Kickstart Your Business: 5 Tips for the "Some Day" Entrepreneur

In our time, the biggest success stories tend to be those concerning entrepreneurs: people who had the will and drive to create companies and succeed on their own merits. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are among the biggest heroes of "some day" entrepreneurs, and it's no secret why: These businesspeople changed the world with their passion. Here are just a few tips towards becoming an entrepreneur yourself.

1. Know Where Your Investors Are

To get a company off the ground, you'll need one of three things: The ability to subsist on an extremely small initial budget or savings (working out of a home office for a year or two, for example); investment from venture capital firms, private crowdsourcing websites (Kickstarter, etc.), or banks; or personal loans or gifts from friends and family. Each form can have its own pluses or minuses, but to realize a dream you'll have to know where your financing will come from.

2. Ask What Your Passion Is

Steve Jobs once famously said that if you don't have passion for the company you're starting, you'll fail. He meant that without passion, you won't have the energy for the 20 hour days and the high rate of failure that start-ups undergo. Find out what your passion is, and make your business about that thing. Money is a great motivator, but an imperfect one; if it's the only reason you're going into business, it won't keep you going on your sixth consecutive 16-hour day.

3. Have a Business Plan

Ideas are great, but without a long-term business plan it is hard to get them going. What is your business plan over a ten year period? What are your goals? What do you expect to provide? Answer these questions before you put your idea to the test, and you'll know what to do when times are tough. Think of a business plan as a map for a long and often thorny voyage of getting a business to succeed.

4. Understand Fixed Expenditures and Where to Cut Them

Fixed expenditures are costs that do not change every month. Your electricity bill, your rent, your phones, your delivery van will not vary in cost by much. However, choosing the right providers and getting rid of unnecessary items are ways to save money that few businesses capitalize on.

5. Who Are Your Clients?

You've had a great idea, and you're ready to put it into practice. Your friends agree that the idea is useful and will succeed if properly implemented. But before you start your business, ask who your clients are. Are you selling to other businesses? To private clients? To the government, via contracts? These are very different areas of business, and understanding who you're selling to is as important as knowing what you're selling to them. Do they need your product? Are there similar products in their area of business that you'll be competing against? If, for example, your customers want manufacturing tools like metric taps, and you are selling a different product that does the same job, you'll want to compare prices and who your competitors are marketing to. Know these things before you begin, and you'll have the edge on the market you're breaking into.

In this sense, becoming an entrepreneur doesn't have to be difficult, but it does have to be something that you are totally committed to and something you enjoy doing. As the saying goes, find work you love to do, and you'll never work another day in your life.