Everyone wants to start his own startup and be his own boss.
For the past few years you have had this idea in your head to change your career and create a startup with you own invention. The market of startups has gotten pretty big in the past couple of years and it has gotten a lot more difficult to succeed in this field.
This article will talk about how to find an idea and develop it to a proper startup. So if you are interested, stay tuned!!
One of the most common problems is to have an idea to start with. There are so many new inventions and so many new technology every day, it is hard to keep up to date! The one thing you can do, is look for common problems people have in their lives. Therefore you can help them by providing a solution!
When it comes to well-known startups they all have something in common, it is the WHY, why they are doing it, that only thing the founders can answer, understand and only few others can imagine that it is worth doing. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Snapchat and Uber all started this way.
In this article you will see how you can find your ideas, why you can do a lot with it and how can you work on it every single hour of your life without thinking that you are working.
Problems
You should start working on problems and specially yours because you will be sure they really exist and you see them every day.
When it comes to founders, why so many of them create startups or products that no one wants ? That is because they were focusing on finding a business idea and not of resolving a problem. At YC ( Y Combinator ) those ideas are called “made-up” or “sitcom” startup ideas.
Now that you have set up the main context of seraching for your ideas, let me show you how to do it in a clean way !
The winning duo : passion and expertise
We will begin by a simple task that helps improving your creativity. You should take a sheet of paper or use your laptop or phone. Really, go for it, NOW ;).
#1 Passion
Great ! At the top of this document write “My passions” and list 10 of them! Do not stop until you listed them all. The first ones will come quickly and if you can not think of 10 then just write activities or other domains you like.
#2 Expertise
Done ? Perfect ! Now we will do the same thing with your talents and skills. Take another sheet of paper, name it “My skills and talents”. Write down all your talents and the domains you are good in. Here as well, try to list 10! Extra tip: you do not need to be an expert in those areas, but a little knowledge in them would be helpful.
You got it? Amazing job! This two documents will help you to find your startup idea.
This is not because there is tons of supermarkets that there is no place for yours. And it is also true for all the other enterprises whose ideas already exists, there is no need to reinvent the wheel for creating his company.
We will go from you : examine attentively your passion and expertise lists. Is there a domain where you can create your classical enterprise on and you will like ?
Find an idea from your passions, your competences or both have their advantages and their inconveniences.
Find an idea from your passions
Advantages
- You will have a lot of chances to develop your competences, sometimes more than usual, in a domain you like.
- You will be very motivated more than your enthusiasm to create your enterprise.
- You will make a dream happen by being excellent in a domain you like and by earning money from it.
Inconveniences
- Sometimes, when we work on something that passionate us we eventually associate some unpleasant sensations with our passion (stress, unsatisfied clients, financial difficulties, etc.). So on you will appreciate less and less your passion till it won’t be one. It does not happen every time but it is a risk, particularly if your domain is stressful and you do it every day, and you have not practiced your passion professionally before.
- You will have to develop skills from the very beginning, that can be sometimes difficult to have them rapidly, or you will have to associate with someone who has those competences or hire him, and cause an extra charge to you and your business.
- Have a passion for your domain and acquire by yourself or by someone else the technical competence don’t have to let you forget you have to manage your enterprise and it requires a lot of other skills than the technical ones. You will have to learn how to manage your company financially, how to find new clients and convince them to buy your products or your services, eventually to recruit and to manage, etc.
Find an idea from your competences
Advantages
- You already have the necessary technical skills to work on your topic, it will make you focus on bringing more clients and in the other enterprise aspects to master (finance, recruiting, management, etc.).
- The fact that you already have some experience with that domain will bring you a lot of assets to start : base of clients already existing, a network of providers and partners, a better credibility, etc.
Inconveniences
- If you are not passionate by the domain, once the first enthusiasm of creating your startup is gone, you will run a risk of being bored and you will think that it does not worth doing.
- Being technically competent does not have to make you forget managing your company because it requires a lot of other skills than the technical ones. You will have to learn how to manage your enterprise at a financial level, find your prospects, and convince them to buy what you offer, eventually how to recruit and manage, etc.
Find and idea from your skills that are also your passions
Advantages
- It is the ideal ! You are passionate by the subject and competent. You will have the experience, the competence and the motivation who are huge assets for your success.
- As you have already practiced this passion and it remained a passion, you will be stronger to face the “usury” than if you begun without any knowledge in the area (see above). It is even better if you practiced the passion in a professional level, because in that case you have been able to manage the stress confronting this business and you will be able to let your passion remains a passion. There is a lot of chances that it will remain even after creating your startup.
