Entrepreneurship is one of the biggest leaps of faith in anyone's career. For most people, it means leaving the safety of a job behind and that is a big jump. Even people who have had entrepreneurial experience earlier find each new jump challenging. But the experienced folks have a method to it.
Here is the method to prepare for the leap.
First, test your faith. This involves laying out the broad brush strokes of the venture and identifying the key unknowns. A tool like Business Model Map is very useful here. It helps in breaking down any business down to its key 10 areas. Once thus broken down, the more crucial areas can be identified. The crucial areas of a business are those where a small change has a big impact on the outcome. Typically these involve answering questions like:
1. Who is the customer?
2. Will they buy the product and at what price?
3. What activities and resources are needed and their cost?
4. Capital efficiency of the business and the break even volumes
We can get definitive answers to these questions only by launching and taking the leap. But most of the times, fairly good answers are available if we were to ask the target customers. This can be done before the leap. All it takes is to interview a large enough (I use 30 as a minimum no for any one segment) number of customers and ask them if they would buy the product/service at the given price. Quite often, people say yes or no and then add a qualifier like: but, if or and. What follows these qualifiers is very important and usually more important than the yes/no. It tells us what modifications are needed in our offering. These are things that can turn a no to yes or a weak no to a strong yes. Thus, with very little effort and well before the leap, we can get some idea of whether a leap is merited or not.
A number of start ups do not do this and then get locked in a death spiral for next several months. This is needless and avoidable. Get some validation before starting.
Second, set a loss control limit. This means setting a limit to the personal time and money that would be put at risk in the venture. How much money and time are you prepared to lose before getting any results? Answer this question and double the numbers. (Doubling is a measure of risk involved in the estimate and usually even that is an underestimate) Earn and set aside that much money before starting. Be ready and have your family ready for that much time. This ensures readiness. A lot of entrepreneurs run out of money and/or time when their belief in their business is highest. At that time, they desperately look for investors, which is not a good place to be in. Investors can see the desperation. Some avoid such entrepreneurs while others extract favourable terms.
Third, identify crucial skills and resources that are essential to your business. These are about either selling or making the product. Decide if you'll sell or make. Find a cofounder that will do the other part. I've made the mistake of starting up without a cofounder and it has slowed me down by 60-70%. I've talked with many VCs and accelerators on this. Several don't even look at a single founder company. Others have discovered data that shows higher success rate for companies that have cofounder. So, I can't emphasize the importance of a cofounder. Get yourself a cofounder before you leap.
Fourth, get a set of entrepreneur friends. These people are in the same boat and understand where another entrepreneur stands. They serve as an invaluable support system when the non-entrepreneur friends question and doubt you. Also, they are great sounding boards for new ideas, suggestions, collective wisdom and most importantly for calling a spade a spade and saving you from a mistake they've already made.
Do these four things before you take a leap of faith and there is a higher chance of landing on your feet.