ReWork

Founding your own business has never been easier than today. If you start small, you need far less time and resources than you imagine.

First, test the waters: don’t quit your day job to slave 100-hour weeks, but rather gauge your enthusiasm by squeezing in a few hours each week to work on your idea. You don’t need to take on crippling amounts of debt either; just use whatever facilities and equipment you have at your disposal or can easily afford. Only use external investment as a last resort, as it will not only dilute your stake in the idea but the process of looking for funding is time-consuming and distracting. In most cases, all you need is a laptop and an idea to get started; everything else is peripheral to your success anyway.

When starting your company, focus all your efforts on building the core of your business. Without this core, your business cannot function. For example, hotdogs are the core of a hotdog cart operation. The core should be something you think will be stable in time. Amazon’s core isn’t only about books; it’s about fast shipping, affordable prices and a great selection. Publishing fads come and go, but these are things people will always be willing to pay for.

Once your core is ready, launch immediately. Don’t wait for every aspect of the business to be fully complete. You can work out the details later. When 37signals launched its Basecamp product, they could not even bill customers yet. But with the monthly billing cycle, they knew they had four weeks to fix the issue. Just get started and wing it.

You need less than you think to start your own company – launch as soon as the core of your business is ready.