How to Find an Angel Investor

In the book, Write Your Business Plan, the staff of Entrepreneur Media offer an in-depth understanding of what’s essential to any business plan, what’s appropriate for your venture and what it takes to ensure success. In this edited excerpt, the authors discuss angel investing as an option for funding your business.

If you're having trouble getting funding for your venture under the right terms, or under any terms at all, you’ll be glad to know about the existence of angels in the investment world. Angels are individuals who invest their own money, as opposed to institutions or professional money managers, who invest other people’s money. Many angels are well-off professionals, such as doctors and lawyers. Some are retired but have tremendous expertise to share in a specific field. Others are successful small-business owners who have made a bundle with their own entrepreneurial efforts and are now interested in letting their money work for them in someone else’s venture.

Angel investors used to be a difficult group to find -- not so any longer. There are groups formed by angels and other organizations, such as Funding Post, that arrange for special angel and venture-capitalist showcases in various parts of the country. You can sign up and pay to attend an event at which up-and-coming entrepreneurs like yourself get to meet with many angel investors and VCs in one place. Have your short elevator pitch ready, and demonstrate the enthusiasm you have for your new business.

Because angels invest their own money, you might think they are the most discriminating, difficult-to-please investors. In fact, as a rule, they're much more willing to take a flier on a risky, unproven idea than are professional investors and lenders.

Angels often take a personal interest in a project and may simply believe strongly in the person behind it ... that’s you! They're usually swayed more by personal concerns than by financial ones.

While angel investors used to be located primarily by word of mouth, they're easier to find in the electronic age. ACE-Net is an electronic network of angel investors developed by the SBA that helps angel investors and small businesses seeking capital meet online. There's an annual fee to enroll in ACE-Net, which varies by state. You can also find the ACE-Net branch in your state on the website. The Angel Capital Association is another place to learn about angels and seek out an angel network—a local group of angel investors in your area.  

Keep in mind that, above all else, angels are unconventional. Many have little training in evaluating business ideas. If 20 angels turn you down, it doesn’t mean a thing. Until you’ve gone through the last name in your Rolodex, you still have a chance of landing an angel backer.

You may also fit angel guidelines if you don’t need a whole lot of money. Institutional venture capitalists can, by pooling the funds of several different groups, raise vast sums. It’s not unheard of for venture capitalists to invest nine-figure sums—more than $100 million—in relatively new, unproven ventures. But even rich, single investors like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are unlikely to feel comfortable sinking that kind of money into anything uncertain.

Your angels’ capacity will vary, of course, but angels tend to start small and see how you're doing before adding to the pot. One of the nicest things about the angel networks that have formed in recent years is that they can pool their resources, giving you a few angel investors in one place at one time. This also makes it easier when you're preparing to meet with angel investors. Rather than meeting one at a time, you can meet several in one angel network or even a couple who'll spread the word among their partners so that they can decide as a group.

From Entrepreneur

The 23 Best Business Tools Built By Startups

You might not realize it, but some of the best new tools available for business owners today are being made by startups. Here are 23 tools and apps I love and use that could make your business better:

1. Coschedule 

This is a lightweight Wordpress plugin that provides a one-stop solution for managing editorial calendars for blogs or websites that regularly publish content. It also automates social-media promotion when posts are published. Coschedule currently costs $10/month per website.

2. Optimizely

This service bills itself as “A/B testing you’ll actually use” and focuses on making testing as easy as possible. It allows you to track what you are actually interested in (as opposed to tracking information and data that you’re not going to use) and also allows you to set deadlines and run reports for specific timelines.

3. UserTesting

UserTesting records actual users as they view your app, website or other digital product. It records video of the user’s screen, and they are given tasks to complete on the platform being tested. They can create annotations for notes and also verbally give their feedback as they are working their way through the experience.

It offers a single video for $50, or pro plans that are $225/month for small businesses and $1,250 for enterprise businesses. The pro plans offer much more robust feedback and reports based on the user test findings.

4. Intercom.io 

This tool allows you to not only see your users’ behavior when they are using your online tools or apps, but it also helps you interact with them through popups while they are on specific pages or using specific features. This type of user interaction can help further your product development and customer service. Intercom.io ranges in monthly pricing packages from free to $99, depending on how many features you need.

5. Slack

Slack is an easy-to-use searchable-team communication platform that integrates with existing software that your team is probably already using, such as Dropbox, Google Drive and MailChimp. Slack currently ranges in price from free to $12.50 per user, depending on which features are needed. Pricing is based on an annual payment.

