All Great Businesses Have to Start Somewhere

I've talked to so many people who have dreams of starting their own successful business and being able to work for themselves. But most, if not all, have no faith that they can do anything. If you want to achieve something, "believing you can" is the first step. Why? Because if you don't believe you can start a successful business, you'll never try or you’ll never do what it takes to make it successful.

There are four main reasons why I see people who want to start a business but never do it.

1.) They think they need a lot of money to start a business.
2.) They don’t believe that "they" could actually run a successful business.
3.) They feel they're too old. The chance to open up a business has passed them by.
4.) They’re not willing to put the time into a business, or can't.

Here are a few examples of successful companies that had to start somewhere:

UPS delivers 16 million packages a day worldwide. I'm going to guess they have over 100,000 vehicles, but this company did not buy all of these vehicles at one time. It was over a span of many years. The interesting part was that this entire huge mega corporation was started by a 19 year old kid, James E. Casey, who borrowed $100 from a friend in 1907. Deliveries were made by a few family members and other teenagers, on foot, by bicycle and motorcycle. I don't know James E. Casey personally, but I would venture to say that he didn't do anything any of you who are reading this now aren't capable of doing. The only difference is, he continually pushed hard to expand the business, which most will not do. He could have just been content with the money he was making using bicycles, bought his own house, then when cars were invented, been put out of business by another company.

Another possible difference between James E. Casey and the people reading this article is that many people think they need a tremendous amount of money to start a business and when they never get it, they never start it. You'd be surprised how many VERY successful businesses started with under $2,000. But people think they have to wait until they have $20,000 or more before they can even get started. What you need to do is use that $2,000 to make $10,000, then the $10,000 to make $50,000, and so on. Or start with $500 to make $9,000 then eventually millions, like I did.

I had a boss named Pete, who started selling ice cream from one of those push carts he rented every week. Eventually, he saved up enough money to buy his own push cart. Wow. Then Pete bought two more carts and had other people selling ice cream for him. Five years later he sold all three and bought an ice cream truck, then two more ice cream trucks. In five more years Pete paid cash for an ice cream parlor, and then bought two more ice cream parlors. After another five years he sold all three ice cream parlors and bought a wholesale ice cream warehouse. The wholesale ice cream warehouse was his final business. Pete was earning roughly $15,000 a day profit in spring/summer and $5,000 a day fall/winter. The business made around $3,000,000 a year profit. It took Pete 20 years to get his business to this point, but like I said earlier, it will take some hard work and dedication if you want to “really” be rich. Most people are going to be working for 30-40 years anyway, wouldn't you rather work a little harder and retire after 20 years, and still have $3,000,000 a year coming in? I’ll repeat this because it’s so important. You have to work anyway. Why work an average, relatively easy job for 40 years and be broke at 65 years olds. If you’re going to work anyway, give it your all for 20 years and retire rich at 45! Sound like a good idea to me. Note: Eventually, Pete's sons ran the business while he enjoyed retirement. Remember, this all started with an ice cream push cart!

From what I remember about Pete, he wasn't this brilliant genius with 160 IQ who did things no one in the world could do but him. No, Pete was a very nice guy, a very hard working guy. He pushed his business to expand it every chance he got. He always looked for the best price on whatever he bought. He kept an accurate account of all of his money (sales, profits, etc). He learned from his mistakes, and he learned from others whenever he could. Almost anyone I know right now could "physically" do what Pete did, but mentally they wouldn't want to deal with it. They would still be pushing around that ice cream cart. You have to make a living doing something, why not make a lot of money doing it?

Maybe you think that you're too old to start a business, and your chance at a successful business has passed you bye. Harland "Colonel" Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, began franchising out his chicken restaurant idea when he was 62 years old! And it cost him next to nothing to start this. The technique to cook the chicken and the secret coating was all that was needed. A 62 year old man started a multi-billion dollar restaurant chain. So age can't be an excuse if you're healthy.

Wal-Mart didn't open up the first week with 5,000 stores. They started with just one. So did McDonald's, Starbuck's, Subway, etc, just one location and a dream. And I'm sure most people who caught wind of these businesses on grand opening day could never even fathom they'd be worth billions of dollars one day. Most probably predicted the one location would be closed up after its first year. But every great business has to start somewhere. No one can say your business can't be the next billion dollar idea. They can, but anything is possible.