I had a discussion with a friend this past weekend. He was trying to convince me that in order to start a business today, it costs a lot of money. While I will concede that it can cost a lot of money to begin a wide variety of businesses, there are also many that can be started for very little money.

I gave him the example of the dog walker I had run into a couple of weeks ago. While I was eating lunch, the dog walker came down the street with six dogs, let them all free to run around in the gra** area, put them all back on their chains and started walking them home in the hour I was sitting there. What are the costs to starting a dog walking business? Very little.

I approached him and asked how much he charged to walk the dogs. He said he charged $20 to $25. Multiply that by 6 dogs and that comes to $120 - $150. Even with taking the dogs to the park and taking them back, I would estimate it would take him 2 hours round trip, maybe three at the very most. I figure he can make 2 trips a day at the minimum ($240 - $300) and possible three trips ($360 - $450) a day. That is certainly a decent income for a job that costs practically nothing to begin.

As I talked with my friend more, it seemed that is wasnt the fact that businesses can be started with little money (Im another example of that), but that money isnt instantaneous. If youre hired with a base salary, you get a paycheck a few weeks later and that certainly isnt the case when you start a business. It probably took the dog walker a fair amount of time (most likely a lot longer than a few weeks) to find the customers he has.

What I finally figured out was that he felt if you have a lot of money to start a business, then you have extra money to pay yourself a salary while the business is getting off the ground. This gives you security while the business is getting off the ground so you can do it full time instead of part-time as you grow it. While I understand his thinking, it doesnt change the fact that there are a lot of opportunities out there that cost little money to get the enterprise going


http://www.pfadvice.com/2006/08/03/j...hing-to-start/