Comments on: Steps to Starting a Small Business

By: Adrienne

Adrienne — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:37:36 +0000

Wow - Iwearyourshirt.com is brilliant. And they are almost sold out for 2010. Crazy!

By: darrenvilardo

darrenvilardo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:10:59 +0000

Well said, good tips, always good stuff here, keep up the hard work Maren!

By: TheInfoPreneur

TheInfoPreneur — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:31:06 +0000

Hey Maren,

Great points you clearly are one to watch, I think the thing that puts most people off when starting a business, especially a bricks and mortor business is the funding side of things.

Very usefull, rt'ing now

By: Ken Siew

Ken Siew — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:03:11 +0000

I totally agree with you on all these steps Maren. In fact I just finished reading The Dip couple of days ago and I've been thinking about my own life and business along the book. People often fail because they give up when they're just one step away from the next milestone. If you love it, do it!

If I might add, it's also important for people to know exactly why they want to start the business. Do you want to make it as big as Microsoft and live filthy rich? Do you want to earn enough so you can quit your day job? Or maybe you just want to learn as much about business without earning a whole lot in the short run, and instead keep building your brand and other intangible assets. In short, begin with the end in mind.

By: MarcusSheridan

MarcusSheridan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:40:19 +0000

Hi Maren, this is my first time on your site and I'm wayyyyyyy impressed. You're a content-producing machine ….Having owned a small business for about 9 years now, when I look back the biggest mistake I made was not, as Jim Collins would say in his killer book “Good to Great”, understand my 'Hedgehog Concept'. In other words, I didn't know what my business was 'the best' at. We lacked identity. Once I got this figured out, then came a clear vision of the future and along with it tremendous success…Anyway, just my thoughts, you have a wonderful blog here and I'm looking forward to making your reads a part of my day

By: robmack07

robmack07 — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:39:46 +0000

Developing a plan is super important I feel. Even if it is a simple outline of what you plan to do and where you plan to be in the future. I know it helped me, because like you said in your about me… I always have a million thoughts racing through my head (ADD?) and without a plan I could never keep my focus. Thanks for the shout-out to Jersey also.. I think haha

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:17:34 +0000

I guess if you expect your business to fail and now you will probably have to keep on learning ways of perfecting it, you really can't fail as long as you keep going and learn how to improve things in time.

Quitting is the only real failure with anything in life.

Good article, Maren Kate!

By: Maren Kate

Maren Kate — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:30:42 +0000

Thanks so much glad you liked it..

By: Maren Kate

Maren Kate — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:30:25 +0000

That book seriously got me through tough times, I just kept reminding myself “This is that dip he was talking about, that means I am almost there!”

By: Tanner @ Life Destiny

Tanner @ Life Destiny — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:05:29 +0000

Funny you brought up #6 and as I was reading it I was thinking The Dip by Seth Godin the whole time, then you mentioned it. Actually just read The Dip today (or yesterday). Short read but got its point across and you just explained it concretely in #6.