I read somewhere that a new business owner has somewhere between 500 and 5000 invested in the business before ever opening the doors.
I wonder if this includes the time spent dreaming about it?
I can now attest to the hard work involved in setting up a business you care about. I don’t open until the middle of August and already have 350 hours under my belt…not dreaming or just thinking…actual research, contacts, correspondence, and all the little pieces that go into opening the doors. I can only imagine what it would be like if I were opening a physical location rather than a web-based business. Coupled with the necessity of retaining the “day job” for a while, I have become one tired designer.
My husband asked me why I was pushing myself so hard. He got a look of surprised confusion for reply. My business promotes and sells something I am deeply passionate about, so it’s always interesting, even when it’s tedious. Moreover, the busier I am, the less time I have to be afraid, overwhelmed, or just shy.
Six weeks to go. I had to give up the web site to someone who knows what he’s doing so I could concentrate on the contents and set up. So many things left to be done. Most of them involve money I don’t have. Pressure is at a steady rate now that the legal stuff of setting up and registering domains is out of the way. Time to look for investor angels and plug away at the content. Deadlines are written in ink and, although they can be intimidating, they do provide focus and priority.
I’m amazed at the help available on the web for small business start ups. I’m also amazed at how difficult it is to drill down through all the information to find legitimate wholesale suppliers. Looking for true trade printing? Better find a list from someone who knows, because most of the printers on the web are not. I owe a lot of progress with printers to Writer’s Weekly and Angela Adair-Hoy.
In my Dad’s day, starting on a shoestring meant having a box of tools and knowledge. Today, that shoestring means cash if you are selling a physical product, contacts, knowledge far outside your area of expertise (unless you have enough money to hire it out, and even then you have to know enough to know what you want done), and some serious marketing savvy. I have a pretty eclectic background, but the learning curve is still nearly straight up for several areas, especially in small scale financing. The less you need, the harder it is to find in some cases. Interesting twist, I think.
Will it be worth it? It already has been. I have learned far more than I ever imagined and expanded my understanding of the world While I have every chance of success and would find failure a bitter disappointment, it is still worth it. Should I not succeed, I will recover. And then I can take all this knowledge gained into another project that might do better.
For now, I work on my priority list and complete all the tasks I can in any given day. I don’t dream about starting a business now that I’m doing it. What I dream about these days is SLEEP!
