The Importance of Timing in Starting a Business
There are right now literally millions of people telling themselves they are going to start their own business just as soon as the time is right.
Many of them are fooling themselves, and they are never going to start a business.
The excuses they tell themselves, however, sound like valid reasons to wait. Some of the most common are the following:
- I don’t have enough saved yet
- I don’t have an idea for what to start
- I am waiting until I move
- I am waiting to finish school
- The economy isn’t right
- I will if this promotion doesn’t come through
- I will after my next vacation
- I am waiting until I find the perfect location
- I am waiting to finish building my invention/new product
- I don’t want to start because someone might steal the idea
So, why aren’t these good reasons to wait? Shouldn’t you have enough money, or finish school, or wait for the economy to pick up?
The answer is no. And the reason is that there are so many things that will affect the success of your business that waiting for a few pieces of the picture to be perfect will not make it any more likely to succeed in the long run. But what will definitely make it not succeed is never getting started.
If you don’t have enough saved yet, then start something small enough that you can start right now, and use the money and experience you gain from that to then do what you really want to do.
The experience you pick up from running your own business, even a tiny one, will be worth ten times the value of the actual cash. And very often, by the time people have the money to start what they thought they wanted, they have changed their minds. So waiting for the money to save up really becomes a pointless exercise.
Not having an idea for what to start is also a poor excuse in the final analysis. You don’t have to love what you start- if there isn’t a business that you would love to do, then simply pick something you wouldn’t mind doing. Once you have it started and successfully going, you can delegate the work to others and put the cash into something you may enjoy more.
There are no shortage of ideas for businesses to start, and it is easy enough to take one, improve on it or make it work for your area or specific situation, and get started.
Most of the other excuses listed are simply that- ways to put off doing something that may seem kind of scary, risky, complicated or all three. The way to overcome this is the same way you beat analysis paralysis- by reducing the risk portion down to nothing, so you are no longer concerned about failing, and you can just get started and see what happens.
If you have doubts about how to overcome any particular situation that may be causing you to wait, post it in the forum for ideas on how to get around it. But in virtually every case, the time to start a business is right now, and waiting any longer than that is just wasting time.
Don’t let your dreams fade into the sunset. Start now. The rest you can worry about later!