Inconveniences
- Start a business that passionate you and where you are competent in can let you forget all the tasks related to its management, because you will need other skills than the technical ones.
- You will also have to learn how to manage your company at a financial level, find new clients and to convince the to buy your products and services, eventually to recruit and manage, etc.
Thank you for reading this and hope you will find your ideas as quick as you can start implementing them !
You can find me as well in those links :
Facebook | Youtube | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Snapchat : flambok
See also :
Startup advice and stories
- Quora questions – What is the hardest part about staring a company, Common mistakes made when starting a tech company, Top five things to remember whens starting a company
- James Altucher, TechCrunch – Should you start a company?
- Jason Goldberg, Betashop – 13 things you must do every week as a startup CEO
- Seth Sternberg, Meebo co-founder (acquired by Google since this article) – From nothing to something. How to get there.
- Ben Horowitz vs Fred Wilson – Ben posts (case for fat startup), Fred rebuts (fat not healthy), Ben rebuts (revenge of fat guy)
- Neil Patel, Geekwire – Wish I would have known before starting my own business
- Dane Carlson – 20 things not to do before starting a business (I agree with most of this, but not #1 if you can afford it)
- Scott Weiss, TechCrunch – The path to starting a startup
- James Altucher, TechCrunch – What you can learn from Woody Allen
- Erick Schonfeld (2006), 5 ways to start a company (without quitting your day job)
Checklists
- Ryan Roberts, Startup Lawyer – If I launched a startup (great cheat sheet)
- Quora – How do you start a company
- Forbes – 38 things to do when starting a business (non-tech)
- Fiverr – Startup checklist (non-tech, and website is a little kitschy with all the dashes, stars, and arrows in the text)
Finance and Legal
- Quora – What questions do entrepreneurs want to ask venture investors most but are afraid to ask
- Chris Dixon – So you want to raise seed capital
- Fred Wilson, AVC – Financing options for startups, Financing options: convertible debt (likely way you will raise your first round of angel/seed money)
- Ryan Roberts, Startup Lawyer – How convertile debt works, What type of entity should I form, What does a series A term sheet look like
- Martin Kleppmann – Valuation caps on convertible notes explained with graphs
- Orrick – Startup toolkit
- Brad Feld, Foundry Group (venture capital firm) – Term sheet series wrap up
Hiring
- Babak Nivi, Venture Hacks – What does an employee offer letter look like, Questions recruits might ask Part I, Part II
- Robert Scoble, Quora – How to avoid hiring the wrong people for your startup
- Elad Gil, Elad blog – Hiring for cultural fit
Blogs by entrepreneurs:
- Jason Goldberg – Betashop
- Danielle Morrill – Danielle Morrill’s blog
- Marco Arment – Marco.org
- Ben Milne – Ben Milne’s blog
- Kate Kendall – Kate Kendall’s blog
- Guy Kawasaki – How to change the world
- Seth Godin – Seth Godin’s blog
- Sriram Krishnan – Sriram Krishnan’s blog
- Penelope Trunk – Penelope Trunk’s blog
- Scott Adams – Dilbert blog
- Neil Patel – Quick Sprout
- Eric Ries – Startup Lessons Learned
- Steve Blank – Steve Blank’s blog
- Dharmesh Shah – OnStartups
- Quora – Other startup founder blogs
Blogs by VCs:
- Brad Feld (Foundry Group) – FeldThoughts
- Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) – AVC
- Dave McClure (500 Startups) – Master of 500 hats
- Paul Graham (Y Combinator +) – Paul Graham Essays
- David Lee (SV Angel) – daslee
- Chris Dixon (Andreessen Horowitz) – Chris Dixon’s blog
- Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge Capital Partners) – Seeing Both Sides
- Ben Horowitz (Andreessen Horowitz) – Ben’s blog
- Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital) – Redeye VC
- Mike Hirshland (Resolute.VC, formerly Polaris Ventures) – VCMike’s Blog
- David Cowan (Bessemer Venture Partners) – Who has time for this
- Jalak Jobanputra (FuturePerfect Ventures) – The barefoot VC
- Howard Morgan (First Round Capital) – Way too ealry
- Greg Gottesman (Madrona Venture Partners) – Stark Raving VC
- David Skok (Matrix Partners) – For entrepreneurs
- Mark Suster (GRP Partners) – Both Sides of the Table
Other blogs
- Jared O’Toole and Matt Wilson – Under 30 CEO
- Anita Campbell – Small Business Trends
- Andrew Chen – Andrew Chen’s blog
- Carson McComas, Work Happy blog for entrepreneurs
- Young Entrepreneur Blog
- Harvard Business Review Blog Network
- Business Pundit
Quora entrepreneurs to follow (there are a lot of ‘must follow’ lists of entrepreneurs on Quora, of which many aren’t very active. These people are)
- Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales
- Craigslist, Craig Newmark
- Blippy and Adbrite, Philip Kaplan
- Vontu & Pipewise, Michael Wolfe
- Quora & Facebook, Adam D’Angelo
- Friendster, Jonathan Abrams
- Instagram, Kevin Systrom
- Foursquare, Dennis Crowley
- Path, Dave Morin
- 500 Startups, Dave McClure
- Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz
- Mahalo, LAUNCH, & Weblogs, Jason Calacanis
- PayPal, David Sacks
- EchoSign, Jason M. Lemkin
- Wavii, Adrian Aoun
Other people’s lists
- Ryan Spoon, Polaris Ventures – list of Quora threads for startups
Other resources:
- SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration)
- StartupNation (Source for Small Business Advice)
- How To Get Startup Ideas – StartupGeist
- How to develop Your Startup Idea – Canvanizer
- How to Find the Right Business Idea When Starting a Business
