I just saw this in my mail and decided to share it

Paul,

The interwebs are filled with well-meaning (but delusional) people talking about their business ideas. It doesn’t always turn out pretty. Just look at the picture below


Stories like this used to drive me crazy, but the new Ramit is much more zen.

My advice for those looking to quit their job to start a business: RELAX.

In the real world, successful entrepreneurs like to limit their risk. That could mean staying in your day job until your business is large enough to pay your bills. Or testing an idea on a small scale.

This de-risk thinking is part of the reason why I’ve been able to release 18+ products in 12 years to over 30,000 paying customers. I didn’t just chase any idea that popped into my head. I systematically evaluated each one that came across my desk.

Today, I want to share one framework that has helped me eliminate the vast majority of risk – in just a few minutes. It’s called the Pay Certainty Technique. It has two parts. The first is your audience’s ability to pay. The second is your audience’s willingness to pay.

Let me walk you through an example. Let’s pretend you shoot and edit videos and want to turn it into a business. You can ask yourself two questions.
Does your market have the ability to pay?

Answering this question upfront can save you months of wasted time and effort. If your potential customers don’t have the ability to pay, you won’t make any money. Period.

Right away, this takes nonprofits off the table. In general, nonprofits are always strapped for cash. They don’t always know how they’ll pay their essential costs. No way they’ll pay someone for help with a “nice to have” like video. (Unless you’re willing to work for chump change.)

So what kind of markets would pay for video help? I can think of a few:

Brides and grooms – they already spent $30,000 on a wedding, they can probably spare a thousand or so more to capture their special day
Corporate law firms – Sure, these companies do millions in billings each year
Bloggers with growing audiences that do over $500,000 in product sales or Ecommerce sites that do over $1 million in revenues

Right away, you can see we’re getting warmer on the path to finding good customers – those that have the ability to pay. And we haven’t even invested any time or cash into this yet.
Do they have the willingness to pay?

The second part of the Pay Certainty Technique is the willingness to pay. It examines if your market wants what you’re providing.

Continuing with the same example, we can ask: Do nonprofits want videos? It would be nice, but it’s not a burning priority.

Let’s look at our markets with the ability to pay to see if they also have the willingness:

Brides and grooms – they’re about to have a once-in-a-lifetime event. Of course they’ll want someone there to capture everything
Corporate law firms – While they can pay for video, it’s not crucial to their business. They have no willingness to pay so we can scrap this
Ecommerce sites and bloggers – if video means a better customer experience and more sales, then heck yes!

See how much this simple exercise can reduce your risk right away?

In my experience, asking these questions will eliminate 50-70% of your bad business ideas. The remaining ones will be strong. From there, you can do additional research to develop your idea even further.

If you’re curious, I’ve put together a video on this and more action steps in my latest guide, The Ultimate Guide to Profitable Business Ideas.

Follow this link http://links.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/a/258/click/2358264/741780864/_2e4b407b4d2ad8c8389555d82abb776dc4e46221/00f9105216d58051081bddac76b54a4b05bfdc87?ana=InV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1pd3Qi