Last Lecture

Caveat Emptor

Latin: "Buyer beware"
Oxford Dictionary: the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.

The idea of being your own boss can elicit feelings of excitement, freedom, long hours, or even fear. While embarking on an entrepreneur journey may be in your future I would like to share a few thoughts before you proceed.

Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business or other organization. The entrepreneur develops a business model, acquires the human and other required resources, and is fully responsible for its success or failure. Entrepreneurship operates within an entrepreneurship ecosystem. (www.freebase.com)

Find your passion!  The most successful people are successful because they find their passion. If you aren't interested don't go any further. This is key. Maybe you don't know what your passion is. There are tons of surveys online that can help you. You can also start working in different industries until you find something that creates a spark. Once the you find a spark then do your research!

Research is critical before committing too much. This will be time well spent. Your spark may sound great while in the idea stage but it is important to really know what you are getting yourself into. What are the costs associated, what is the time commitment, how do you have rallying around you.

Find your support team. Having a good support team and partners will help get you through some of the challenging times. You need to know what your strengths are so that you know what skills you are lacking and where you need to fill in gaps. Then make sure that you have a good support system. This may be filled with friends, family, investors or even your dog. These are the people you will turn to when you want to quit and in your moments of triumph. 

At this point you will have a pretty god idea if entrepreneurship is for you.  If you have doubts, try to sort them out beforehand so you don't take unnecessary financial risk. Any venture you begin will already have its own risk so don't push your luck by trying something that isn't really who you are.  Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur, even some with an entrepreneurial spirit may be better suited as an intrepreneur. There is no shame in working for someone else. Think about it, the big companies that started out as an entrepreneurial journey couldn't be where they are without employees and intrepreneurs.

Finally if you decide this is for you then go for it. Put your whole heart into it and don't look back. Do the best you can and make the most of the opportunity. If you should fail in your journey, make sure that you fail forward and learn everything you can from the experience. After all, if you don't learn from an experience then you just wasted an opportunity to become better than you were.