Modern business is extremely fast paced, especially since the internet has made the barrier to entry so low for most entrepreneurs that almost anyone with a business idea can at least try to make it work. Now, more than ever, it is essential that you move quickly when you have an idea for a business, otherwise you run the risk of seeing your ideas fail and you may lose out on a successful idea. For many things in life it is a good idea to wait, but when it comes to business, waiting is costly and the longer you wait, the worse things will get. There are several drawbacks to putting your ideas on hold.
Competition
Though you might think that you have the newest and most innovative idea ever, the chances are that there is someone else in the world that is having a similar thought. Because the internet has made the world so small, you are not just competing with people in your local area; you are competing against entrepreneurs all across the globe in most industries. When you see a gap in the market you need to jump on it as soon as you can, because someone else has probably seen the same gap and they may be willing to take the risk before you may your move. In the end, the person who moves first is probably going to be the most successful.
Sales
Though there are some costs that are hard to quantify, waiting to get started on your own business also has some very real costs. Every day that you do not work on your company, you fall further and further behind, and you will have to work that much harder to get to where you want to go. The days that you waste before you start pursuing your dream are days that you are never able to get back and you do not want to look back at your life ten years from now and regret that you did not get your company started earlier because the company is not as big as it could have been if you had only started a little sooner.
Fear
Finally, the longer you wait to get started, the more paralyzed you will become by the fear of starting your own business. You can try as hard as you can to say that the time you spend waiting is time spent developing the courage to move forward, but the reality is that most of the time the waiting allows you to dwell on the negatives so that you talk yourself out of taking the risk. You will never know how successful you can be in your own business until you make the first move, and when you wait you let fear convince you that your ideas do not have merit. This attitude only gets stronger when you see that someone else has entered the market while you were waiting to make your own move. The best tool that you can have to overcome this fear is education, either through courses at a local school or business seminars like eFreedom.
Starting a business is what most Americans want to do, and if you feel like you have what it takes to start a company there are usually very few reasons to wait. There are ways to test your ideas and get your company off the ground without having to quit your regular job or risk the life that you have built for yourself and your family, but you will never know just how good your ideas are until you take the first steps.
I am Nicole Reading and I have owned my own business for the last three years. In 2013 I attended a business seminar and learned some important information that finally convinced me to leave my old job and work for myself full-time.
