I’ve been writing this blog and helping would be entrepreneurs for nearly two years now and one thing I’ve discovered is that you can’t really push someone to take the entrepreneurial plunge. Either you have the desire to start your own business or you don’t and most people can’t get over the uncertainty that’s involved with being your own boss.

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Recently, I went through each and every email that I’ve ever received on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com and found that the majority of people get stuck on 2 main things when starting their business. One, they can’t come up with a good business idea and two, they aren’t confident that they can succeed.
I Can’t Come Up With An Idea
I’ve found that most people who have problems coming up with good business ideas are self-deprecating.

“I’m not that creative. How am I going to come up with …

When most people think about entrepreneurship or starting their own business, the first thing that comes to mind is the risk that is associated with being your own boss. Perhaps that is why entrepreneurship is such an exhilarating and sexy term. It takes guts to go out on your own.

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But the funny thing is that most of the successful entrepreneurs I know are very conservative and don’t like taking risks at all. Ironically, my entrepreneur friends are some of most risk averse people I know! I happen to fall into this same camp as well. Sure, I would risk a good amount of money to start my own business but would I ever bet the entire bank or stake my livelihood on a business idea? Hell no!

Managing Risk
One of key aspects of entrepreneurship is knowing how to mitigate risk. …

Whenever I think of duct tape, I think of my favorite television superhero MacGyver. What?!? There’s a ticking time bomb set to explode in 10 seconds? Take that stick of chewing gum, some duct tape and disarm that bad boy. It wasn’t always pretty, but MacGyver always got the job done no matter what the situation. He was never concerned with how elegant the solution was, he just did what was necessary to help his client.

If Macgyver was a real person, who wouldn’t want him on your team? The truth is that every small business needs a duct tape guy. Because the duct tape guy is the guy who will make sure you launch your business on time. He’s the one thinking about and developing concrete ways to market your business. He’s the one getting things done while others …

Starting and running a successful small business does not require intellect so much as it requires common sense and perseverance. Don’t get me wrong, starting a business is hard but the reason most people fail is not because they aren’t smart enough but because they don’t follow through or they get distracted and give up when they don’t see immediate results. We live in a world of instant gratification but starting a business online is almost never instantly gratifying from a monetary perspective.

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The truth is that the mentality of starting and running an online business is a lot like going on a diet. It’s tempting to go after the latest fad with the promise of quick results with very little effort. If you stop and think about it, there’s always some new fangled weight loss scheme floating around.

“Don’t eat carbs!”
“Drink 6 …

The other day, I came across a heated forum discussion that went back and forth debating over the definition of a “true” entrepreneur versus just a regular small business owner. The thread was over 5 pages long and participating in this discussion were a wide variety of different business owners. Some of them ran brick and mortar retail stores. Some of them ran small-medium sized internet consulting or software companies. And some of them were freelancers looking to eventually start their own firms.

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The main crux of the debate was whether a person opening a brick and mortar business like an ice cream store or a freelancer with no employees could be considered a true entrepreneur. Where do you draw the line between true entrepreneurship and just running a small business?

As the two sides argued back and forth, I couldn’t help but think…who …

Ever since my wife and I bought our new home, we’ve been using a variety of contractors to help change a few things around the house. For example, we had new tile and carpets put in, changed the layout of the house a little bit and had the outside of the house painted as well. While everything we remodeled turned out okay, overall our experiences were a mixed bag and it had nothing to do with the quality of the work that was done.

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In fact, every one of my contractors did a fantastic job at whatever was assigned to them, yet I would probably not recommend at least 2 of the 3 contractors to friends or use them ever again. Why? It’s because it takes more than a good job to leave a lasting good impression on a customer. Sometimes even a small …

Many would be entrepreneurs don’t start their own venture because they are afraid of failure. And quite frankly, they have every right to be afraid. After all, we are constantly bombarded by vague sayings like “9 out of every 10 startups fail” or “chalk up your first startup as a learning experience”, or my favorite, “most relationships and marriages can’t survive a startup”. After you hear enough of these cliches, you soon start believing them.

