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So you've come up with a great idea for a business. Or perhaps you've seen a guy from Swaziland that had made a bazillion dollars doing something that hasn't hit your town yet. You can just copy it, and you've got yourself a money making machine.

You talk to friends. You do the math. You've finally found it; that one great idea that will mean you 'make it'. Just like the guys you've been reading about on the front cover of Fast Company, or entrepreneur magazine.

<img class="aligncenter" alt="Fast Company Front Cover" src="http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/facebook-cover-2007.jpg" />

The problem with this story is that... it's a myth. Well not quite, it's worse. It is a red herring that could forever delude you into thinking that the way to be successful in business is to come up with the next 'great' idea, get venture capital funding, party and then IPO. Or perhaps that you need an Angel, or to win The Lion's Den. But the reason this myth is so believable is that this fairy-tale does actually happen. For 1 in 25,000,000 people. It's not playing the odds, but you'll take what you can.

If you want to stack the odds in your favour, make sure you were born in the United States. Come from an upper middle class family, so that when you pretend you are taking risk your ass isn't really on the line. Being white also certainly helps. And after you've done all this make sure that you are less than 22 year old. Otherwise your past it.

<strong>Don't like your chances?</strong>

Well the good news, is that there is a secret about what it takes to create a great business, and what you need to do to make it happen. And I'll tell you what it is later in this article. But first let me give you my experiences.

I have had three businesses so far; one successful - in that it set me up financially, one that lost me around $300,000 and one that was a passion project that I had a lot of fun with, but ultimately cost me about $30,000.



<blockquote>Forget the notion that you need a breakthrough idea to start a successful business. What you actually need is a customer.</blockquote>



All you need is a customer. One that comes back, and back, and back.
