"I have truly enjoyed your articles and blog and am motivated to do something about my situation.  I want to be start my own business.  I have over 20 years of experience in corporate America but when it comes to starting a business of my own, I don't know where to start.  What do you suggest?"

You are not alone in thinking about starting your business.  In the current economic environment in which iProceed's analysis is showing that most of the jobs that have been eliminated will never come back, it makes sense to start your business.  Several trends, as shown below are in your favor:

• Most businesses are started as some sort of self-employment and as they grow into micro-businesses and then into small businesses, they create new jobs for others.  According to Small Business Administration, they create two-thirds of net new jobs.

• Startup businesses now employ 7% of the total workforce in about 16 million businesses. These businesses produce more than $750 billion  in annual economic activity. What will please you even more is that generally these individuals earn more money than wage-and-salary workers.

How to get started to start a new business?

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."   - Camille Pissarro

How true!  We strongly believe in the simple strategy of "When you have lemons, make lemonade."  It is true for a kid who wants to make some extra money on the beach, it is equally true for starting a new business by someone like you, and it is also true for a corporation.  So how to find what kinds of lemons you have:

• Conduct an inventory of all the skills and capabilities that you have.  Write down everything that you ever did and learned.

• Now sort these into three buckets:

  • Basic:  Those that almost anyone will need to have, starting all the way from computer skills to managing budgets and planning for future growth.

  • Differentiated:  Those that differentiate you from others.  These are unique to you.  For example, if you are an American who has worked for a Japanese automotive company in Japan, and speak Japanese language, you have a unique set of skills and capabilities.

  • Leverageable for starting a new business:  Those that you could use to start a new business.  Taking the example above, if you could help an automotive or a Tier I or II company redesign their business process to reduce cost, you can turn yourself into a consultant.