Business 9, Lesson 170 – Things I Learned From Business I

For the past 170 lessons I have been learning a lot of different things about how to run/start a business.  But out of the many things I have learned this year, three things about starting a Business has stuck out in my memory.  In this essay, I am going to be talking about those three things.

Planning

Planning is an essential part of starting a business. 

When you have a business idea, you may be tempted to jump into it without much thought.  Dr. North says that a lot of young entrepreneurs get excited and start right away without thinking about how they are going to do it.  They think “I’ll start the business now and figure the rest out later”, but that is the wrong approach.

My business, which is an e-book, requires a lot of planning.  I cannot simply jump into it.  First, I need to write the book.  Secondly, find out what is involved when I want to publish my e-book to Amazon Kindle.  Then, find out how to create a cover.  Then, there is the issue of how I am going to advertise.  Only after I have figured all of that out can I start the process.

The good thing about writing a book is that it buys me time to do the research on the things I have listed.

Your plan does not need to perfect the first time you create it.  It does not even have to be good, it only has to exist. 

Like Dr. North says, a bad plan is better than no plan.

Setting Goals

You may be thinking, “setting goals is the same as planning,” and you would be somewhat correct.  In my mind, setting goals is a way of planning and should come after you have launched your business.

Setting goals are extremely important when doing anything, especially when you are starting a business.  For many people, they may read this and think “well you obviously need to set goals.”  But do you know how to?

When I first started the Ron Paul Curriculum at the age of ten, it was challenging for me to take full control of my school at first.  My Dad and I started to sit down every Sunday before the week started and plan what subjects I had to do during the week and what lesson I need to have completed by Friday.  As I have gotten older, I started to take more control of the planning.  Now, at age 13, my Dad and I still sit down every Sunday, but it is me telling him what I plan to do during the week so he knows what I am doing.

A lot of adults might not know how to set realistic goals when they have to do something.  I learned that it is better to set small goals instead of huge ones.

For example, let’s say that I launch my business on January 1^st.  I can set small goals like, by January 31^st, I will have ten customers.  Or, by the end of year I have made a minimum of $1000 from my business.

Smaller is better in this situation.

The Younger You Are the Better

In business it is better to start young instead of when you are older.  When you are young, it is safer to take calculated risks in your business compared to when you are older.  The young are tough, we can recover easily and we do not have much to lose.  You can also gain experience and learn things you did not know before.

Conclusion

As you can see, the Business I course had taught be a lot about how to start a small business.  Before I started the course, I already had a vague idea of how to start one.  But now, I feel that I know enough to start trying to begin a small business.

Thanks for reading!