- What are the best ways to think of ideas for a startup? – Quora
- How Can I Find a Good Startup Idea? | Enterprising Oxford\
- How To Find a Great Start-Up Idea – Forbes
- How to Find the Next Big Startup Idea | Inc.com
- How To Find 10 New Startup Ideas a Day – Startup Stories – Medium
- How to Get Startup Ideas – Paul Graham
Please take some time to follow High Tech Brains, like, comment with your techniques and ideas, with your concepts and share it your beloved friends.
This is a great list of resources for start ups. Thank you very much. I need to put some time aside to go through them all
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You are very welcome ! I am sure you won’t need a huge amount of time to do it if you want to
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This is a great read for everyone! I know personally without a passion for what you are doing you will get bored and unmotivated, at least that what happens to me. Keep up the great work!
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Exactly ! Hope it will help you pass trough and have your own great startup. Thank you !
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Wow, what an extensive article, you must of spent a lot of time doing research! I have bookmarked this page as I will need to come back again and read it once or twice 🙂
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Haha a little bit yeah, but I am pretty sure you won’t need to check it another time ! Thank you for stopping by !
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These are all great tips! Thanks for sharing your ideas!
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You are welcome !
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Such an informative post for everyone! Passion is the key to success!
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Yes exactly ! Thank you for reading 👌🏻
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What a great resource you’ve put together, thank you!
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Welcome ! It is all here for you !
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I know exactly what you mean everyone wants his on startup (even my husband) but I don’t quite get it. It would be more accurate to say most people don’t like the constraint a job as an employee gives, but people are very mistaken thinking working on one’s own is “less” work or “freer”. In fact, it is the other way round. I guess you can realise when people say “I’d like to have my own business but I don’t know what”… I roll my eyes, like honestly, people, what are we talking about?
“I want an Olympic medal but I don’t know in which discipline” ok… shouldn’t it be “I’m great at doing x so I’m going to launch my own business” ????
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I see what you mean, but when it comes to creating something you like you will be working (may be more than what you are actually working) but still you will not have that feeling of working because you are doing what you want to do, and that is what people have to look for ! Hope it replied to your question
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This is such a great read. I do not think that I would ever need this information, but it sure was intriguing!
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Why is that, it could be awesome if you do so !
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Such a great list of resources that you have put together. And you are definitely right with passion and expertise come into play they can make a huge difference.
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Exactly !
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Wow! I did not know that to create a startup you had to think about so many different things. Thank you for sharing, it’s really informative!
I also agree with finding an idea that is also one of your passions, that way it may be easier.
Samantha | https://samanthacarraro.wordpress.com/
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I don’t think that they are so many ^^ Skills matters too
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There is some really useful advice and information here for anyone looking to start up their own business. I hope they find it!
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Yes hope so as well, I have written this article based on my own experience.
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Really useful information. This is a great post!
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Thank you !
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It’s a comprehensive post with some nice tips on how to start a business and plan for it. I think some people take the time to decide on what kind of business they want to do due to lack of full knowledge and many options. Though ‘doing what you love’ is better than ‘love what you do’. 🙂
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Yes sure, but love what you do can be cool too sometimes when you want to learn something.
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It’s a comprehensive post with some nice tips on how to start a business and plan for it. I think some people take the time to decide on what kind of business they want to do due to lack of full knowledge and many options. Though ‘doing what you love’ is better than ‘love what you do’ 🙂
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This is a great post! some really useful tips! Really informative to anyone looking at creating their startup- xx corinne
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Yes thank you !
