Take This Quiz Before Starting a Business

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It’s important to assess your ability to start a business before you begin. Much like Cosmopolitan’s quizzes assessing whether you should “marry that man,” our quiz guarantees to be as accurate, but only half as entertaining.

So let’s begin. Give yourself 1 point for every Yes answer, 0 for every No.

  1. Do you have infinite amounts of money that you are not afraid to lose?
  2. Do you want to avoid your family and friends for the next 5 – 6 years?
  3. Can you stand to wear the same shirt for three days?
  4. Do you enjoy explaining to people over and over what you are trying to achieve with no positive feedback from anyone?
  5. Do you love surprises?

If you scored 0 – 5, congratulations, you are a good candidate to start a business.

Try A Checklist to Assess Whether You’re Ready to Start a Business!

Okay, so you’ve caught on that I don’t think much of these type of quizzes. It reminds me of those “Are you ready to be a parent” quizzes. No quiz can adequately assess if you are ready to be a parent and you aren’t going to base your decision on the quiz anyway.

Same with starting a business. No quiz can assess your ability to be successful starting a business and no quiz is going to change your decision anyway. So instead of a quiz, I will give you a checklist.

Before you start a business, realize that:

  • It will take more money than you anticipated.
  • It will take you more time than you anticipated.
  • There will be several surprises.

So, like so many things in life, be prepared for anything because anything can happen. And if you can’t handle that, you might not be cut out to start a business.

And feel free to use this checklist for many life decisions. Replace “Before you start a business” with “Before you start a home renovation,” “Before you plan that perfect vacation,” and of course, “Before you become a parent.” It works for those as well.