6. Fuze

Fuze is a video and conference-call service that also allows users to type and send files during calls, record calls for later purposes and send participants calendar invitations directly from the app. It can be used via the web, its downloadable program (which is required for video calls), mobile app or via a conference-call number. The top-level plan also allows the facilitation of webinars. Its plans range from free (up to three call participants) to $40 per month.

7. Mailbox

Mailbox was created to optimize the email experience on mobile. You can swipe new emails to either trash or archive them, and can also schedule emails to reappear in your inbox at a specific period of time.Mailbox is currently free and available for iPhone, iPad, Android and a beta version for Mac OSX.

8. Mynd

This app, currently only available for iOS, is a helpful optimized calendar that works with your existing calendar information (as well as the Internet) to make your life easier. For instance, it alerts you when you need to leave to make a meeting on time and automatically inputs conference-call codes to make dialing in easier. It has in-app purchases, but is free to download.

9. ZenPayroll

ZenPayroll aims to make employee payroll easy. It allows you to integrate with existing systems (such as human-resources platforms, invoicing platforms or insurance-plan management tools) to make employee management simpler.

10. Xero

Xero provides online accounting and invoicing services for small businesses and accountants or bookkeepers. It integrates add-on services such as popular payment, customer-relationship management and business tools such as PayPal and Salesforce. In addition, it integrates with your online banking, so you can automatically sync banking transactions. Pricing plans ranges from $20 to 40 per month.

11. HelpScout

This service is an online help desk that also integrates with your email, documents and other apps to make customer service as easy as possible. You can also use one user account to manage the help desk for multiple brands or domains, making it ideal for outsourced support desks or companies that own more than one product. It currently costs $15 per user per month.

12. IconFinder

This unique service is a tiny component of web design, yet crucial to the user experience. IconFinder helps you find the perfect icons for your apps, promotions or websites. You can either pay a per-icon rate or a monthly membership fee for its premium offerings, which are higher quality. There are also some free icons as well, depending on what you are searching for.

13. Drip

Drip describes itself as “marketing automation that doesn’t suck.” It offers marketing, trial and customer-email automation that makes campaigns easier. Once you choose an opt-in form, it walks through the automation set-up process, all on a lightweight platform. Plans range from $49 to more than $149 per month, depending on email volume, size of email list and desired features.

14. Canva

Canva makes great graphic design within anyone’s grasp. It has hundreds of pre-designed layouts, elements, fonts and image styles that make it possible to design everything from a great Twitter header to a flyer for your business. It offers free design elements, but also allows you to buy premium elements piecemeal, for about $1 each (at the moment). It also keeps track of all your designs in your account, so you can re-edit or re-download them as needed.

15. Zapier

This service is a lot like If This, Then That (IFTTT), but for businesses. You can connect your well-known apps you are already using to automate your work process. For instance, every time you are assigned a new task in your company’s project-management platform, it will automatically create a calendar alert to reminder you to finish it. The pricing plans for Zapier run from free to $150 per month, based on the number of “zaps” (such as automated tasks) that are needed to run.

16. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a content analysis and discovery tool to help you find out what type of content does best for a specific topic or industry. It also helps you identify influential online users that could help you promote and share your content. You can also research specific domains to see their social backlinks and which pieces of content are the most popular. Buzzsumo has a free account for viewing information, but the paid options (ranging from $99 to more than $499) allow you to export reports and alerts.

17. When I Work

This tool (disclosure: I'm the vice president of marketing at the company) aims to makes scheduling hourly employees as easy as possible. You can create and send out work schedules for the next week just as easily on a mobile device as you can from your computer. Managers can text employees when their new schedule is out, and they can also request time off from the When I Work app on their phone. Plans range from $9 to $49.

18. Bamboo

Bamboo HR is focused on turning human resources back into what it is supposed to be: interacting with employees, not tracking data in spreadsheets. Its interface is focused on making data (such as time off, benefits and personal information) about employees easy to search and accessible by both the HR team and the employees themselves. Its pricing structure is based on the number of employees and ranges from $69 a month to $2,999 a month for 1,500 employees (beyond that requires a custom quote).

19. HelloSign

This is an edocument signing service that lets all parties sign a document digitally, while still being legally binding. In addition to an online platform to upload and send out documents, it also integrates with Google so you can upload documents that need to be signed right from Gmail. Its free plan allows for the signing of up to three documents per month, and $13 per month (when paid annually) for unlimited document signings, but one template. The $40 monthly plan allows for five templates and unlimited signatures.

