Month: April 2011

Getting to grips with too many ideas

Opportunities and getting started.

Hello again,

Ever ended up with too many business ideas all zooming around in your head and driving you mad?

Well, it happens to us all, if you’re in a receptive mood that is.

Before I ran my own company and was an employee, I could never figure out how it was that those that ran their own companies always seemed to be ahead of the game in spotting trends and new ideas. As an employee, I was focused on doing the job I was paid to do, quite rightly, but on long flights and train journeys, I would have nothing better to do that flick through magazines and muse on the ideas and products advertised.

The main issue was how to investigate and get a new business up and running while still being an employee. Everyone I know who has started up their own company has been in this situation. Some get their ideas fully researched before they go for it. Others are just convinced that the new venture will succeed and that’s that. Somewhat risky.

Do you have an idea for a business and just can’t seem to get anywhere with it?

What is stopping you?

If the answer is TV, newspapers and no time, then I’m afraid you need to look again at what is really motivating you and what you really want to do.

If, on the other hand, your business idea makes you wake up at night with the excitement of how it will pan out, then at least that will give you the push to make the time to do the research and get things moving.

Off for Easter Holidays for a week or so. All the best, Roy Lewis

What is stopping you? Fear is the key.

New ventures, overcoming the element of fear and using it to your advantage.

Hello again,

Driving along the other day, I was musing on why I have not gone for certain opportunities that have come my way and why I did for others.

It’s not that the opportunities were not good. Or that I couldn’t work out the risk element and how to mitigate it. I think it was mainly to do with fear of failure and fear of not knowing if I could do it.

Fear of failure is all part of all business enterprises – it takes you to the edge, where simultaneously there is the feeling of fear mixed with the excitement of getting it right. This is the part that entrepreneurs seem to love – the uncertainty of it all. Once you get past this, then the actual day to day stuff is dull. That’s where another opportunity comes along and off you go again.

If you are an employee, there is some degree of this feeling to with new projects etc, but there is usually a safety net, and of course you can always blame the process. If you’re on your own facing it, if it fails, the blame comes right back to you and there is no escape. Not everyone can handle this.

The other way of looking at all this is that to learn anything, you have to make mistakes. Thousands of small businesses close up because they make mistakes that they cannot recover from.  The benefit if having kept a business going for several years is that by that time, you will have worked out what the dangers are and how to avoid a catastrophic mistake.

Getting going early has a terrific benefit of giving you the opportunity to mess things up at an age where you are able to take it. Once you have a good job, mortgage and responsibilities, it is harder to give a new project a go, just in case it doesn’t work. You have too much to lose.

Once you have experience (messed up lots of times) you then have the confidence to go after opportunities and you become better at spotting them, working out how much can be made and how to set up a system to run the new venture.

So, what’s stopping you? Fear? Great, that’s the key.

Have a good weekend. All the best, Roy Lewis