So, you’ve had it up to here with annoying bosses, working overtime for free and dealing with those incorrigible coworkers that make loud noises when they eat and earn more than you even though they work less.
Naturally, the thought of starting your own business is among the first ones that loom during your brainstorm. From what you’ve gathered, nothing is easier than becoming a boss, or is it? Here are some things you ought to know when you want to start your own business.
The Crucial 5
- Create a Business Plan
Business plans are not only for investors to see, but for the owners of the future businesses to have a clean-cut projection of what their companies will look like and what they’ll be providing to the masses.
A business plan is fundamentally a dissection of your company. It will let you know what it’s strong and weak points are. If you can’t put together such a plan, you might want to think twice before you make steps toward starting a business, because chances are that you know next to nothing about business in general.
- Make Sure You Can Cope with the Responsibilities
From the outside, being a boss is the closest thing to being a guru, you just sit all day long while those under you fire on all cylinders to get you what you want. False: a business owner has a tremendous amount of responsibilities.
Everything pertaining to finances, enrolling of potential employees, attracting new investors and generally keeping the company afloat falls on the shoulders of the business owners; are you prepared for a commitment this big or are you just toying around with the idea of becoming financially successful overnight?
- You Need an Awful Lot of Paperwork
In the 21st century, bureaucracy is king. You need to stay in interminable queues to pay your bills, to buy your food, clothes, so on and so forth. When you’re about to start a business, you need registration forms galore, plenty of licenses, business insurance, and trademarks and copyrights, among others.
Actually, this is one of the most nerve-racking aspects of starting a business: the insane amount of paperwork you need. Make sure you understand what you need for creating a business, in the first place and then act on it.
- Hiring Your Friends Is a Bad Idea
Why would this be a bad idea? – well, it’s simple: you’ll be reluctant to fire your friends if they’re lazy or simply unsuited for your company. This would be pretty much the end of your business as you know it.
Everyone wants to help their friends, but this isn’t the way to do it, even if they’re particularly ace at what you need.
- You Need to Pay a Ton of Taxes
No one can become a millionaire in a matter of months. In fact, when you’ll see how many taxes you’ll have to pay, you’ll be close to whipping your employees so that they work faster.
Working with a professional accountant will give you a hint as to what those taxes are, at what amount they are and when you have to pay them. You might think that you know enough about finances, but you don’t.
The Bottom Line
Few things can be more frightful than having started your own business. The anticipation and the anxiety build up to unbelievable levels. Unfortunately, many people realize that they’re not fit to be business owners after they’ve buried all their life savings into useless companies.
Don’t be one of those. Make sure that this is what you want and that you’re prepared to cope with the stress that it brings about.