20. Boomerang

This service allows you to “boomerang” your email to remind yourself to follow up with it at a later date. It will bring the email thread back to your inbox, making it great for following up with clients, sales contacts and other colleagues if they don’t respond. It has a free account that offers 10 boomerangs per month and also offer higher-level options from $4.99 to $49.99 monthly.

21. CrashPlan

The CrashPlan from Code42 automatically backs up your computer’s files online with unlimited cloud storage (which is its main draw). The personal version starts at $4 per month and the family plan starts at $9. There are also custom quotes available for business backup plans.

22. Sqwiggle

Sqwiggle is a collaboration tool that is perfect for teams that are remote or have telecommuting members. Along with video and text chat, it also periodically takes photos of team members as they work (so everyone feels more connected), allows for easy file sharing and also utilizes minimal bandwidth (something Google Hangouts and Skype occasionally have issues with, according to some users). It offers a free plan, and also has two other plans that are $9 and $25 per user, per month.

23. GoodData

This is a business intelligence-gathering tool that allows you to gather data from any source, as well as combine, analyze, visualize and store it. It allows you to combine data and information from other tools, such as Yammer and Salesforce. It doesn’t offer pricing options on its website.

From Entrepreneur

A Gratitude Habit to Boost Your Positivity

There’s a blackout while I’m in the basement of my house. At least it didn’t happen when I was cleaning the cats’ litter box, I tell myself. Next morning, I spill coffee all over the kitchen counter. At least it didn’t go in the silverware drawer. Then it’s on to bonking my hip on a table (at least I didn’t cut myself), burning the breakfast sausages (at least the kitchen didn’t catch fire), and buying $150 worth of groceries (at least it was cheaper than buying those same groceries in Tokyo). And so on, every day. 

Friends of mine—accustomed to my “at least” habit—crack me up by saying, “You’re so positive!” I think they see me as a 21st-century Pollyanna, that sunny and fictitious orphan. In fact, as my husband knows, I’m a private expert at imagining the worst. Does my kid have a sniffle? I’ll see that sniffle and raise it to pneumonia. Is she late getting home from school? Bam: I picture a hideous bus crash. For me, the gratitude-for-what-hasn’t-happened mindset is a way of using my hyperactive imagination for good. 

And, just in time for Thanksgiving, I’m pleased to report that a number of scientists are in my corner. No, they haven’t specifically endorsed—yet—my pattern of being grateful 30 times a day that small problems weren’t more drastic. But their research does suggest that picturing sadder versions of your past might make you happier in the present. 

At the University of Virginia, the University of Western Ontario and other places, psychologists asked people to imagine that something in their lives (either bad or good) had turned out worse. In one study, for instance, students remembered a test they had done poorly on and imagined having done even more poorly. In another, people in romantic relationships imagined never having met their beloved. This way of seeing things—known in the psych biz as “downward counterfactual thinking”—had swift results: Those who imagined getting lower grades were in better moods immediately afterward than those who imagined getting higher grades; those who pictured a world where they hadn’t met Mr. or Ms. Right promptly reported more satisfaction with that person than they had two weeks before. 

What explains such shifts? Maybe, scientists suggest, it’s that when you imagine a worse version of events, you rekindle the novelty of reality: But I did meet Bill! I didn’t get an F! I scooped the cat poop before the lights went out! And novelty seems key to enjoying your blessings. (Which is why even the best memories—from reaching a professional goal to watching your World Cup team score a winning one—feel less thrilling as time passes.) 

Could “downward counterfactual thinking” goose long-term happiness? Could it prepare us to cope with major challenges? Science has yet to offer a verdict. But—true to my Pollyanna reputation—I’m optimistic. As a 2008 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology points out, small daily boosts of positive emotion “improved life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms over time.” 

And I can definitely vouch that my “at least” habit brings daily boosts of positive emotion—even, on occasion, rueful laughter. Now if I could just quit spilling coffee and walking into things, I’d be in business.

From Success Magazine

How to Name a Business

What's in a name? A lot, when it comes to small-business success. The right name can make your company the talk of the town. The wrong one can doom it to obscurity and failure. Ideally, your name should convey the expertise, value and uniqueness of the product or service you have developed.

Some experts believe that the best names are abstract, a blank slate upon which to create an image. Others think that names should be informative so customers know immediately what your business is. Some believe that coined names (that come from made-up words) are more memorable than names that use real words. Others think they're forgettable.

