Very few startups are overnight successes. In fact the “overnight successes” that you can think of right now probably took years to hit that “overnight” point. It takes time to get a new venture off the ground. And during that initial period of time (which can very realistically be measured in years) there is a lot of tedious work that needs to happen day-in and day-out. Client acquisition will be slow. Google will take forever (or what feels like forever at least) before you get any decent search result placement. The daily marketing tasks will get old and boring quickly.
But these things need to happen. The work has to be done. If it was fast and easy then everyone would do it.
If you are going to make the jump, there are some things to be aware of first – and a few other things to take care of to lower your risk (personally and for the venture). There are some boring, but critical, branding tasks that you need to address. There are also some things you can do before you launch to help improve your chances of success.
I love entrepreneurship. Not just rapid-growth (in theory at least) startups but small businesses too. Owning your own business can provide great freedom and satisfaction, and is one of the best ways to build wealth in the United States. But make sure you know what you are getting into – before you get into it.
One way to make sure you have all the bases covered and that your plan makes sense is to work with a coach – like myself. It doesn’t have to be me (though reach-out if you want to talk about coaching) but find someone. Have someone with experience who you use to bounce ideas around and give some feedback to help you avoid common pitfalls and mistakes. Make sure the person REALLY has experience though. There are a lot of “coaches” who are great at selling coaching services but have no actual experience in what they claim to be helping with. Find a coach who has started a business, grown it to at least multi-millions in revenue, and ideally someone who has had a successful exit.