Entrepreneurship 101- Part 2

I did attend the second class in the Entrepreneurship 101 series.  I haven't written about it yet because, frankly, I'm still overwhelmed.  I was so overwhelmed leaving this class that I couldn't even figure out how to respond to the end-of-class survey. 

Here's my problem-  When I see dollar signs, my eyes glaze over; the subject of this class was "economic feasibility." Why, you may ask?  I blame my father (sorry, dad, I know you're reading this).  My dad is a very accomplished small business owner.  He's a CPA.  You did not talk about money in our house because money matters were something that was kept confidential.  I remember one of the most serious talkings-to I ever received was when I asked my mom in a public place how much our house cost.  My dad lives by the concept of a client/professional confidentiality and takes it to such a level that anything involving money was kept secret and hush-hush in our house.  You could say that I was sheltered from economics.

I've tried to get better at this- I took accounting as my business class, I tracked all our bills for a period of time, I've tracked our purchases over the course of a month.  But it still comes down to dollar signs and in the end my eyes glaze over and I lose interest.

Therefore, what I learned in the second class in the Entrepreneurship series is this:  I have no business being a small business owner.  Not unless I spend SERIOUS amounts of time and energy to learn how to become financially competent and economically lingual. 

The class was focused on The Three Numbers You Need to Know Before Starting a Business:

1. Your Personal Needs- how much money do you need to bring in every month to cover your own personal expenses?
2. Your Business Needs- how much money does your business need to survive every month?
3. Your Start-Up Costs

Embarrassingly, I know none of these things.  Heavy sigh.  I have a lot of work to do.

In the meantime- I networked with one of my Entrepreneurship 101 classmates (which could lead to some freelancing), I've been freelancing on some custom embroidery work (job found from the Craigslist Gigs section) and I have an interview coming up next week!  So once again I can say, "if I don't get this job, that's it!  I'm going into business myself!"  We'll see if I come out of the next Entrepreneurship class feeling like I can do it myself.