In reality, any name can be effective if it's backed by the appropriate marketing strategy. Here's what you'll need to consider in order to give your small business the most appropriate and effective name.

Enlist Expert Help to Start

Coming up with a good business name can be a complicated process. You might consider consulting an expert, especially if you're in a field in which your company name may influence the success of your business. Naming firms have elaborate systems for creating new names and they know their way around the trademark laws. They can advise you against bad name choices and explain why others are good.

The downside is cost. A professional naming firm may charge as much as $80,000 to develop a name. That generally includes other identity work and graphic design as part of the package, according to Laurel Sutton, a principal with Catchword Brand Name Development. Naming services that charge as little as $50 do exist, but spending a reasonable amount of money early for quality expert advice can save you money in the long term.

What's in a Name?

Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. It should reinforce the key elements of your business. Your work in developing a niche and a mission statement will help you pinpoint the elements you want to emphasize in your name.

The more your name communicates to consumers about your business, the less effort you must exert to explain it. According to naming experts, entrepreneurs should give priority to real words or combinations of words over fabricated words. People prefer words they can relate to and understand. That's why professional namers universally condemn strings of numbers or initials as a bad choice.

On the other hand, it is possible for a name to be too meaningful. Common pitfalls are geographic or generic names. A hypothetical example is "San Pablo Disk Drives." What if the company wants to expand beyond the city of San Pablo, California? What meaning will that name have for consumers in Chicago or Pittsburgh? And what if the company diversifies beyond disk drives into software or computer instruction manuals?

How can a name be both meaningful and broad? Descriptive names tell something concrete about a business -- what it does, where it's located and so on. Suggestive names are more abstract. They focus on what the business is about.

Consider "Italiatour," a name that was developed by one naming company to help promote package tours to Italy. Though it's not a real word, the name is meaningful and customers can recognize immediately what's being offered. Even better, "Italiatour" evokes the excitement of foreign travel.

When choosing a business name, keep the following tips in mind:

• Choose a name that appeals not only to you but also to the kind of customers you are trying to attract.
• Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond to your business on an emotional level.
• Don't pick a name that is long or confusing.
• Stay away from cute puns that only you understand.
• Don't use the word “Inc.” after your name unless your company is actually incorporated.

Get Creative

At a time when almost every existing word in the language has been trademarked, the option of coining a name is becoming more popular. Some examples are Acura and Compaq, which were developed by naming firm NameLab.

Coined names can be more meaningful than existing words, says NameLab president Michael Barr. For example, "Acura" has no dictionary definition but the word suggests precision engineering, just as the company intended. NameLab's team created the name Acura from "Acu," a word segment that means "precise" in many languages. By working with meaningful word segments (what linguists call morphemes) like "Acu," Barr says the company produces new words that are both meaningful and unique.

Barr admits, however, that made-up words aren't the right solution for every situation. New words are complex and may create a perception that the product, service or company is complex, which may not be true. Plus, naming beginners might find this sort of coining beyond their capabilities.

An easier solution is to use new forms or spellings of existing words. For instance, NameLab created the name Compaq when a new computer company came to them touting its new portable computer. The team thought about the word "compact" and came up with Compaq, which they believed would be less generic and more noticeable.

Test Your Name

After you've narrowed the field to four or five names that are memorable and expressive, you are ready to do a trademark search. Not every business name needs to be trademarked, as long as your state government gives you the go-ahead and you aren't infringing on anyone else's trade name. But you should consider hiring a trademark attorney or at least a trademark search firm before to make sure your new name doesn't infringe on another business's trademark.

To illustrate the risk you run if you step on an existing trademark, consider this: You own a new manufacturing business that is about to ship its first orders when an obscure company in Ogunquit, Maine, considers the name of your business an infringement on their trademark. It engages you in a legal battle that bankrupts your business. This could have been avoided if sought out expert help. The extra money you spend now could save you countless hassles and expenses further down the road.

Final Analysis

If you're lucky, you'll end up with three to five names that pass all your tests. Now, how do you make your final decision?

Recall all your initial criteria. Which name best fits your objectives? Which name most accurately describes the company you have in mind?

Some entrepreneurs arrive at a final decision by going with their gut or by doing consumer research or testing with focus groups to see how the names are perceived. You can doodle an idea of what each name will look like on a sign or on business stationery. Read each name aloud, paying attention to the way it sounds if you foresee radio advertising or telemarketing in your future. Use any or all of these criteria.

