Why everyone should become an entrepreneur in 2021
Entrepreneurs have a responsibility to produce and innovate new products and services that move our society forward. In 2020 many small businesses went bankrupt. This doesn’t mean that it’s a bad time to start your entrepreneurial journey. Now is the perfect time to start. With the expansion of the internet, new websites, and Zoom becoming the most popular video conferencing service, it has never been easier or cheaper to start something for yourself and to wake up and do the things you want to do.
Today, you can write a new book and it can become a best seller on Amazon. Ten years ago, e-readers were brand new technology and audiobooks were still mostly on CDs. Once audiobooks became digital platforms such as iTunes began to sell them. Eventually, audible.com became the number one platform for all audiobooks. With this market expansion, you can have your book as three different types of media, regular books, audiobooks, and eBooks. For any new author, you don’t have to pay huge fees to self publish your book. You can start for almost free, but companies such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble will take a cut.
Creating videos and putting them on the internet is the easiest it’s ever been. For about $200, you can buy a used laptop from a tech repair shop and record yourself on that computer. There is also free editing software available online to help you create quality videos.
The best part about this time is that you truly can be anything you want. If you want to be a web developer, financial coach, or drone pilot, websites such as skillshare.com have over 20,000 classes on everything you can imagine. For just $10 a month or $100 per year, you can learn anything you want and gain the skills necessary to become an entrepreneur, YouTuber, author, etc. You can also find many video tutorials and ‘how-to’ videos on YouTube.
Thirty years ago if you told someone that this was possible, they would have given you the weirdest looks and thought that you were insane. During this time, if you wanted to gain knowledge such as playing the guitar, you had to go either find a coach, go to your local library, or buy a book on guitar basics. First of all, if you wanted to buy the book that alone would have cost you $20 -$25. Then you would have to pay a coach or instructor to guide you. This could’ve very easily cost you over $100 or $200. Factoring inflation that would have come out to be almost $400 today and that may only be for one month of learning the skill. Today, we can hop on webinars online, meet new people, build communities, and teach ourselves how to get what we want.
Now, there’s always that risk of failure, and this may still be overwhelming to you. If you want to just be a freelancer, well you’re in luck. Websites such as upwork.com and Fiverr allow freelancers to seek out projects that meet their skill set and earn extra money on the side. When you become more comfortable with getting those gigs, you can eventually build yourself up where you can earn a full-time living. Then you can either build out your website or continue earning through your freelancing website.
Controlling the source of your income is the most important thing you can do at this time. We may not know what tomorrow might bring, but if we all focus on controlling our own lives and the source of our income, this will become a better world. Jason Stapleton is the host of the podcast ‘Wealth, Power & Influence’. His message to anyone that listens is to control the source of your income as much of it as you possibly can and to make that income mobile. That way, if things get bad in your area, you can pick up and leave whenever you want to. Starting your own online business or brick and mortar is still a difficult process, but it is still worth it in the long run.
