your big idea

You might already know this but if you haven’t given it much thought, start to consider: what do you truly love doing? What are you passionate about? If you’re lucky you’ll have multiple answers. If you have no answers, it’s time to start finding things to be passionate about. 

If you have multiple answers, just choose one. Or find ways to combine two of them (if you love sewing and Star Wars, sew Star Wars costumes and put them on Etsy). Don’t be paralyzed by this choice: if it turns out this isn’t what you want then you can always start another business later. You learn by doing and making mistakes, not by analyzing every possible outcome and factor.

This passion will become your dream job.

This is how I did it. I love writing and I love taking steps to change my habits and my life. I started Zen Habits just for fun and it turned into my dream job.

How to Find Funding

You need a lot of money to get started, right? No. I explicitly reject the idea that “you have to spend money to make money”. Sure, that can work, or it can lead to a mountain of debt and monthly expenses that greatly exceed your income and possibly failure before you’ve had the chance to succeed.

I started my business with nothing. Zero dollars. In fact I had less than nothing: I was highly in debt and broke. I started with free online services (there are plenty — I used Blogger.com and Google Adsense and Google Analytics, but those are just a few examples). I refused to even buy my own domain until I made more money from my business than the cost of that purchase. I refused to pay for my site design or to use a paid host until I was making much more money than those purchases required.