After that, the numbers tail off quickly. “How to get a business loan,” “how to build business credit,” and “how to come up with a business name” were each the top search queries in just one state. (Interestingly, New York’s top query was “how to advertise your business.” Evidently most New Yorkers are past the planning stage and well into implementation.)
In general terms, a 50-year-old entrepreneur was almost twice as likely to start an extremely successful company as a 30-year-old. And it gets even better, at least for some of us: A 60-year-old startup founder was 3 times more likely to launch a successful startup than a 30-year-old startup founder, and nearly twice as likely to launch a startup that landed in the top 0.1 percent of all companies.
In fact, trying to become someone else, especially early on, is almost always counterproductive. Most successful entrepreneurs take what they already know, or can do, and use it to find a way to meet a need, solve a problem, or satisfy a demand.
Plenty of people start a business without a business plan. If you have solid business skills, work hard, and get lucky with the timing, you can build a great business without creating any plans at all.
The first step in deciding what business to start isn’t to come up with an idea. The first step is to determine what “success” means to you. If, say, you love to cook and your goal is to become a wealthy restaurant owner, the economics of the industry requires owning multiple locations. You’ll need to build not just a restaurant, but a restaurant business –which means you’ll get to spend little time in the kitchen.
Then consider your interests, your skills… what you enjoy doing. (Since we typically enjoy doing things we do well.) Then add a filter: Make sure people will pay you for what you enjoy doing. Trite example, but still: While you might enjoy watching TV, no one is likely to pay you – much less pay you well – to do it.
This content was originally published here.