Keep in mind that professional naming firms devote anywhere from six weeks to six months to the naming process. You probably won't have that much time, but plan to spend at least a few weeks on selecting a name.

Once your decision is made, start building your enthusiasm for the new name immediately. Your name is your first step toward building a strong company identity, one that should last as long as you're in business.

From Entrepreneur

Fight Overthinking, That Destroyer of Decision Making

When making decisions under pressure, many professionals are plagued with a fear of making the wrong choice, selecting an option that could lead to business failure. This fear of failure, in itself, is not a bad thing.

In our new book What Business Can Learn From Sport Psychology, we examine how a fear of failure can actually provide powerful motivation for athletes and business professionals. But that's only if the fear of failure inspires thoughts of success and taking assertive actions toward a desired goal.

So where does the fear of failure stem from? Often it originates from the fear of making the wrong choice, which more often than not is caused by overthinking.

The root of overthinking.

With overthinking, people want to make the right decision so much, they worry that they won’t be able to and lose sight of what it takes to make good decisions: a clear mind. By worrying and ruminating about a decision, they can slow down the mental processes that underpin decision making. They try to force the brain to complete the complex process of making a decision in a way that it is not comfortable with.

Take driving for example. Driving is an extremely complicated process involving coordination of mind and body to perform intricate movements safely and proficiently. If you've been driving for some time, no doubt you make the complex decisions for doing so without thinking about the precise processes involved. You have developed expertise after all, and decisions can be made without having to process each alternative and consciously weighing the pros and cons. But maybe when you were learning to drive this wasn’t the case. When someone is learning to drive, each choice is made intentionally and deliberately.

But if you had to take your driving test again in order to continue driving (and had to make sure your performance was flawless), you would probably abandon your automatic decision-making process and instead break down the choices into their component parts, asking yourself, Are my hands in the right place? Have I checked the mirrors? Am I in the right lane? 

The trouble is, by examining all the component choices, you would be making decisions in a way that's very odd for your brain. You are an expert, remember, and all this intricate and in-depth procedural decision making is not needed anymore. So what would normally be a smooth and proficient decision-making process would become a slow and uncoordinated state of confusion. That ultimately would damage your performance.  

In golf, overthinking the skill execution has been the ruin of many a professional. Like all elite athletes, professional golfers have undergone thousands of hours of deliberate practice to ingrain technical skills into their mind and body. This learning process means that when they perform, they don’t need to think about the individual component parts of skill execution.

When putting, they don’t need to consider the complex sequence of coordinated movements in their hands, arms, shoulders, back, trunk, legs and feet. They can just think about where they want to the ball to go and execute the move automatically.

But when worry emerges, in those pressure situations when a putt will win the championship, many golfers start to break the skill down and try to make the putt as if they were novices performing the skill for the first time. No longer is putting a smooth automatic process. It becomes an uncoordinated and rigid process. And that can turn a simple putt into a performance catastrophe.  

When working memory isn’t working.

So under stressful, pressured situations, when making a decision is vital, worrying can cause overthinking. The working memory is someone quickly calculates risk and weighs the pros and cons in the brain. It is also where worrying takes place.

Because worrying takes up vital space in the working memory, no longer can the person efficiently process the information needed to make that all important decison. Instead, he or she tries to grasp every little component part of making that choice and break down the skill of decision making into a mechanical process. Just like the driving example, however, this isn’t how the person normally makes accurate decisions.

Be instinctual.

If you encounter those stressful high-pressured moments, instead of overthinking and risking paralysis by analysis, carry out your business analyses and evaluations, think about the issues and then go with what feels right rather than trying to function like a computer with a calculated output. In other words, consider the information you have and then trust your instincts.

Your gut reaction is informed by your vast experience of being a business professional and also from your experience of being human. You make decisions all the time without overthinking them. You, as a human being, are an extremely powerful and efficient decision-making machine.

From Entrepreneur

The Habits of the World's Smartest People (Infographic)

There is no one picture of intelligence, but many people with high IQs do tend to share some of the same habits -- both good and bad. For example, according to research complied by Online-PHD-Programs.org, while those with high IQs tend to set goals and read avidly, they are also more likely to drink more heavily and suffer from anxiety.

For more on the habits of smart people, including a look at the IQs of icons such as Albert Einstein and Bill Gates, check out the infographic below.

Successful People Start Before They Feel Ready

In 1966, a dyslexic sixteen-year-old boy dropped out of school. With the help of a friend, he started a magazine for students and made money by selling advertisements to local businesses. With only a little bit of money to get started, he ran the operation out of the crypt inside a local church.

