, although personally I like the former better.

Teach yourself how to deal with Internet connection problems.

Okay, you may not quite get this one because you might think it’s easier to call tech support. Sometimes the solution is embarrassingly easy though.

I mean embarrassingly.

There are also times when tech support can’t even offer you a decent solution because the problem isn’t on their side it’s a problem with your side.

If you are connected via cables, check to see if there are obstructions or if you’ve unplugged your modem. Try and understand firsthand what those weird blinking lights actually mean.

Chances are it’s not Morse Code.

If you are connecting via WIFI and you’re using a laptop, is your WIFI device on?

In some laptops, there’s a different switch for this one.  Check your network center to assess your wireless status.  Sometimes problems can be fixed by simply unplugging your modem and allowing it to reset!

Just be careful about any changes you do make while tinkering though.

You may end up digging a deeper tech hole that common geek speak won’t be able to decipher.  In that case, it really will be time to call tech support!

And there you have it.  3 things that seem oh so minor, but in actuality can save you hours of headaches in the future.  Learn them and do ‘em and I promise… you’ll thank me later!

Neither extreme is good for your business.

The danger of bootstrapping is that you have to learn everything the hard way. You might make mistakes which could have been avoided if you’d paid for a class or an ebook on your particular topic.

On the other hand, buying every single information product going isn’t a good strategy either; you’d soon be broke.

So how do you sort the good from the bad, and figure out when it’s sensible to pay for information products?

Your Bottom Line

First, keep your bottom line in mind. Any good information product should lead to extra time for you to do productive work, or extra sales of your products or services. Essentially, for every dollar you spend on an information product, you should be making at least a couple of dollars back, just from using the information within it.

It’s particularly useful to keep this in mind if you’re thinking of buying a fairly pricy product. Sure, that ebook or online course might be $197 – which is a lot to spend when you’re trying to grow your fledgling business – but if that $197 results in an extra $500 of work for you, it’s probably worth it.

Don’t Discount Your Time

Your money matters, obviously enough. But your time is just as crucial. It’s easy to forget this – but if you’re spending hours searching the net for free information, those are hours that you can’t spend on profitable work for your business.

When you’re looking at products to buy, don’t be too swayed by the amount of content. In terms of your time, you’re better off buying an ebook which takes an hour to read – but which lets you earn an extra $500 – than an ebook which takes three hours to read for the same effect. It might feel like the latter is more valuable because it’s bigger, but what really matters isn’t the amount of information … it’s how useful it is to you.

Judging What to Buy

So, you’ve decided that you’re going to budget some of your profits for buying information to help your business grow. But what should you buy? There might be hundreds of courses, ebooks, teleseminars and membership sites devoted to your particular topic.

I’d suggest:

• Set a budget for your information purchasing. Make sure you’re not going to be getting into financial difficulties.
• Look for reviews and case studies about a particular resource. Don’t just read the testimonials on the sales page: search the web for “review + [product name]”
• Subscribe to the blogs or join the newsletters of the big players in your field. Get to know them through the free content which they provide – and decide whether you trust them enough to pay for their products.
• If you buy something you love, look for more information products written by the same person.

You Have to Use It

Finally, you could buy the greatest ebook or training course in the world … and it’d do you no good at all if you left it sitting unread on your hard-drive.

Make sure you use the books, ebooks and other products which you buy. Don’t just collect materials. It’s better to dig deeply into what you already have than to keep buying something new. You might want to print out ebooks, or put audio files onto your MP3 player, for ease of accessibility.

When you read through a book or listen to an audio, keep a notebook and pencil handy. Jot down any key points which you want to remember – and write down any ideas which occur to you in relation to your own business.

Information is valuable … but only when you use it.

Don’t Give Up The Online Business Just Yet

So, should you give up on the idea of starting an online business because you don’t have the necessary ‘entrepreneur characteristics’ or don’t have the qualifications or background to be an entrepreneur? Well before you delete your blog bear with me for just a few minutes.

Having built a hotel in the Caribbean when I was in my twenties and built a commodity trading business to over $300mn in volume in 18 months as well as other enterprises, I know one or two things about being an entrepreneur. A lot of what I have learned has not been from books or theoretical ‘business studies’ but by the people I have met and associated with, here are two;

Karate Entrepreneur

I was at the hotel one afternoon stressing about the latest wall being knocked down and how over-budget we were going, when there was a tug on my shorts.

I looked down to see a little local fellow, no more than 7 or 8 years old. When I looked down he said “Excuse me Chief would you sponsor me”. Turns out that his Karate school needed a punch bag and this little guy had arranged a sponsored swim to raise funds. After convincing me to commit $10 he looked very pleased.

Ten minutes later there was another tug on my shorts, it was my little friend.“Excuse me Chief, I notice you have a punch bag hanging up around the back, can I have it?” One of the staff who had left us had hung this punch bag around the back of the hotel, and I knew nothing about it. I told my beaming new chum that if he could raise the man power he could have it. Twenty minutes later an army of little 8 year olds marched out with the punch bag on their shoulders like a crew of well drilled worker ants.

This kid was neither from a privilege background (quite the opposite in fact) nor did he have any business qualifications (he was 8!). He simply got off his butt, kept his eyes open for opportunity and asked questions.  Born entrepreneur?

Pool Boy Entrepreneur

When we initially got the hotel the building was derelict and a vagrant had made his home there. Turns out his name was Mike, he thought he was ‘about 40’ and he had the mind of a 10 year old. I instantly liked him. We cleaned him up, gave him a proper little room to live in and set him to work doing any and all odd jobs, he was in his element.

Time came to open the hotel and Mike was worried. “There will be no jobs for me, Chief. I am sad” he said. Now if you met Mike you would instantly fall in love with him. He was sweet, caring and would do anything to please. All he needed was people to talk to and enough money to eat and have the odd drink. I spent time over the next few days teaching Mike how to clean the pool, how to address guests, where to get towels from and when he should talk to guests and when he shouldn’t.

Mike cleaned up, he not only did what I had told him to do, he told guests that whatever they needed they just had to ask, day or night. Mike went about every job he was asked with such gusto and pride that his tips amounted to what he saw as a huge fortune. Mike had EVERY disadvantage you could pile on someone to stop them being an entrepreneur but with the right training, and the heart to give it everything, Mike became one of my favorite Entrepreneurs.

Just Do It

There will be many people who say you can’t do it, that you have to be a certain way, that you have to have a certain background, that you have to have certain characteristics or even that you are too young or too old. Psychologists will always be coming up with ridiculous questionnaires to test whether you should even bother to start.

If you get to a stage where you are listening to these people just know this, being an entrepreneur is about a small equation that performed by anyone, can lead to success.

Desire + Repeated Action = Success

If anyone tells you any different, feel free to inform them about my Karate buddy and Mike The Pool Entrepreneur. These guys and others who I have met have taught me that everyone is given the entrepreneurial gift, some people just haven’t opened it yet.