Engineer2Entrepreneur

Why even bother with a job?

It is kinda funny, you go through a lot of work trying to get a job and for what, to let someone else run your life?

You do a bunch of research about a company to make a customized resume for them.

If, and that is a big if, you get an interview you then need to show your < a href="http://www.slackermanager.com/slacker_manager/2005/06/full_frontal_pe.html">worth to them.

After all that you might as well start your own business because you know more about the business then they do. The only thing you are missing is being incorporated. Most businesses are started on much less, sure most new businesses fail but since you have done more to get ready then 90% of them you should survive and thrive.

How to Start a Startup

Link: How to Start a Startup.

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.

Make Life Happen

Link: The Occupational Adventure (sm): Why not me? (no really...why not?).

Next time you catch yourself eyeing your dream job and then discounting the possibility, stop yourself and ask, "Why not me?" No doubt you will come up with a dozen convincing reasons why not. For each of those reasons, stop again and ask yourself, "Is that really true, or is it an assumption I'm making? Is that fact or is that a story I've created?"

You aren't in school any more where the teacher tells you everything and nothing happens without teacher approval.

Life doesn't happen to you. You make life happen. Nothing happens until you act.

Do it.

Small Business: 10 Secrets of a Successful Entrepeneur

Link: Small Business: 10 Secrets of a Successful Entrepeneur .

1. Think success.
2. Be passionate with what you do.
3. Focus on your strengths.
4. Never consider the possibility of failure.
5. Plan accordingly.
6. Work hard!
7. Constantly Look for Ways to Network.
8. Willingness to Learn.
9. Persevere and have faith.
10. Discipline yourself.

I only disagree with #4. Some kind of Plan B is always good idea. Failure is always an option. A clear goal and flexible thinking will make reaching the goal better.

[Update] I completely forgot about Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, at the worst possible time and the most expensive way."
If you're going to try to plan accordingly you need to ask the question: "What is the worst that can possibly happen?" Now you can do real planning.

You are a Pain Reliever

It is not about being an engineer, or a manager, or a marketer, or whatever your job description is.

You really have only one job, to relieve someone else's pain.

They are trying to do something, and they cannot do it themselves, that is pain. Your job is to make that pain go away. You don't even have to do it yourself, you can just get them together with someone you know who can make their pain go away.

That is the essence of entrepreneurship.

gapingvoid: crowded markets

Link: gapingvoid: crowded markets.

Basically, when 20,000 people have the same biz model as you, you are dead meat.

There is a school of investing, called Contrarian Investing, whose premise is, "If taxi drivers are giving stick tips, it is time to get out of the market." In other words do the opposite of what the crowd is doing and you will likely do better then the crowd.

The same applies to job hunting. Everyone sends in resumes but no one really reads them because there are so many.

This applies to every industry.

If you are in the middle of a herd surrounded on all sides changing direction is hard, but out on the edge of the herd it is easy. While there are advantages and disadvantages to every situation, I tend to believe that greater freedom is a stronger advantage then greater security, and too often that security is only an illusion.