The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits

RULE NUMBER ONE OF RELUCTANT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Don’t even think about quitting your job until your business idea is proven and profitable.

There is only one way to find out if your product is good, and that is to start selling it. The sooner you start selling it, the faster you will know. (Most products, it turns out, are not as good as the inventor—or her son—thinks they are.)

That’s a very important part of the reluctant entrepreneurship strategy. The strategy also includes:

• Deciding on a business to start. Don’t fret that you might pick the wrong business. Just pick something.
• Getting an internship or part-time job in the kind of business you want to be in—in the marketing department, if possible. You will use this experience to learn everything you can about how that business sells its products. And if you don’t have time for that … 
• Allocating at least five hours a week to studying the industry you’re interested in. Ten hours would be better.

Once you have a pretty solid understanding of how your future business works—how to source or create products, price them, and market them—you can get started in a small way.