A small business is defined as one that employs fewer than 500 people. According to statistics, there are over 28 million small businesses in the United States alone.
That number is probably much higher when your account for people who make money freelancing and trading on their skills without filing “Articles of Incorporation.”
It is safe to say that small business are the thing that drives economies and puts food on a majority of tables. In the U.S. alone, small businesses employ up to 50% of the working population; that is well over 120 million people!
This goes to show you just how integral entrepreneurship is in our society today.
Now, because we have already established how widespread and important small businesses are, what are some of the factors that drive people to go into entrepreneurship?
Opportunities for the Daring
Business opportunities are born every day; from the smallest companies to larger-scale businesses, forward-thinking individuals are partaking in the contemporary trend of combining innovation, hard work, and fortitude to become the master of their own economic destinies and build profitable businesses.
This is not to say that there isn’t any risk associated with starting a small business. There is an incredible amount of risk that comes with it. From financial to emotional – even your sanity might be brought into question depending on how outlandish your business idea is to the rest of the community.
Statistics show that about 50% of businesses may survive four to five years before going under. Of course, the probability of success increases greatly as the business ages, and the founder becomes wiser and more experienced. But do you have five years to learn the ropes, probably lose money, and go insane?
For the daring, the answer to that question will be a continuously repeated YES! Entrepreneurship, after all, is not for the faint-hearted. If you look at the list of the world’s richest people you will see a distinct pattern; most, if not all of them, are business people.
Yes, they run multi-billion empires now, but they did not start where they are today. They started small.
They started as wide-eyed dreamers who had grandiose ideas of conquering the world. Some failed tremendously and bounced back. They stuck to their guns because they knew the kind of advantages that come with owning your own business. Besides the fact that if you are successful, you will be financially independent, other factors make entrepreneurship worthwhile.
The Benefits of Starting Your Own Business
· There are many tax benefits, perks, and government-driven financial incentives: Business start-ups benefit from many incentives that can ultimately help drive the success of the business.
· Job security: Creating your own small business offers you the ability to live without fear of downsizing, firing, and layoffs that have become increasingly prevalent in the corporate world.
· Spare time and freedom in scheduling: While entrepreneurs will undoubtedly be faced with a plethora of tasks, responsibilities, and duties taking up the majority of their time, these individuals can freely choose when they need spare time and the type of work schedules and hours they desire.
· Independence and pride: There is no greater pride than building something from the ground up with your own hands, sweat and know-how.
· Unique networking opportunities: As a business owner, you get to rub shoulders with people of the same caliber and higher. This gives you an opportunity to learn more and create more business connections.
· The potential for profit and financial control: Small business owners readily enjoy the perk of controlling where their company profits go, how they are allocated, and how they may be invested to further the prowess of the company.
· Opportunity to become an expert at something: The more you learn about your business and how the business world works, the more you will increase your ability to spot and take advantage of other opportunities that come your way. Being an expert in a given field opens up many other doors for your personal and financial growth.
· Opportunity to learn other skills: As a business owner you will need to learn things like social media marketing, content marketing, and customer service. This only serves to increase your skill set repertoire.
· Starting your own business enables you as an individual to make your mark in the world, in the economy, and to grow on a personal level that cannot be achieved anywhere else in the professional arena.
Tips for Starting a Small Business
The cost of starting your own business varies greatly depending on a number of factors:
· The field in which you want to venture
· How big do you want to start
· The legalities involved in starting the business
· What type of business it will be (whether you need overheads)
Things like your projected capital expenditure are all factors that should be considered when writing your business plan. However, before you even go into all this, you need to ask yourself one thing: are you driven enough to see it through?
One of the main reasons why most businesses fail, especially online businesses such as affiliate marketing, is because the entrepreneur went into a field that he/she had absolutely no passion for nor cared to learn enough to make their venture successful.
This brings us to another set of factors that must be considered when starting a business, especially if you want to give yourself the best chance of success. Ideally, the best business ideas often have a balanced combination of these three things:
1. They are something the entrepreneur likes doing (passion)
2. They are something that the entrepreneur is good at doing (expertise)
3. The idea is in demand (without the actual demand in the market your business idea will be going nowhere fast) (demand)
If you can find something that combines all these three factors, then you have a viable business idea worth exploring.
