Welcome to the Entrepreneur Economy.
This is the best time in history to start a business, and you better start now.
This is the best time in history to start a business.
The barriers to entry in starting a business are essentially gone – all you need is a computer, a smartphone; and an internet connection.
If you are willing to deal with the inconvenience of it, all you really need is the smartphone – so your startup cost in that case is under $100/month for a robust data plan, phone included. Now I strongly recommend forming an LLC or other business entity, but if you do the paperwork yourself, in most states that costs well under $100.
Gmail is free, Google Sheets are free, basic cloud storage is free (and you have to back up your files – please back up your files!), and Paypal is free except for the transaction charge when you are actually making money.
You can run nearly any type of business starting with these tools. The only other thing you need is an account on whatever social media platform your ideal customer spends time on – and the social media account is also free.
That is outrageous! Under $100 in startup costs and $100 a month in overhead is all it takes to start a business! The deluxe version also requires a $400 laptop and an extra $50 per month for internet service. That’s it.
So for most people, “I don’t have the money” is no longer an excuse.
If you buy 16 fancy lattes a month, stop it and start a business.
If you smoke 12 packs of cigarettes a month, stop it and start a business.
If you go to the movies with your significant other 2x a month, stop it for while and start a business.
The time excuse is also invalid –
Turn off the TV and you can run the business on nights and weekends in the beginning.
So you can keep your job, take care of your family or whatever – it isn’t hard, it just takes time and focus.
And if you have about $2000 to start and can spend roughly $300/month – you can create an automated selling machine online. But that is an entirely different article.
It is easier than ever to make products.
It has never been cheaper or easier to create a product, and it keeps getting better.
There are people who can help you design a plastic product, really inexpensively. 3D printed prototypes are cheap, especially if the product is not very big, and tooling for a limited run injection mold is affordable (you can wait until you start selling massive quantities to invest in long-life tools, and then the business will pay for it from the profits). For example, I helped a company get a product designed, prototyped and tooled for about $5,000 last year. And the cost is a dollar per unit to get it made and shipped here from China. That is incredible.
You want electronics with that? There are programmable chipsets available to do almost anything.
The days of designing a product from scratch are gone – it’s like putting together puzzle pieces now, you just pick what you need from available circuits and software and put them together. You don’t even have to put them together yourself.
There are OEM manufacturers who will build to your specifications. Apple, Dell, Vizio, GoPro – none of these brands own any factories. You don’t need to either. And there are great companies right here in the US that can help you build your products.
The same with software. Software coders now leverage an abundance of APIs, so you can get customized software and Apps built starting around $3,000.
You can build a massively scalable service business with no employees, no software development, and no systems of your own, just like Uber did. Their entire company runs on existing infrastructure that other companies provide. This is fantastic!
Leveraging the Crowd.
It has never been easier to reach your customers directly through social media and internet advertising. You can ask them for reactions to your idea, before you invest. Or better yet, have them help drive your ideas for products and services. Set up a free survey in Survey Monkey, put it out to the type of people you have defined as your market, and ask them.
Here’s the thing:
Consumers have become smart and savvy and no longer want to be “sold to” (you know, in the Mad Men/Don Draper style). The power has been reversed by the internet and social media and the consumer drives both the conversation and the demand.
More and more, people want products designed for their lifestyle, taste and needs. They want to do business with companies that understand and relate to them. This presents a tremendous opportunity for people making products or providing services designed for particular lifestyles. GoPro made a camera for extreme sports enthusiasts and they are now likely the largest camera brand by unit sales – and they don’t own a factory. CocaBang is making clothing for women crossfit enthusiasts, and I think they will become huge because of it – crossfitters are a fiercely loyal and socially connected group of people.
Today people want what they believe is best for them, not what some big company believes they should have, and there has never been a better time to give it to them.
You can Crowd-Source designs, logos, and even funding.
It’s so exciting, it is easier than it has ever been, and it is so necessary now to start your own business.
The reason you need to start now.
The economy is changing rapidly because of all of the things I’ve just described and more. It is now easier than ever for a traditional business model to be disrupted, and there are a lot of smart people working hard to do just that.
So the traditional types of large companies are struggling. You read about them laying off thousands of people regularly. The planet is now so connected that many jobs can be done from anywhere in the world – so you’re competing for work with people around the world, many of them living in places where the cost of living is quite low. It’s been what I called a “Free-Agent Economy” for quite some time – with company and employee loyalty, career paths within a single organization, pensions, etc. all being things of the past.
We are now rapidly moving into what I call “The Entrepreneur Economy”, where you are the business of you. You need to take control of your earning power because there will be fewer very large employers to rely on, and the ground is shifting beneath them so rapidly that you can’t rely on any employer long-term. Most jobs I believe will become independent contractor arrangements, and being an independent contractor is being a business – so you better start now to build demand for your services from multiple sources, or bring that product idea you have to life, because most people haven’t realized what is happening yet. The playing field is wide open, and the cost of entry is low – all you need is some time, effort and knowledge.
My mission it to provide the knowledge piece, so more people can do better, and faster.
Here on my blog, and via the products and programs at www.YourBizPro.com .