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That’s so helpful! So great for those you are about to plan their startup! I wish i had something like this when I started!
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Yes pretty agreeing with that but always learning new things can help finding more solutions and opportunities
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Thank you for sharing this. Me and my friend is trying to conceptualize a business since we already both quit the corporate job. This will be a great read for both of us.
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Yes It sure can help, if you re doing so go check my new video about how you can master anything and start your startups (I started 2), hope it will help
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What a good post and so glad that you share this great information, I will share this with my sister too
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You are so welcome. If you don’t mind sharing it to everyone you know that would be interested !
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What an informative post and I really love reading this and this is so helpful for my husband glad that you share this
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Sure ! Always here to help !
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I agree that sometimes when you spend so much time on something i.e a business/ a blog you can become less passionate about it. But like you said an advantage would be that you already have the technical skills which you can use to your advantage!
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Yes exactly, in my last video I shared how I managed to learn technical skills before starting my startup
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Having a passion for your business is one of the most important things you need. But it is not freeing to be your own boss. In fact I find myself working more but I love it
Jenn
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Yes I agree with you, but when you work in something you may like you don’t even have that sensation of working, and that’s the point of it. And being you own boss will allow you to free whatever time you want it to you, even a hole year if you worked so well before.
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What a great resource! I love Quora, although I admit I enjoy reading it for the stories. But all of these lists are super helpful. Thank you!
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You are so welcome 🙂 I’ve taking some from Quora too, reading there a lot !
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Very detailed oriented and informative post! I’m sure it will help everyone who is thinking of starting a start-up!
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Yeah but still just one article, even with those tips, everyone have to read more in order to achieve what he wants.
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This reminds me of what it takes to be a successful problem. It’s not what you like its the consumer!
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Yeah but it’s not only that, if you’re doing what you want and clearing a problem you have, you will be much happier and motivated for the upcoming missions and project !
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What an incredible list of resources. Not only are the tips excellent, but I can’t wait to start reading through all of the startup stories. Stories of others who have made it are always so inspiring. x
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Yes ! You can always see how I ve created my 2 startups at 19 ! I just published it yesterday 🙂
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Passion is so important in anything that you do. This is great.
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There is a lot of great stuff to think about here. I really need to remember all the different areas of growing a business as I am working on my blog. And everything is about fulfilling some kind of need. Blogs are no different.
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So many helpful information. This is a good guide for people who are thinking of starting a project or a business and are in need of good resources.
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Great tips! I get hit with ideas occasionally and then burn out quickly when I realize the amount of time and money it would take to make it happen. Whomp whomp…
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This was a really interesting read. I think passion is probably the most important thing to have when trying to get your startup idea out there. I mean, if you don’t truly believe in your product or service then no one else is going to!
Louise x
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Yes, personally what I’ve done is that I did it from both my passion and my skills, it’s the best and secure path.
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As someone who is self-employed I can highly recommend it! Find something you love and just do it – the rest will come. 🙂
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Yes that’s it
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Nice read for someone who wants to startup. You really got everything covered.
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That’s great then haha !
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It’s true. There is a lot of things to think about when you are doing a start-up. That is why you have to think and re-think yourr ideas a million fold.
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Yes but not that many when you join passions and your expertise into it
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Such great resources for start ups! It’s soo much work so this post made it easier.
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Yes I think so 😊
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There is definitely a lot that goes into it. It pays to do your homework ahead of time!
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Haha exactly
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Taking the risk for a start-up is daunting and frightening. Thank you for laying it out so well! The resources are fantastic and as a person who just started a podcast, it was encouraging to hear what you had to say.
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You are so welcome, hope that will reach the persons in need 🙂
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I love the passions and skills list I am definitely going to do that. Thank you for all the extra resources to help get a wide array of information.
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Great to hear it ! You are so welcome !
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It takes a lot to build your own business and it’s definitely important to be passionate about it. It’s never easy and you have to be prepared for the challenges that are to come. This was really helpful!
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Yes, it may be hard and tough to do it but like I’ve said, passion and expertise rock together !
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Yay! I hear you! I badly want to be my own boss. Thanks for the input.
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Haha you will after reading this 😀
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Time is indeed the the currency in business. many of us have ideas and take a long time to execute. It could mean the difference between success and failure. Great post thanks!
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Yes it is surely something that you have to keep in mind, welcome !
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I haven’t really thought about doing a start up. I know I want to own my own business but it would a financial consultant and some real estate properties.
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I am pretty sure you will rock it in term of doing your business !
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