I think being self employed is the best training in the world.

To be an entrepreneur is to be a believer in something beyond normal reason, which is why youngsters catch the wave but are by no means prepared. the successes tend to be measured in the great people they attract to produce the fantastical results.

Why am I thinking about small business, the sole proprietor and the one man band? This is where you need to accept the conversation may go a little Billy Connolly, moving swiftly on. I'd finished the website I was working on, made sure I was connected up to everything and incidentally lost my Twitter tick. Honestly, Elon I was adjusting a couple of photos on my profile not creating mayhem. You have been warned twitter says in an unrelenting we sacked all of our customer service brain, type of way.

Took the dogs for a walk and came back half drowned, my timing was perfectly awful. The thought drifted in to my damp head, lets run some scenarios for launching a product, like everyone I start with unlimited budgets and resources in a perfect market where everyone loves me and buys the product anyway. Year 1 estimated ROI of ￡33 million, I like this game. The product idea was something that popped into my noggin on the walk and sold for ￡20 per month. So the estimate looked golden.

So then I ran the same idea with different financial assistance levels and less and less professional help. At this point I'm thinking, I'm either the most normal person on the planet with a new toy or in need of professional help. Why Kenny Rogers you ask? Well I'm getting to that, It was the Lucille song I used to hum every time I hit a problem as a self employed person.

Anyway the final scenario was on my own with my product, where do I start with no money. I have some experience at this level, so I went minimal on foot a knocking on doors enterprise. Where everyone wanted 3 months trial, market conditions were bad and the churn rate above average. You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, four hungry children not a crop in the field. Your getting where I'm at, and this is normal for an self employed person, with ups and downs that would make your hair stand on end.

This scenario still generated nearly ￡2m in revenue after 3 years, because you don't eat and spend every penny on a salesperson in a different town. I was impressed. The advantage you have in startup entrepreneurial worlds afterwards is Hope and you can make that last a very long time, you have to harden yourself to the occasional black hole of disaster.

I started thinking about the people you would employ in each town to make that happen and that's what sparked the no brainer it's self employed people, with ridiculous guts and determination and a smorgasbord of skills because they don't have the director of this that and the other beside them.