As an aspiring entrepreneur, one might turn to entrepreneurial and how-to books to do research and figure out just how crazy you might be to start your own business.
It’s funny that I should mention being crazy because there is a book called You Need To Be A Little Crazy: The truth about starting and growing your business by Barry J. Moltz. One of the book’s main beginning arguments was that if you are looking to make lots of money in your start-up business, you may be better off getting a job instead. In the author’s mind, starting your own business does not necessarily mean you’re going to rake in the dough. And I would have to agree with that depending on what market you’re looking to enter. But as I began thinking about this by weighing in with my own experiences, I began to doubt the author’s opinion to a larger degree.
I flipped to the front of the book and sure enough, this book was published in 2003, right around the downturn of the economy. This author was writing, just 12 years ago, how you had a better chance at success if you got a job with an established company where you could work your way up the ladder and receive a dependable pay check. But those days have been gone for the last 10 years. If you have been a recent graduate, you will know what I’m talking about. For the last 10 (+/-) years, it has been hard for most graduates to find a well paying job right off the bat. In many cases, graduates are over-qualified for the jobs they are working.
I imagine that if this book were rewritten to take into account today’s economy and job market, it would probably argue the opposite: you may just have a better chance at making something of yourself or of your career if you take a risk and go out on your own. Obviously there are many hurdles to overcome with starting a business, raising capital to name a big one. But if you hit your business venture at the right time, in the right market niche, with lots of determination, you may just have a chance.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”– Theodore Roosevelt
