Hopeton Morrison, Business Columnist

Starting a business has provided some persons with an opportunity to launch out on their own and achieve financial independence for life.

Whatever your reasons for going into business, here are some eight tips for you.

Decide if it is a business that you can operate from your own home:

That will offer you some major opportunities to keep your expenses low. If you chose the home office option, spend only as much as you need to make your home office functional. Keep a very low budget and concentrate on the 'need to do' activities only rather than the 'nice to do'.

You are never too young to start:

Young persons especially are sometimes best placed to engage in the types of risks that new start-ups require. Some persons are born entrepreneurs. Older friends and family members sometimes do youngsters a disservice by discouraging them from striking out on their own, ostensibly because they are too young.

There has been an impressive array of "whiz kids" starting up businesses locally, especially technology based ones, growing them aggressively to profitability and then selling out. Some of these youngsters stay on to manage the merged entity for a limited time before moving on to starting up new ventures, often millions of dollars richer than when they started previously.

DO THE OBVIOUS

Make a realistic plan.

A few businesses end up as overnight successes, especially technology-driven ones, but sensational successes represent the exception rather than the norm. Businesses take time to nurture and grow. For each overnight sensation there are thousands more that have either failed or are going through the learning curve of growth through hard work, and painstaking attention to detail.

Some would be entrepreneurs get stuck on identifying a business to start:

But often it really does not require more than doing the obvious. There is always room for another hardware, grocery/supermarket, restaurant/lounge, cellular phone/accessories retailer, petroleum retailer and the host of other businesses that persons start up in Jamaica. There is a theory that successful businesses grow in clusters, so wherever you see a set of successful businesses - be they fast foods or personal care - chose that location to add another.

HOBBY AS BUSINESS

New entrepreneurs are sometimes encouraged to grow their hobby into their small business:

There is no doubt that this works some of the time. We have heard stories of persons who have grown wonderful catering businesses out of a love for cooking, engaged in the wholesaling and retailing of flowers out of a love for plants, and so on. But sometimes a hobby won't get you too far. As crucial as your passion is to success, lasting success requires far more than just passion. It requires technical knowledge of your business, the acquisition of sound managerial skills, intuition, judgement and a lot more.

It is always a good idea to seek the advice of successful entrepreneurs.

Those who have made it by their bootstraps have seen it all. Most are very generous with their advice to fledgling, new entrepreneurs because invariably they want to see them succeed.

You don't always need to start from scratch:

Franchising has become increasingly popular in Jamaica, and it is one of the best and most seamless ways to become an entrepreneur. You are using a proven and successful system to guide your entrepreneurial journey.

Similarly, you can also buy out an existing business.

Seek out partners if you need to:

It is generally better to own 20-25 per cent of a large and successful business than 100 per cent of a small one.

Hopeton Morrison is general manager of St. Thomas Cooperative Credit Union Limited and lecturer, School of Business Administration, University of Technology. Email: hmorrison@stccu.com.