I know a lot can’t save enough for 12 to 18 months like this, and this is where I think it should be made clear that you can start a business in your spare time, evenings and weekends, especially if it is internet based, there are enough virtual assistants and virtual office address around these days to make this a very viable route.

In fact, this is the way I started my business, originally about 10 years ago it was extra money, then I decided to grow it and eventually I took the full-time plunge a little over 5 years ago, with a little money to live off while things grew, so unlike many who dish out advice, I really can say I have been there and bought the T-Shirt (rare for an accountant I would wager)

A shame the business press doesn’t mention it more!

It’s all good stuff, but why is it that so many people always forget, maybe not the first rule for small business, but it should be pretty high on the list, do something you know and love.

Over the last 22 years as an accountant and business consultant I have come across more people than I care to remember who have never taken any advice before launching a venture into the unknown, going into an industry of which they have no prior experience.

Next, as rightly stated, research, is there a market and what will they pay, all basics of business that seem to be forgotten all to often, and much to would be entrepreneurs detriment!

Another great benefit of this day and age is the internet, never before has there been such a chance to operate a business from your kitchen table that can literally go global, with a shop front that is virtual and open 24/7.

One thing I would say to anyone thinking about going it alone, know your market place!

Yes I’d agree in order to survive all businesses MUST innovate, but innovation takes many forms. For example Joseph Schumpeter noted several types of entrepreneurial innovation:

1. The introduction of a new good — that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar — or of a new quality of a good.
2. The introduction of a new method of production, which need by no means be founded upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exist in a new way of handling a commodity commercially.
3. The opening of a new market, that is a market into which the particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered, whether or not this market has existed before.
4. The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists or whether it has first to be created.
5. The carrying out of the new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position

Note that innovation is distinct from invention or revolution.

I do think that there has to be some scope for innovation.

Taking on established products makes you a small fish in a big pond. Good for starters, like you say, but pretty soon, you either improve upon or innovate.

Wouldn’t you (all) agree?

Is there any business out there that no serious entrepreneur would touch with a barge pole?