MBA1312 Are You Ready To Start a Business? + Free Ride Friday!
2 Feb 2026 · 17 min
Omar Zenhom breaks down three questions to ask before starting a business: Do you have at least 10 hours a week? Can you risk around $1,000 without hurting yourself? Do you want it badly enough to handle setbacks? Plus a chance to win a lifetime EzCourse membership worth $500.
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Visit Dell.com deals. Hey, today is Free Ride Friday so make sure you hang on to the end of the episode to hear who won this week's Free Ride. Every Friday we give away a lifetime membership to one of our courses. This week we're giving away easy course, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course. It retails for $500 over at EasyCourse Co, but you can win it for free. All you gotta do is leave us an itunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw check. Just listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that simple. It's our way to say thanks for leaving us love on itunes. Let's jump into today's episode. Heyo. Welcome to the $100 NBA show because you can't afford not to keep growing. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a company business training and community online. And in today's lesson you will learn. Are you ready to start a business? I'm the type of person that likes to set myself up for success. I do not like to lose and nor do I want the people that I advise or help to lose either. So in Today's lesson I'm going to share with you three questions you have to answer honestly within yourself before you start a business to know if you're ready, if you're on the fence. If you're thinking about starting a business and you're not sure this episode's for you, we're going to find out definitively yes or no, so you can then make that decision and move forward. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Starting a business is a huge step in anybody's life. I remember when I started my first business and to be quite honest with you, I started quite young. I was about 22. It was an online business and it wasn't really a decision, it was just something I really couldn't help but try. I wanted to do it. So if you're already in that camp, like I've already started a business and I can't help but be an entrepreneur, that's great. But this episode can still help you because it'll help you to know if you should start a second business. For those who are contemplating becoming entrepreneurs, they building that thing that's in their head for some time, fulfilling that nag that you have inside of you to see an idea come to life. Today I'm going to share with you three questions. I advise you to answer honestly so you can get to the bottom if you should start that business or not. Let's start with some practical questions. So the first of the three questions is do you have time? This is very important. You need time. Time is your biggest asset and in life and it's your biggest tool when it comes to building a business, especially at the start, you're going to need some time because you're going to be starting it by yourself or maybe with a co founder. But the point is, is that you're going to be doing a lot of work and if you're not being real about the fact that this is going to take some time out of your life, you're being foolish. If you want to know if you're ready, ask yourself, do you have the time to dedicate to this business? And now if you're wondering how much time do you need? Well, you don't need a ton of time, but you do need time. I say you need at least 10 hours a week just to get started and get the ball rolling. Otherwise it's going to be hard to have any kind of momentum as you're building your business to get some sort of traction and something on your hands. Quickly, 10 hours is not asking too much. If you spend one of your weekend days working on your business for six hours, that leaves, you know, four hours where you can, you know, dedicate a couple hours a night for a couple of nights during the week. But I say a minimum 10 hours if you can plug in more. I remember when I started my business, I was working full time as a teacher. I was putting 20, 30, even 40 hours some weeks into my business along with my job. And it helped a lot because it allowed me to launch faster and grow the business faster and make mistakes faster and learn from them. And course correct time is a huge asset. Now, obviously a exponent of time or an accelerator of time is hiring people. And if you want to hire some people, if you want to start investing in your business, you're going to need some money. And that's the second question. How much money are you looking to invest? Do you have any money to start your business? Now, every business is going to be different. It's going to have different needs, different costs. Whether it's a physical business, an online business, you're selling physical goods, or a soft good like a course or a digital product. Cost, and how much you're going to need when you get started is going to depend. But you do need some money. Where is that money going to come from? Do you have any money that you have on the side saved? Do you have any money that you can allocate from your current salary? This is a tough one, and I sandwiched the hard one in the middle. Do you have money to start this business? Now, I'm not asking you, do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions, but even the most modest business is going to cost you some money, like a thousand dollars, you know, to put up a website, to put a product together, to put a course together, maybe some equipment to run some ads. It's going to cost you a bit of money. $1,000 is a good indication even for a modest soft product business to get started with. Now you might be saying, well, $1,000 is not much. Omar, why is this even a question? Well, I'm saying $1,000 you're happy to let go of, you're happy to never see again, because that's a reality. You might start a business that just won't work out and you, you're going to have to close it down and move on to something else. And that's totally fine because again, your goal is to be a great entrepreneur, not to see one single idea come to life. You want the best idea for the best customers, for the best market to come to life. And you might invest 1000, 2000, $3000 in starting a business, and you may never see it again. So you need to be comfortable with that. Like, if you lose this money, you're not going to be in dire straits with your family or with your own expenses. So question number one, do you have the time to dedicate to this business? Number two is, do you have some money to kind of invest and never see again? This may mean skipping a vacation this year. This may mean not spending on that latest tech gadget that you wanted to buy or camera or iPhone or whatever it is, but it'll be worth it. Because it leads me to question number three. Do you want it bad enough? Do you really want to start this business? Or is it just something in your head that you fantasize about? And, hey, it would be nice to have, and if I don't have it, it's okay. My life is still fine. Entrepreneurs that make it feel very strongly about starting a business, they really want to do it. They feel uncomfortable doing what they do now. They feel uncomfortable in a job. They want to build something for themselves, or they have a passion, or they have something that they created that they really believe in and they want to see in the world. You got to want it bad. I don't know any entrepreneur that doesn't have any level of success