Use This SIMPLE Method! Start Your Business

If you're not sure what business to start, you've got to start actually trying some things out and see what sticks. You're not going to come to the perfect answer only by thinking about it. You've got to actually start doing things. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, your friend in all things entrepreneurship. And today I'm answering a question from one of my readers, Lathan, who wrote in saying he's a young entrepreneur, he wants to start a business, doesn't know what to do except that he wants to be in business for himself, and he's wondering should he just jump at the next opportunity that comes to him or should he sit back and wait for the perfect opportunity? That's a great question, Lathan. Congratulations on making the decision to be an entrepreneur. It can be a tough one. I remember it was, uh, hard for me when I was getting my first business going. To answer your question, you've got to go and actually start trying different things. So I remember when I sold my first business and I was looking at what do I do next, there was this big hole in my heart. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I felt like I'd just given up my baby with the business and I didn't have to go and work, but I felt like I wanted to do something. And I got to the point where I was writing in a journal things that I enjoy doing and didn't enjoy doing, hoping that that would lead me somewhere. You know, if I did enough of the things that I enjoy doing on an ongoing basis, I could turn that into a business. And I hooked up with a venture capital company because I was curious about learning the venture capital side of things and helped them bring in new clients to raise money for new customers who are trying to grow their business. And that was a lot of fun. There was a lot of learning there. I hooked up with a startup software company at the same time and started this new business, getting it off the ground. Neither of those ended up being what I ended up doing longer term. Which was starting EvanCarmichael.com and turning it into a business. But they both helped get me there. I didn't commit to doing either of them full-time. I was dipping my toes in, offering some expertise, learning along the way, and seeing if it was a right fit for me or not. And the only way for me to figure that out was to get in and start trying to do it. Keeping a journal helped so I could figure out what I enjoyed doing and what I didn't enjoy doing. One of the light bulb turning points for me was when I started doing presentations about entrepreneurship, and I realized I wanted to do more of these. I loved doing them so much. I loved helping entrepreneurs, and I had to keep finding a way to do it, to do it. And you'll get to that moment And it's a process of self-discovery that you have to go through. You're on your journey, but you don't start a journey just sitting at home. You know, you've got to go out there and start trying different things that sound appealing, but not with a huge expectation that this is going to turn into your, your million-dollar idea. If you put massive expectations on things, then You're setting yourself up for failure. Go out, experience it, see if you like doing it, see if you want to do it again and again and again. See if this is what you were born to do or not. You've got to find that, and you will. If you look at Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, he was in college, university, and he dropped out. He dropped out of his classes because he wasn't enjoying it, and he started dropping in on classes that talked about typography and fonts, and he had no idea what that would mean for him. He just found it interesting, and he dropped in on computer building clubs, and again, he had no idea what it was gonna mean. He was just following something that was curious to him and led to the creation of Apple and this huge company and massive wealth for him. But at the time was scary, you know, and his friends and family saying, you're dropping out of university, you're dropping out of college, and you're, you're going to sit in on other classes for free, and you're going to hang out with these computer geeks who are building a computer. Who needs personal computers anyway? It's only for big companies. But he didn't listen to them. He put the blinders on. He started exploring his interests, and this is the toughest part of You've got to believe that somehow in the future the dots will connect, even though it doesn't make any sense right now. You've got to believe that somewhere in the future it's all going to come together. By combining all those different experiences and different interests you have, somewhere in there is a huge multimillion-dollar business idea that will happen, and you're going to love it. But you gotta start. You gotta get up off the couch, get out, start experiencing things, start working