What is the lowest cost, lowest risk way to start a business?

[AJC: Please do me a favor … I have added a Stumble Upon button to my right-hand tool bar …. if you click it, write a very short comment about my article – How much interest does one million dollars earn – and put it in the “Wealth” category, I would be VERY appreciative! Stumble Upon is one of the VERY BEST ways for me to increase my readership, which is good for all of us! Thanks.]

To make $7 million in 7 years (then keep it!) you need to master all the basic financial tools of multi-millionaires: businesses, stocks, real-estate … and many, many more.

So, let’s start by talking a little about ways to start your own business … having started and sold many ‘small’ businesses, I feel somewhat qualified to pontificate on this subject.

If you are looking to start the ideal small business, my suggestion is to start by looking for the business with the greatest UPSIDE rather than the one that protects your DOWNSIDE.

But, to delve a little into the question of risk:

In the old days, if we wanted to start our own business, you would find some stock, sign a lease on a storefront, hang out your shingle, advertise, and …. wait for customers.

IF the customers came, you made a small profit (competition was always sure to keep prices and profit margins low).

IF the customers failed to come, you went bankrupt (sorry!), because you: paid up front for the stock (you didn’t have a track record with the supplier yet, so COD was the best ‘deal’ they would give you); you put up personal guarantees on the storefront lease; you paid for advertising and salaries and wages; and so on.

But, that was then, and this is NOW:

Now, you can open an e-Bay store, find some leftover goods at local manufacturers and/or wholesalers and sell them … no staff, no leases, very few costs … and, grow from there.

Or, you can go right to the other extreme of Internet-based businesses and come up with the next Facebook.

And, there are a zillion opportunities to make money on the Internet, in between the e-Bay and Facebook ideas, and you can do most of them without even leaving your current job … here are the 10 dumbest ways that people made $1,000,000 on the Internet. If they can do it, so can you!

No matter how you look at it …

… the INTERNET, my friend, is the new Small Business Frontier.

Hook up the saddlebags and go West … Yeehah!

Don't like your boss? That's just plain, old too bad.

It seems inevitable that from time to time, life’s just gonna’ suck

For example, are you suffering from ‘Mondayitis’? Now, imagine:

It’s already 5.45 pm but you’re still stuck in your little cubicle, stapling some dumb papers together that your annoying boss said that he had to have on his desk first thing in the morning or “It’s your ass!” 

 It’s just about then that you start thinking that maybe opening up your own business and throwing in this whole ‘work thing’ is what you should be doing, because then …

you won’t have some stupid boss telling you what to do!

Right? 

Having sucessfully started (and sold) many businesses across a number of countries, I can honestly say that going into business because you “don’t want a boss telling you what to do” is probably the dumbest reason that you can come up with to go into business for yourself.

[AJC: High up on that same list are: money, fame, freedom … but, that’s a whole series of posts, sitting right there!]

Having a boss can really suck … I know, because I’ve had ’em and I’ve been one – and, I would not want to work for me 😉

So what?! 

If you really don’t want anybody telling you what to do:

1. Don’t get married

2. Don’t sign up for a loan

3. Don’t take on a contract

4. Don’t have any customers

Get it? But, don’t let that hold you back …

5. Do start a business because it is still the greatest opportunity to make money that you will ever see!

Just don’t do it because of your boss …

So, while you are still in the ‘planning stages’ for that new venture, just remember to treat the little time that you have left with your boss as a ‘training exercise’ to learn how to grovel to: spouses, customers, and bankers …

… oh, and the traffic cop who pulls you over because you’re driving the spoils of your business success a little too fast down that hill in The Valley 😉

AJC.

PS Oh, and while you are on your mid-morning coffee break, why don’t you trot over to the 149th Canival of Personal Finance being hosted over at Happy Rock to see what I and other PF bloggers have to say?

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