Others just do it. They don't write out their business plans. They don't do a formal market survey. They don't sign up for college classes on accounting or marketing. They just decide to start a business, and do it.
Many of the best entrepreneurs operate this way, what I call "Stumbling Ahead At Full Speed." In fact, Inc. Magazine's survey of the fastest growing private businesses each year always show that the majority are started without a business plan at all.
The CEO of Wal-Mart says that founder Sam Walton's best trait was his fearlessness. He'd make a terrible mistake, then come in the next day raring to go on another idea.
Virgin Group chief Richard Branson is a doer who is decribed as having "no guiding corporate strategy." He says, "Fun should be a motivator for all businesses. With many companies we start, we don't do the figures in advance. We just feel there's room in the market." So far Virgin Group has over 150 companies going, most very profitably.
Silicon Graphics' head Ed McCracken also scoffs at planning. "When we finish one product development program, we raise our heads and look around to see what to invent next," he says. "We try to get a sense of what customers might want.... then we put our heads down, engineer like mad, and get the product into the marketplace. Then we do it all over again."
"Life is pretty simple," says Tom Peters, the bestselling business writer and guru. "You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else."
One of the most common comments of those who have made it big is that they are glad they didn't do a lot of planning. "If I'd known what I was getting into, I'd have been too scared to try, " they say. "I succeeded because I didn't know I was breaking all the rules. I didn't know the rules."
As Sandi Wilson says in "Be The Boss II", "We're all making it up as we go along. There aren't any rules anywhere. Running your own business is like playing poker and the dog has eaten one card out of each suit. At any moment, the entire bottom could cave in and everybody would fall all the way through to China, where most of us would pick ourselves up, brush off the dust, and start another small business.
If you're thinking of starting your own business, just do it. Don't listen to what all the wage slaves around you say. Don't let them deter you or scare you. Just do it.
You don't have to wait till you have it all planned out. You don't have to wait till you're 21, or 51. You don't need to save a bunch of money first. You don't need to wait till you retire.
Thousands of businesses are started every week by people who had the choice made for them - they were fired, laid off or otherwise found themselves suddenly without a paycheck. If you were fired right now, you'd be where you are now, with what you have now. Start your business now! Go for it. FIgure it out as you go. Have fun!
First published in Peninsula Business Journal, October 1994
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