Starting a Business For Dummies, 4th Edition

Introduction

If you pulled this book down from the shelf or had it passed to you by a friend or loved one as a gift, you don’t have to be psychic to know something about your current business situation. You may be in need of this book for any number of reasons:

• A relative, hopefully a distant and elderly one, has died and left you, rather than the government or a dogs’ home, a pile of dosh and you don’t fancy leaving it to your stockbroker to lose on your behalf.
• Your employer is in the middle of a major downsizing operation as well as proposing to close its final salary pension scheme and relocate to somewhere with lousy schools and no healthcare facilities.
• You’ve a great idea for a world-beating product, bigger than Google and Facebook combined, that no one has ever thought of but every one of the world’s billion-plus Internet users desperately needs – when they hear the good news, they’re going to click a path to your website.
• Your brother, sister, father, mother or best friend – or worse still, all of them – has started his or her own business and retired to a chateau in France to breed horses, tend the vines and sail on a luxury yacht.
• You’ve heard that the Entrepreneurship Barometer, by accountancy firm Ernst & Young, has revealed that Britain is the best place in Europe to start, grow and run a business. Fired up with enthusiasm, you’ve decided it’s now or never to get your business off the ground.

If your present situation is founded largely on luck and serendipity, ...