Are you ready to plunge yourself into entrepreneurship but are dumbfounded by the wealth of options right in front of you? Well, you are not alone. One of the biggest challenges in entrepreneurship is not finding business ideas: It’s on deciding HOW you would like to startup.
Are you going to bootstrap your startup or getting adequate funding to get your business started up properly (with a premise, staffs, and so on)? Are you launching your own product or prefer to sell other brands’ products? Are you going to grow your business into one, big company or use expansion strategy to other locations? Do you prefer your company to grow into a corporation eventually or keep your business small, family owned? There are more questions lingering on many entrepreneurs’ head, making startup phase a crucial one; one wrong step, your success potential is cut by half; doing things right means you are halfway to business success.
To help you out while you are considering your options, let me suggest you to have a look at two major options: Buying a franchise or starting your own business. Please decide on that first, and then proceed with other steps.
Of course, just like anything else in life, there are pros and cons related to each and every option you have. I can’t really say which is the best – franchising or startup; however, I can suggest you to gaze onto a mirror and start doing a deep analysis – on yourself: Are you a franchise material? Or are you really entrepreneurial in nature?
Huh? Is franchising and entrepreneurship the same thing? NO. Both are different in nature.
Franchising vs. starting up
No matter how experts are trying to convince you, but what makes owning a franchise a successful endeavor is NOT your entrepreneurial spirit. The key success factors in buying a franchise are you willingness to do the mountain of paperworks and your ability to closely follow guidelines. Do you used to follow strict guidelines? Are you ready to cooperate with your franchisors in building the franchise brands? If so, you are on your way into franchising success.
If you view yourself as highly entrepreneurial – someone who enjoys finding loopholes and explore the unknowns; someone who thinks guidelines as chains to creativity; someone who likes to make changes quickly into your business – then starting your own business will bring more success. However, there are plenty of unknowns you need to find answer to.
There is no such thing as franchising is better than starting up or vice versa – as long as your personal traits can match what a franchisor requires, then you are ready to succeed big time in franchising. If you enjoy the thrilling ride to the unknowns, you are ready to launch a great startup.
So – which one should I choose?
Okay – here’s a resource that you can use to help you decide: Intuit publishes an infographic that can give you a basic but useful comparison between buying a franchise and starting a business. Use the infographic to quickly give you an insight about your options.
Check it out…
via: Buying Franchise Versus Starting Own Business [Infographic]
