Small Business Ideas?

I'll continue with the ideas from the last post on small business startup with a post here about an article I read from The Entrepreneur Network by Jerry Glen on the pros and cons of starting up a small business. Relatively my entire family has made their living in life doing somewhat of a small business startup, so it's pretty interesting to me for more of a reason than just starting up a bar. My dad always told me when I was growing up that "no one made money working for someone else" and while I guess that's kind of untrue, it's also very true that setting your own hours, your own pay, and controlling everything about the way you work has to be a pretty nice way to go through life.

The article covers partnerships, sole proprietorships, and corporations and the pros and cons of each. This is an aspect that I definitely didn't think a whole lot about, as it would definitely be a lot easier to get things started up with investors or a few partners, but on the opposite side of things, it would also tend to restrict you a little bit more in regards with what you want to do with your business. I wish I could think of the quote about too many cooks spoiling the soup or something like that, but it eludes me right now and I'm too lazy to Google it. But think of it as that if you have any idea of what the hell I'm talking about. :)

The most intriguing part of the article I found was the questions that they list that you should be asking yourself before starting a business. They list a TON of questions for all types of situations, such as:

• Common reasons for wanting to start a business
• What type of business would be right for you
• Identifying your business' niche audience
• A pre-startup checklist you should go over before doing anything

These questions would all help you avoiding big problems down the line by facing issues that you had no idea existed, or that you had previously not anticipated. As has been the underlying theme with pretty much EVERY startup article I've read, being prepared is the number one most important thing to cover when starting a business. So with my next four posts over the next week or so, I'm going to try and cover my startup by answering and being truthful with myself for the questions they have listed in those four categories.