Four years later, he was looking for ways to grow his small magazine and started selling mail order records to the students who bought the magazine. The records sold well enough that he built his first record store the next year. After two years of selling records, he decided to open his own record label and recording studio.

He rented the recording studio out to local artists, including one named Mike Oldfield. In that small recording studio, Oldfield created his hit song, Tubular Bells, which became the record label’s first release. The song went on to sell over 5 million copies.

Over the next decade, the young boy grew his record label by adding bands like the Sex Pistols, Culture Club, and the Rolling Stones. Along the way, he continued starting companies: an airline business, then trains, then mobile phones, and on and on. Almost 50 years later, there were over 400 companies under his direction.

Today, that young boy who dropped out of school and kept starting things despite his inexperience and lack of knowledge is a billionaire. His name is Sir Richard Branson.

How I Met Sir Richard Branson

Two weeks ago, I walked into a conference room in Moscow, Russia and sat down ten feet from Branson. There were 100 other people around us, but it felt like we were having a conversation in my living room. He was smiling and laughing. His answers seemed unrehearsed and genuine.

At one point, he told the story of how he started Virgin Airlines, a tale that seems to capture his entire approach to business and life. Here’s the version he told us, as best I can remember it:

"I was in my late twenties, so I had a business, but nobody knew who I was at the time. I was headed to the Virgin Islands and I had a very pretty girl waiting for me, so I was, umm, determined to get there on time.

At the airport, my final flight to the Virgin Islands was cancelled because of maintenance or something. It was the last flight out that night. I thought this was ridiculous, so I went and chartered a private airplane to take me to the Virgin Islands, which I did not have the money to do.

Then, I picked up a small blackboard, wrote “Virgin Airlines. $29.” on it, and went over to the group of people who had been on the flight that was cancelled. I sold tickets for the rest of the seats on the plane, used their money to pay for the chartered plane, and we all went to the Virgin Islands that night."

—Richard Branson

I took this photo right after he told that story. A few moments later I stood shoulder–to–shoulder with him (he’s about six feet tall) and thanked him for sharing some time with us.

Richard Branson talking on a panel in Moscow, Russia.

The Habits of Successful People

After speaking with our group, Branson sat on a panel with industry experts to talk about the future of business. As everyone around him was filling the air with business buzzwords and talking about complex ideas for mapping out our future, Branson was saying things like: “Screw it, just get on and do it.” Which was closely followed by: “Why can’t we mine asteroids?”

As I looked up at that panel, I realized that the person who sounded the most simplistic was also the only one who was a billionaire. Which prompted me to wonder, “What’s the difference between Branson and everyone else in the room?”

Here’s what I think makes all the difference:

Branson doesn’t merely say things like, “Screw it, just get on and do it.” He actually lives his life that way. He drops out of school and starts a business. He signs the Sex Pistols to his record label when everyone else says they are too controversial. He charters a plane when he doesn’t have the money.

When everyone else balks or comes up with a good reason for why the time isn’t right, Branson gets started. He figures out how to stop procrastinating and take the first step — even if it seems outlandish.

Start Now

Branson is an extreme example, but we could all learn something from his approach.

If you want to summarize the habits of successful people into one phrase, it’s this: successful people start before they feel ready.

If there was ever someone who embodied the idea of starting before they felt ready to do so, it’s Branson. The very name of his business empire, Virgin, was chosen because when Branson and his partners started they were “virgins” when it came to business.

Branson has started so many businesses, ventures, charities, and expeditions that it’s simply not possible for him to have felt prepared, qualified, and ready to start all of them. In fact, it’s unlikely that he was qualified or prepared to start any of them. He had never flown a plane and didn’t know anything about the engineering of planes, but he started an airline company anyway. He is a perfect example of why the “chosen ones” choose themselves.

If you’re working on something important, then you’ll never feel ready. A side effect of doing challenging work is that you’re pulled by excitement and pushed by confusion at the same time.

You’re bound to feel uncertain, unprepared, and unqualified. But let me assure you of this: what you have right now is enough. You can plan, delay, and revise all you want, but trust me, what you have now is enough to start. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to start a business, lose weight, write a book, or achieve any number of goals… who you are, what you have, and what you know right now is good enough to get going.

We all start in the same place: no money, no resources, no contacts, no experience. The difference is that some people — the winners — choose to start anyway.

No matter where you are in the world and regardless of what you’re working on, I hope you’ll start before you feel ready.

Written by James Clear