that didn't have that drive, that didn't have that yearning to see this work. So if you're going to be totally happy if you don't have a business, then I actually recommend you don't start a business. Why? Because things are going to get tough, things are going to get hard, things are going to get challenging. You're going to make mistakes. It's going to be disappointing. It's just par for the course. And when that happens, you got to want it bad enough to get over those hurdles. And if you don't want it bad enough, if your life is like, hey, my life was so much better before I started this business. Everything is fine. Why am I putting myself through this hell? You're just not going to make it. It's going to be a big waste of time and money for you. Now, I know that doesn't sound like very popular advice, but that's the truth. That's just the reality. And this is what I experience. There were times in my businesses that I've grown that were so excruciating and very painful. Emotionally, physically, spiritually. Your Confidence gets shattered sometimes. And the only thing that kept me going was this feeling of, I really want this to happen. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to build something for other people. I want to be able to create great value for other people. I want to see this happen. I was uncomfortable not going for it. So if you feel that way, if you feel very strongly about becoming an entrepreneur, about building something for yourself, then you're in good shape. Then you're going to have what it takes. You're going to have that will. But I'm going to be quite honest with you. If you have a good job, a great career, you feel great about it and you enjoy it overall. Yeah, you have some tough days. Hey, I have tough days as an entrepreneur too. And there are days where I wish I could just close up shop and disappear. No, that's totally normal. Everybody experiences that. So if your job is overall fulfilling to you and you don't really want to change, you don't really want to push yourself in any way, or you don't have that yearning to become an entrepreneur, that's totally cool. You don't have to do this. I want what's best for you. I want what is going to make you feel happy and content. I was unhappy when I wasn't an entrepreneur. I don't like to say that I was unhappy in my job or having a job or having a 9 to 5. That's not the truth. You know, a job wasn't a bad thing. It was a great thing. It gave me an income. It allowed me to have some Runway to build businesses. The truth is, I was unhappy not being an entrepreneur. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to do this thing. And I felt like I was selling myself short by not doing it full time, that I was wasting my time in my life. You know, again, time is your biggest asset. Without being an entrepreneur, it was just my calling. It's something I really wanted to do. And fast forward till today, when I have a tough day, when I do have challenges, when I have a tough week, a tough month, I'm able to get over it. Because it's like, hey, I wouldn't want to do anything else. So ask yourself these three questions. Do you have enough time? Do you have some money to invest? And $3. Do you want it bad enough?
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Starting a business is exciting. It's fun, it's challenging, it's incredible in terms of personal growth. You meet interesting people, you meet an interesting person within yourself. You start discovering who you really are because you're pushing yourself to the limit. But we have to deal with the reality of what it takes to build a business. And those are really the three big things. Time, money. And if you really want it, everything else can be compensated for. You know, if you need to learn something, you can learn it. If you need some help, you can hire some people. If you need some resources, you can buy it. That's the point. But these three things are the tenants. And by the way, these three things are kind of universal in anything in life. If you want to become a doctor, you got to have the time to go to medical school or you have the time to study and you have the money or a way to finance your education. And you got to want to bend enough because it's tough to be a doctor. If you don't love being a physician, then all those late hours and those on call days and nights and seeing all that blood is going to really take a toll on you. You're not going to make it. You're not going to last. So if you're a little bit confused, just refer back to what it took for you to get to where you are today in your current career. For me, my first career was teaching. I taught for 13 years. In order for me to be a teacher, I had had time to study and know what it takes to become a teacher. I needed to also have the patience and the time to get my feet wet in the classroom. I needed the money to learn, to take courses, right? To get the education I need to become the teacher I became. I also wanted it bad enough. I needed to be able to tolerate some level of pain. It was very painful at the beginning as a teacher because you're not good at all. Your classroom management's out of whack. They don't teach you this stuff in, you know, in the classroom of how to manage a bunch of bodies and a bunch of unruly kids. But because I wanted to be a teacher enough to get through it, I did. That wraps up today's lesson. I hope you found it useful. I hope you found value in it. If you did, let me know an itunes rating and review. Not only do you let us know what you think of the show and give us feedback, but you also enter our weekly random draw we call free ride Friday. That's today. We're going to announce a winner. Anybody who leaves us on itunes rating and review enters our weekly random draw to win a lifetime membership to ezcourse. Ezcourse is our 30 day course on how to build your own online course. Retails for 500 bucks over at ezcourse co. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is. Tamar Guta. Tammer Guta says joyful education five stars to the point. Education never get bored. Thanks, Omar. Thank you, Tamar, for that amazing review. You are our winner. Your mission is to email me over at Omar100- MBA-NET so I can hook you up with the lifetime membership to ezcourse. It's that simple, Gu. If you want to win, just leave us an itunes rating and review and listen in on Friday to see if you won. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. From time to time, you'll hear a lesson on the show where I give you some tough love. I give you the truth that I wish a lot of people told me when I got started, when I was on my journey, when I was a few years into my journey. Too many people gloss over the details of entrepreneurship. They don't talk about the important things, the struggles, the questions that you need to answer, the details, the nitty gritty. And I like to do that from time to time to check your pulse and make sure that you're on the right track and make sure I'm giving you the truth rather than just selling you a dream. I got sold a dream from other people when I got started, you know, 13, 14 years ago. And I got disappointed because I realized, well, this is a lot harder than what people are saying. They, they said it was easy and I can just take my laptop on the beach and start a business. And it's that simple. No, I want to give you the reality so you're prepared and that you succeed and again, so you win. All right, thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of. Hey there.
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