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The problem is that these ideals are further reinforced by the various entrepreneurship blogs out there that are telling everyone to fail early and fail hard because that is how you learn. Everywhere we turn, we are constantly reminded that statistically speaking, there is an extremely high probability that your first startup is going to die so it’s better to get that first failure out of the way.

Seriously folks…If …

In order to build wealth effectively, we all have to be frugal to a certain extent. We have to watch our spending. We have to analyze our expenditures and cut back on the fat. We have to make sacrifices to make sure that we can save enough money for college and retirement.

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Fortunately, my wife and I both share the same principles when it comes to spending money (ie. we don’t spend frivolously). Otherwise, we would be seriously screwed. But after analyzing last year’s expenses using Quicken, I feel all frugalled out. We have pretty much cut back as much as we possibly can without drastically affecting our lifestyle.

If we look closely at last years expenses, we cut spending by another 4% over the year before. We are going out to eat less thanks to my wife’s desire to …

Many would be entrepreneurs hesitate to start their own business because they think it is too risky from a monetary perspective. In fact, most people don’t think starting a business is even worth trying unless they can come up with a grand slam profitable idea. Of course profitability is an extremely important factor with any business, but what if I were to tell you that you could save a decent amount of money every year with your business while only making a small profit or none at all?

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That’s right! Most people don’t consider the tax savings involved in running a business. Most people don’t realize that having a day job is one of the worst ways to save on taxes because Uncle Sam takes a huge chunk out of your paycheck BEFORE you pay for anything. On the …

As many of you know, my wife and I recently gave birth to our second child Kyle. It’s only been about a month but we’ve already discovered that taking care of Kyle has been drastically different from taking care of our first child. For one thing, we are much more confident this time around. We know what we are doing. We aren’t afraid of minor issues and we can usually recognize when something is truly wrong versus just a normal phase of childhood.

We are also much more proficient at reading our baby’s signals and figuring out what needs to be done. Because we have our own “baby care system” in place so to speak, it’s especially interesting because we are now more keenly aware of how hospitals, books and friends influence us into thinking that certain methods are the right and only way of doing …

Whenever I mention to anyone that I work a full time job, help my wife run our online store and maintain MyWifeQuitHerJob.com all while having two kids in the house, one of the first questions I always get is how I find the time to do all of these things.

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Believe it or not, even with all of these items on my plate, I still feel I have time to take on even more. The secret is being more efficient with your time and managing your day a little bit better. I know. It’s easier said than done. But I’m going to describe in this article how my wife and I organize our time to run our online business and and how we manage to cram a ton of activities into a single day. The reality is that there’s plenty of free time …

I’ve heard a ton of business ideas. I’ve listened to and read many business plans. And the one thing that always strikes me is how little most people think about the viability, profitability and end goals of their small business. Is the goal to become a millionaire? Is the goal to just make a living? Is the goal to just do something fun?

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Perhaps this explains why in just the past year alone, I’ve seen many brick and mortar businesses open up their doors only to close down just a short while later. Perhaps this is why I know of several acquaintances who are in limbo with their business. They don’t make much profit yet they are literally working their butts off for the equivalent of minimum wage.

Granted, a lot of this might have to do with the current economy and the …

“I have no idea how to create and manage my own website and I have absolutely no interest in learning either. I’m just going to hire someone or pay for a service.”

Believe it or not, most people that I encounter who want to create their own online store or business have this attitude. They are reluctant to learn basic web programming because they are afraid of the technical aspects of running a website.

To me, this attitude is contradictory. You want to start an online only business yet you have no desire to learn about the web? That’s

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like saying that you want to be a real estate agent but have no desire to learn about the rules and regulations involved in buying or selling a house.

Unless you have the budget to hire a full time web developer, you are going to have to …

When most people think about starting a company or business, they think of the Microsofts, the Googles and the YouTubes of the world. They tend to think big because the media focuses on these multi-million dollar success stories and over glamorizes the risks and rewards.

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In fact, the media tends to portray entrepreneurs like lottery winners because that’s what makes the news. Because the chances of creating a company like You Tube or Facebook are so slim, most people shy away from starting their own business because they think it’s just way too risky with very little chance of success.

