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People start businesses for a variety of reasons;

Independence

The need to be responsible for your own success. Many people who have worked for bosses in traditional 9-5 jobs feel they could "do better" working for themselves, have more prestige and make more money.

When you say you are "self employed" or "I work for myself" you often create envy or admiration with many friends or relatives who see you as brave and daring, more so if you are doing well in your new venture. A successful business person can be justly proud of their achievements if their business does well and pays them a decent living, even if it does not make them a huge fortune.

Challenge

The skills needed to start and successfully run a small business are immense so you need to be physically and emotionally fit as well as versatile in your abilities. There is no one to pass the buck to, no one else to blame when things go wrong or you miss deadlines, no more people to delegate the dirty jobs to, just get on with it yourself.

You need to advertise, promote and generally sell your new service or product to just get started. You may have great technical or creative skills but unless you can draw in clients or customers your business will surely fail.

Fear of failure for many is a great motivator for success.

Having a good idea for a business

Many people have a specific idea or ambition for a business based on their abilities, or a product they have invented. Perhaps a hobby or interest which can be turned into a new business venture.

If you have something to market which is new, different and innovative with a good market place, ideally with repeat business you stand a better chance of success than simply being just "another" something. Being the first or unique can be good also, but has the risk of being hard to market, best to spot a gap in an established market, or a way of improving or cheapening an established method or product.

Sell in your local town, region, countrywide or even internationally especially if your business uses the internet solely or as part of a traditional land based business.

Start small from home

One of the real delights of running a small business is you can start most ventures part time from home, thus keep establishment costs down to a minimum.

Working from home does not suit everyone, it may intrude on family life, less time with your spouse, partner and children. Easily distracted by TV, helping with kids homework, loud music, the list is endless.

If you can run your venture from a garage, shed or spare bedroom which you can fit out to suit your needs you can be efficient and plan your part time enterprise around normal family routine. Remember though to succeed you may need, if things do well to spend as much time on your "part time" role as with your normal "day time" job - if it gets that good it's time to make decisions as to your future and hand in your resignation or take redundancy.

Big Money

Many people see owning and running their own business an easy ticket to big money. Sit back and let the staff do all the work, whilst you live in a grand house owning top of the range cars and enjoy long and expensive foreign holidays.

"Dream on", although a few make it big, it's the result of some serious hard graft over many years, or a lucky break, or due to a rich relative, or inheritance that got you there. Such winners are in the "small minority", achievable yes, but statistically it is more realistic to achieve a steady, profitable income with minimum stress and worry.

Long Term Asset Building

A business, besides paying the owner a good salary can be valuable as an asset which can be sold later, perhaps to fund retirement, or to invest in another venture, or passed on to your children.

Less than a quarter of the wealth in the UKs "rich list" is inherited. The rest has been built up by individuals who started out as bricklayers, postmen, teachers, taxi drivers and soldiers -- as well as lawyers, bankers and surveyors. What they seem to share is a shrewd nose for a deal and an impeccable sense of timing.

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