There’s two ways to approach starting your own business. Either you have such a crazy passion for it that you’ll work to the bone and force being successful, this tends to mean 16 hour days, lots of wasted money and lessons learned, and whole lot of head aches. But if you’re smart and, quite frankly, lucky, you can make it happen.

Other option, and the one I recommend to the majority of young entrepreneurs, is to get a job in the field you are looking to enter.

Waste someone else’s money learning and get paid for the learning phase, yes it’s less rewarding but most people end up far better off. I worked in my field for 5 years before starting my own thing, and when I started I got off to a great start and only made a few mistakes compared to starting from scratch.

I even tell my staff if they ever want to do it on their own one day, just learn and make mistakes with my resources before moving on. If you’re good, and have a caring mentor, they’ll probably even open up some doors for you.