Do you want to start your own company but areย hesitant to do so? Risk is an inherent part of life, and there will always be excuses.ย In the preliminary stages of each of my entrepreneurialย endeavors, I encountered some form of the following myths. But I relied on the advice of one of my mentors,ย โ€Just say yes and figure it out later,โ€ and pressed forward anyway. I have been rewarded by continual growth in each of my three companies. Here are five myths potentiallyย holding you back, and what you can do about them.

Mythย #1: โ€œItโ€™s not the right time.โ€

Realize that there is never a โ€œright timeโ€ to strike out on your own and create a company. If you keep waiting, there will always be some sort of impediment. Just prior to starting Sin City Cupcakes, I closed on my first owner-occupied house. People close to meย questioned my timing and asked me to strongly consider waiting. So much in life is timing, and had I waited to start the company in the latter end of the year instead of in the beginning, our press exposure would have been significantly different based on the environment and unique changes happening in Vegas at the time.

Keep action and forward momentum at the forefront of your plans. Immediately start collaborating and reaching out to various outlets and brands as soon as you launch. Have faith that your abilities will match your plans and donโ€™t wait. Just as with swimming, if you stay still in your business life, youโ€™ll drown.

Mythย #2: โ€œIโ€™m waiting for inspiration.โ€

The painter Chuck Close said it best: โ€œInspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.โ€ In my experience, ideas grow organically. Concepts have literally resulted from the sheer process of considering an idea, rejecting it, modifying it and then reconsidering it. Frankly, baking alcohol-infused cupcakes, touring multi-million dollar homes and distributing luxuryย swimsuits are not my three passions in life, but what I do thrive on is working with people, selling a product and the challenge of growing and building a brand.

Mythย #3: โ€œI need to find investors.โ€

Funding for your new company can come from a variety of sources and doesnโ€™t have to be limited to just one. Bank loans and investors are generally the easiest go-toโ€™s, but thereโ€™s bootstrapping and self-funding that are just as viable and sometimes better options. I started my first company from a liquidated 401K and a no-interest loan from my parents. We ran operations extremely lean and I didnโ€™t take owner distributions for the first two years. I poured everything back in to the business and leveraged excess funds I was entitled to into myย second company.

Multiple streams of revenue are key to legacy wealth building. Borrowed money and/or loss of company equity is ideal only if you are 100 percent certain that you need to scale quickly. If you are unsure of scalability, itโ€™s ok to start small, bootstrap funds and let your company grow organically.

Myth #4: โ€œI need a business plan.โ€

A business plan is simply your concept fleshed out in further detail. Of course, having one can be helpful, but it is certainly not compulsory. The fastest way to get going is to get started.

My โ€œbusiness plansโ€ generally start with a large ream of butcher paper. I learned this trick during law school. Purchase butcher paper and tape a large sheet in an area that you frequent everyday. For me, itโ€™s my makeup vanity. After researching the background of companies similar to the one I had an idea or concept for, I would issue-spot to see if I could fix theirย challenges. I would then write out concepts, ideas, potential challenges and potential successes on the butcher paper and continue to extrapolate themes further until I boiled themย down to basic concepts and calls to action. Turn the idea of building a business plan in to a modified โ€œdoโ€ and โ€œdo-not-doโ€ list.

Mythย #5: โ€œI would have to quit my current job to start my own company.โ€

I am living proof that it is entirely possible to pursue multiple ventures all at the same time. When I started my first company, I was still working full-time at a law firm. I continued this lifestyle for an additional 1.5 years until circumstances allowed me to leverage my first company into starting the second. Of course there were long days and longer nights, but my co-founder and Iย thrived in it. That journey helped me learn immenselyย about myself, my limitations and my capabilities, allowing me to see and plan a few steps ahead. Iโ€™mย a better business person for it.

Several years ago, I worked seven days aย week. Today, I also work seven days aย week, but now all of it isย for myself. Believe me, if I can do it, you can do it too.

http://www.lisasongsutton.com
Contributor

Recently Published

Key Takeaways: Stock market enthusiasts often claim to predict financial market trends with great accuracy, but this is not possible due to the uncertainty and unpredictable nature of the environments in which we make daily decisions. Human cognition tends to favor a reductionist approach to information processing, sometimes called “tunneling,” which can lead to biased […]

Top Picks

Key Takeaway: In 1967, French philosopher Guy Debord argued that we should not be passively consumed by images, but rather engage with them. The Situationist International movement, formed in 1957, aimed to create new ways to reflect on and experience cities as acts of resistance against profit-motivated capitalist structures. The group’s philosophy suggests that we […]

Trending

I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Instituteโ€™s new report, โ€œReskilling China: Transforming The Worldโ€™s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learnersโ€, which focuses on the countryโ€™s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […]

Join our Newsletter

Get our monthly recap with the latest news, articles and resources.

Login

Welcome to Empirics

We are glad you have decided to join our mission of gathering the collective knowledge of Asia!
Join Empirics