by Alan Perlman

Created on: July 23, 2007

The first step in determining which business to start is to look inward. What topics are you more familiar with than the average person? What is your passion? Your niche? What interests you? What do your family and friends come to you for advice about? After all, no one should be starting a business that they are not both passionate and educated about.

The second step is to isolate and define your strengths and weaknesses. What are you good at? Can you crunch numbers? Can you communicate well? Regardless of what resourceful advantages you might already have in the business world, identifying your capabilities will not only help you decide which business to start, but it will shed some light on how you can most effectively get your idea off the ground.

Ok. So now that you have looked inward, it's time to look outward. Make it known that you want to start a business. Start networking! Talk to friends, family, and associates. Bounce ideas off of people. A university's business school is a great place to start, as it often has very interesting speakers and open discussions for those that aren't even affiliated directly with the school.

Recently, I have come across a number of blogs that focus on business and entrepreneurship. This is a great channel to generate ideas and make contacts. Below I have listed a few sites that I subscribe to via Google Reader:

http://ben.casnocha.com
http://sethgodin.typep ad.com/seths_blog
http://www.ted.com

I am not qualified nor capable of telling you which business to start. However, by following the abovementioned suggestions, you should have a better idea of how to get your feet wet. If you would like to share any ideas with me (as I would like to start a business as well one day), feel free to contact me via Email.

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