“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese Proverb

Commentary: Yes, someone may have beat you to the punch for that great new product or service. But the key is getting the next new product or service out there. The market tends to favor first-movers.

Even if you are not creating something new, getting started on it today is going to almost always be better than waiting until tomorrow.

Start a company, create a new product, work on your book — now!

Dane Carlson’s blog has a piece on choosing the right legal structure for your new company.

 Of course, MyNewCompany.com’s clients already have access to excellent information on choosing their structure.  We set out the Pros and cons of each type on our Which Entity page.

A reader asked Seth Godin why he so freely gives away business ideas, Seth responded:

“…ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard. History is littered with inventors who had “great” ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen. In fact, just about every successful venture is based on an unoriginal idea, beautifully executed.”

So, as I’ve written again and again, the business idea is important, but executing on a good business idea is where the real value resides.

“There is no correlation at all between success and hours worked.”  - Seth Godin

Commentary: A common theme among business and personal development information is that a focus on hard work only will only make you a hard worker, not necessarily successful. There are billions of hard workers in the world - 3rd world farmers, 18/hour day wage slaves, people who hold 2 jobs at minimum wage, etc.

Successful people work hard on the right things, or better yet, have others work hard for them. The right things are those things that generate the highest return: education, improvement of a product, finding solutions, family, relationships, etc. Everyone knows what the right thing is for their particular situation. The key is focussing on that right thing and putting your efforts towards that. Finally, most successful people turn their passion into their business or career - therefore they don’t consider any time spent doing it “hard work” at all.

“Life is really simple as far as I’m concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you’re successful.” - Jason Calacanis

Commentary: Jason Calacanis basically started from nowhere, to starting an obscure tech magazine in New York City, to starting Weblogs, Inc. (which he sold to AOL for $30 million) and now as the founder of Mahalo with $20 million in Venture Capital. He didn’t whine along the way about not having the right education, the right opportunities, the right location, he just did as he says above: work hard, study, repeat - you’re successful.

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”  - Winston Churchill

Commentary: A constant theme on this blog is that taking risks and failing are a natural part of running a small business and are, in fact, necessary, if you want to make any real progress. The same applies to life in general: try, fail, don’t beat yourself up, learn, try again - follow that formula and success is virtually guaranteed.

“The greatest value in creating a [business] plan is not the final document. It’s the communication, prioritization, focus, clarity and learning that make the process worthwhile. ”

- Jim Horan, author and consultant

Commentary: This quote speaks for itself, of course we would pick Jim Horan to quote about business plans, he is the author of one of our favorite business books of all time: The One Page Business Plan. Read more about writing a business plan on our page dedicated to that topic.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”  - Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor

“The man who never makes a mistake always takes orders from one who does.”   – Daisy Bates

Commentary: If you are terrified of failing or making mistakes, then you simply will not have the fortitude to do anything beyond mediocre. Great people tend to fail - a LOT - but when they succeed, they win big because they are willing to risk big. Great people see “failures” as “learning opportunities”.

When starting a business, it’s important to realize the value of mistakes. The key is learning from your failures and pressing forward.

In addition to the resources we have on finding money to start your business, BusinessFund.com has an extensive list of 25 alternatives to venture capital that is definitely worth reading.