Steps for Becoming an Entrepreneur 3: Deciding to Begin

In the previous two entries of this series, we advice people who are on the entrepreneur road to take the first two steps: defining the idea and following the calling and secondly, analyzing and preparing yourself. After these two very important steps have been accomplished, the third step is crucial: deciding to begin the entrepreneur project.

The time it takes from analyzing and preparing yourself to actually begin the entrepreneur project can be quite slow and lengthy. The reason is that when the project is in your mind or on a piece of paper, it can be easy to figure it out. However, when you have to start and see the project become a reality, the cost is quite different.

On the previous step, I advice you to prepare mentally, physically and mostly financially, for what lies ahead. Most people who start their entrepreneur project will have to quit their confortable paying job. For some time, you might not receive any income and have expenses. You have to prepare for this situation in advance.

However, for some people quitting their jobs might not be an option. In this case, you have to analyze and create alternatives to make the entrepreneurship a reality. For instance, you can reduce your working hours to a part time job, so you have a paying job but also can work on the entrepreneurship. This alternative can be hard, so analyze it well.

Another alternative for those that still need a paying job comes when you have several business partners. Maybe one or two of the partners quit their paying jobs to work full time on the project, while others keep their steady jobs and help to subsidize and pay the bills of the other members. If this is the case, there has to be a time limit for this scheme.

Whatever option you take, it is very important that you have a plan with objectives and patience. When you become an active entrepreneur, many things will change, starting by the way you work and handle your time. You will probably become the boss and you have to learn how to be a leader and deal with problems. So to keep track of advances and failures, have your objectives on a timeline and analyze often how you are doing compare to your plan.

Many experts advice that when you begin your entrepreneur path, you must have a Plan B. This sounds smart, however I had a Plan B for my first major entrepreneurship, and guess what, I had to use it. Currently for this second entrepreneurship project I decided to only have a Plan A. Failure is not an option (I’ve failed small, which is OK and part of the learning experience) and I’m doing this for the long road ahead.

In the following article I will talk about being a full-time of part-time entrepreneurship. This article will be a follow-up to what I introduced here, as this is quite an important topic. Don’t miss it!

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