Just the other day, I had one of my readers email me that they were afraid to go out on their own because they didn’t want to risk everything for a measly 1% chance at success. A 1% chance at success? Where the hell did he …

This is a guest post by A-ron who quit his job over 2 years ago because he decided that cubicle life was just not right for him. He now shares his wisdom over at his blog So I Quit My Job and I highly recommend checking it out.

I’d like to think that everyone on this planet has the ability to thrive running their own business. That everyone in existence, especially in the US, has the capability, resources, creativity, and energy to start and run their own business in a capacity that aligns with the lifestyle they wish to live.

To date, this isn’t the truth, it’s just a pipe dream. Everyone knows and feels that working for someone else sucks, but that’s where most people leave it, accepting their “fate” of being an employee for life.

That’s why we’re here, to change that, to break free …

For the past few years, our online wedding linens store has been a cash machine. The store website hasn’t required much work at all and sales have been more or less on autopilot. Each and everyday, orders come in, orders get packed and money is deposited into our bank account.

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In effect, our entire business has been pretty much on cruise control which is why for the past several months we’ve been neglecting many important tasks and just letting our business coast.

But just the other day, my neurotic side kicked in and I started feeling a sudden wave of fear like I was being chased. Is it really safe to assume that our online store will always continue to grow? Has the competitive landscape changed at all? Can we really depend and sustain this level of income in the long term while just coasting …

Every entrepreneur takes their own unique path and it’s always interesting to hear things from a different perspective . In this guest post by Jack Busch, Jack tells his story of how he became self-employed. Jack is a freelance writer and blogger specializing in debt loans, personal finance and credit cards and maintains an excellent blog over at MasterYourCard.com.

When I first discovered MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, I was thrilled. For years, my wife and I have been discussing ways to gain financial independence so we could spend less time at our jobs, which we didn’t necessarily hate, but simply demanded too much of our time and energy. The best plan that we came up with was to buy a Powerball ticket every Wednesday and Saturday and cross our fingers. With somewhat disappointing returns, we’ve ramped up our efforts and have taken to crossing our toes, too. Still no luck.

Fast forward …

Having recently finished writing 2 multi-part guides on how to start a small business and how to create a profitable online store, I must say that it felt good to get all of that information out on paper. Creating these guides was extremely satisfying for me on so many levels and allowed me to document the many things that I learned while starting our wedding linens business.

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But sometimes I wonder whether these guides will really make a difference. Sometimes I wonder how many of my readers will actually go on to start their own small business as a result.

Based on your emails, MyWifeQuitHerJob.com has readers from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and I’m just curious how many of you are truly serious about quitting the rat race? Hell, I received a strange email the other day from a random reader who recently unsubscribed …

I’m not sure why, but my stumbleupon toolbar has been sending me mostly articles lately on entrepreneurship. In just the past few days alone, I’ve probably read more than 5 or 6 articles focusing strictly on the traits of successful entrepreneurs.

Even though I love articles about entrepreneurship, after reading just a few of these they all started to sound generic and blended together in my mind. “Learn to fail”, “Learn from your mistakes”,”Understand your weaknesses” etc… Don’t get me wrong. These articles all offer great advice but it is difficult to truly comprehend and describe these character traits in words unless you’ve truly worked with and experienced them first hand with real people.

Over the years, I’ve had the luxury of working with and hanging out with many successful entrepreneurs, most of whom I became friends with in school or through various clubs and projects. …

“Oh yeah, I tried being an entrepreneur a few years back but it was just too hard.”
“I tried the whole blogging thing but couldn’t get it off the ground”
“I tried learning how to program PHP but I never could get the hang of it”
I don’t know why, but lately I’ve become increasingly sensitive to people complaining about how things are just too difficult. Whenever I hear statements like the ones above, I can’t help but think to myself

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How hard did you really try?
How much time and effort did you actually spend?
Did you just give up after encountering the first obstacle?

Call me a skeptic, but I honestly believe that 90% of the time people complain about their failures and give up because they don’t really give things a chance.
Case In Point
“Oh yeah, I tried being an entrepreneur a few years back but it never went anywhere” …