Starting your own business can be rewarding, but it will take an enormous amount of research, resources and sacrifice. You may have a great idea, but does it make dollars and sense?

You start with the research on your potential business: costs, competitive landscape, barriers to entry, potential sales, availability of resources, and logistics just to name a few. And then there is the capital needed to get started and to sustain the business until it can support itself… (more…)

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So. You’ve got an idea. One that you think will make money. Now what—are you ready?

This is the loaded question. One that begs more questions to be answered, such as have you been in business before? If not, have you sought any counsel? From a Small Business Development Center or a SCORE counselor?

What about your family, will they be supportive? Do you have the core attributes to be in business for yourself? Are you a leader? What are you prepared to sacrifice to get a business started—time, money?

Being an entrepreneur can be rewarding, but it will take an enormous amount of research, resources and sacrifice. Before you do your research and try to raise capital, you need to know if you have the desire, essential attributes, paired with an idea worth sacrificing for. There are three areas that I think are key to appreciating what you may experience when going out on your own:
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Or what a snake tussling, gum thieving, gate jumping, garbage grunger taught me about being entrepreneurial.

I have my own version of Marley–you know–that cute furry little ball of cuddly that shows up one day to both simultaneously steal your heart and make you grab for the nearest double dirty martini you can find. His name is Tucker and he is what is termed affectionately–in my circle of friends–as a Jack Russell “Terrorist”. That’s a picture of him there to the right. Cute isn’t he. Don’t let him fool you. There is an enterprising little entrepreneur lurking behind those almond shaped brown eyes. (more…)

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Dan Regelski, the Regional Small Business Development Center Director at Florida Gulf Coast University and I have been talking a lot about entrepreneurship and the various challenges faced by small business owners.

In one particular conversation, we were discussing when an entrepreneur should seek advice, before or after they encounter trouble with their business. Dan shared with me that his desire would be to reach new entrepreneurs before they begin to spend money and to get them as a part of their planning process, to answer the five questions below: (more…)

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By Steve Hammons
Senior Vice President Business Development
Essentials, LLC

The Entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in our mission statement, “Help people, have fun and be profitable”. Essentials was launched with this purpose engrained into our minds and has been our guiding principle ever since. While the first two goals are altruistic, the last one, by itself, may seem a little self serving. But, like it or not, we are a for-profit business with investors, employees and families, so in the grand scheme of things, the last is the requirement to make the first two possible in the long run.

While keeping the necessity of this purpose in mind, we uncover wonderful and exciting opportunities that we may not have seen if we were only in it to make a lot of money. Borrowing from G.L. Hoffman in his article, A Complete List of 100 Attributes of People Who Start Companies: How You Can Be One of America’s Entrepreneurs, we at Essentials have all “signed up for the vision, fun, and principle” involved in helping people. (more…)

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According to an ABC news story, Small Business Entrepreneurs Triumph After Layoffs, by Russell Goldman, a growing number of laid off workers are deciding to go into business for themselves. They have decided to turn their “lemons” into a different kind of lemonade, believing that they have what it takes to start a business and to make it successful.

Which brings me to ask this question: How do you know if you have the core attributes to be an Entrepreneur? I have read a number of articles talking about what characteristics entrepreneurs have that make them different. One study actually attributes over-confidence as a part of what differentiates budding entrepreneurs.
Being of the entrepreneurial sort myself, I am not even sure that I can answer that question. But I have found a check list that, while published in 2007, is still generating commentary and relevant enough to catch peoples’ interest. In A Complete List of 100 Attributes of People Who Start Companies: How You Can Be One of America’s Entrepreneurs, by G.L. Hoffman, Mr. Hoffman lists the attributes – or better yet, best practices – of successful entrepreneurs. I think he makes some interesting points about the kinds of practices or attributes that business people should have when starting their own ventures. (more…)

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