transition to self employment

[sjames]

Hello,
I'm new to this forum. I joined in hopes of getting ideas and suggestions about how to transition out of my current line of work as an employee to self-emploment. I want to start my own business.
I haven't been able yet to think of what would be a business that I would do well at. I purchased Timothy's book in hopes of finding out.

Can anyone share their story of how they went from employee based work to self employment?

thanks,
Susan

[FreshwaterFish]

You will first need to identify how much time and capital you have to invest. My bet is you have plenty of time -- meaning youth. Youth is an important commodity that allows you to make mistakes and learn on the way. Youth also provides you an opportunity to recoup any losses due to failed ventures. If you don't have youth on your side, then your success will be strictly tied to your capital and what you can risk.

My suggestion -- read the book first, all of it. Then accept it for what it is -- an informational product. It has a certain structure. It has a certain sales pitch -- one I'm certain you have identified. It even follows a proven template for "self-help" books.

Also make a real effort to understand the 80/20 rule Ferriss talks about. If we chose an arbitrary number to represent every person that has read his book -- say 100 -and applied the 80/20 rule to successes, you'd have what? 80 people who read the book will fail or be worse off than they started. 20 people will have obtained some success at reaching a 4HWW. You could even apply the 80/20 rule to webpages. 80% of all webpages recieve little to no web traffic. 20% receive the majority of viewers. The point is you have to figure how to be part of the 20%. Getting into that 20% requires a bit of uniqueness. So, Good luck.

Until someone can proove otherwise, I'm a skeptic.