Thinking about starting a business?  Not sure you have what it takes?  Intimidated perhaps?  Do you think that successful entrepreneurs know something you don’t?  

Well, the truth is that you can probably do it too.  You don’t have to be “smart”.  You don’t have to have an amazing idea. You can learn what you need to know.

If you study successful entrepreneurs and companies, you will discover that many of them did NOT start out with big ideas and smart execution. They started with small ideas and fumbled them along the way.  But, they persevered and found some luck, better timing, the right customer or partner, or pivoted their way to success.  Pivot is a fancy new term used to describe failure. It means that the entrepreneur got it wrong the first time (or the second or third), so s/he is now shifting (pivoting) to something different.  It happens all the time … it’s just not in the public news releases.  

Failure is not bad. It costs time and money, but discovering what does not work is one step towards discovering what does.

An entrepreneur, or management team, can have all the smarts and resources in the world and still get it wrong. It happens every day.

Remember New Coke?  Nuff said.

Ebay was started by Pierre Omidyar as a personal hobby that unexpectedly took off.

The origins of Facebook emerged when Mark Zuckerberg created a “hot or not” type rating website for students at Harvard.  He almost got expelled from Harvard for that one.

Bill Gates grew Microsoft to a multibillion dollar company and then completely missed the importance of the Internet in the early 1990s, forcing Microsoft to play catch up for over a decade.  Microsoft again fumbled with Windows 8 and today is replacing it with Windows 10.

Google and Apple have the most well paid and educated people in the world, yet they frequently launch products that have failed in the market.

There are many more examples in all sorts of industries that you can Google (that’s one they did get right).

The point is that you don’t have to be special to be a successful entrepreneur. Many are not even successful on their first try. What you DO need to have is MOTIVATION to do it and learn along the way, the PERSEVERANCE to hang on when things get tough, and the WILL to take on the risk.

Will you be successful?  

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Probably not.  The odds are against you, just as they are for every entrepreneur. You may lose money, time, friends, and more. Or, you may just succeed. There’s no secret formula. Some people try to pretend that there is, but there isn’t. Timing and luck have as much to do with success as anything.

Certainly, there are some fundamentals that will help you along the way. Ask for advice from experienced entrepreneurs and they will help you mitigate some of the risks so that your path to success is clearer and shorter.

So why do it at all?

Well, there are four rewards that you could earn by being an entrepreneur:

1. Financial freedom
Money.  And lot’s of it.  Or you may lose everything that you have, ugh!  We read a lot about those that make all the money, but not so much about those that lose it.  There are many more that lose money than make it, but that’s the risk that you take.

2. Time
If it works out for you, you may win your time back.  As an employee, your time is owned by someone else. As an entrepreneur, once you reach some level of financial freedom, your time is your own.  And that’s valuable.

I want to be an entrepreneur so that I can set my own work schedule!
Sure, you can choose any of the 16 of the 24 hours that you want to work today … and tomorrow, and the next day, and …

3. Meaningful work
Happiness studies show that one of the most important elements that contribute to personal happiness is meaningful work. I’m willing to bet that only a small percentage of people that are employed by someone else feel that their work is truly meaningful.

I want to be an entrepreneur so that I can be my own boss!  
Sure, as long as you don’t consider your payroll, bills, debt holders, customers, and everyone else you have to answer to.

4. Life experience
You will learn a lot.  A lot. Yup.  A lot.  There is NO other way you will learn what you are going to learn.  $100,000 tuition at a leading business school?  Nope.   And, what you are going to learn will stay with you the rest of your life.  It will change how you view the world and yourself.

Are the rewards worth the risk?

Only you can answer that question.  

And, keep in mind that you can always take it slow.  It doesn’t always have to be an all or nothing experience.  Keep your job, start part time, and see where it takes you.  Even if you are not successful, at least you won’t have the regret of always wondering what could have been.

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Read more of my articles on www.Georghiou.com