Should I take a business night class?
Listening to the podcast lately I’ve heard Courtland ask guests why they think some folk aren’t getting started and other folks see opportunity everywhere. I’ve been between jobs for the past 6-months so have had some time to ponder this in my own context (new day job starts next week 😊). I’ve always had ambitions to run my own show, but always found reasons to maintain the status quo.
I suspect for me it’s that where there’s many unknowns, I lean towards conservative options, as those options stack up, the idea can’t survive. For example, I can stand in front of a successful retail outlet and come up with my version of their business plan. My imaginary numbers never lead to profitable business, clearly, I’m getting it wrong somehow.
I’ve heard that the best way to learn business - is to be in business - which I won’t dispute. However, I can’t help feeling like I’m missing something. Would a business course help me figure it out? Maybe reduce the unknowns? I’m a mechatronics engineer working as a product tester now. I want to be able to envision all the numbers measuring up before diving in.
Thanks!
I agree that starting is way more useful.
A general business course will always be just that, 'general'.
What kind of business do you want to start?
Thanks Sobbuh, I’ve looked up a few options for courses, they've listed potential career paths as ‘office manager’; Not really the direction I’m looking for. Still, I’m considering it if only to spend time studying with others who have similar ambitions.
What kind of business? Figuring that out seems to be half the challenge. An ecommerce site that re-sells white-labelled IoT devices with a custom monitoring/control app seems to be my best way in. In my day job the last two products I've worked on were a home security system and solar-battery monitoring system.
If at some stage that morphs into building environmentally friendly reasonably priced Ferraris, so everyone can enjoy all their journeys, then all the better.
This sounds pretty big. Can you narrow it down?
Maybe to start with could you just set up an ecommerce store selling IoT devices (I would probably niche down even further)? Or an affiliate page/blog about these devices?
From there you'll get a good idea of marketing and how to drive people to your store, and you can get a better idea of customer needs/desires. You'll also be able to develop a network (i.e. with the vendors whose products you'll want to white-label).