I said that if any one of them could find a fatal flaw in the logic than I would keep my job. No one did, and I had VCs start calling me.

I knew it would be hard, but glossed over some of the risks. I didn't want to do it simply for the lifestyle change, but I wanted to build the next big company.

Needless to say, the concept ran into some regulatory hurdles in healthcare and funding took longer than I was willing to wait. It was a massive stress to take on and cost a lot of money. On the positive side, I learned a lot (a second MBA) and made a lot of good contacts.

I summarized my lessons learned from this on my blog at http://patientadvocate.wordpress.com/lessons-learned/.

But there are other sources of information out there to help give you confidence that your idea, as it changes and grows, will have a good foundation under it – your management. Doing high-quality self-assessments to learn about your personality is a start; you can learn about your strengths and weaknesses so that you can compensate for them. Secondly, talking to others with similar challenges is another key to success.

When I opened my business, I talked to people in similar businesses (but not competitors) for advice – not about my idea, but about how I would market it, how I would handle cash flow, etc. For example, relying on credit cards at first was scary, but necessary. Colleagues told me to use it wisely, but get over the fear of using credit this way. And they were right. It does take money to make money.

Juliet Jones

Ideas are easy. Implementing those ideas isn't so hard. It's doing all the rest of the stuff that makes it into a successful business that is so hard. Some of it is really tedious. Some of it will suck a lot of time away from the "fun" part of the business that you started the business for in the first place. Be prepared.

This is why: I'm just moved to Australia for love and now I'm having trouble finding the kind of work I want to do.

It occurred to me that previously in life when I couldn't find stuff to be interested in I would start a club or redesign my major….and the path was never easy but it was always worth it…so starting a company is a bit like that – making your own work.

I hope that is how it is anyway.

P.S. Love your blog – it has all the answers no one can ever tell you! I wish I had read your "don't disclose what you made at your last job during a job interview" before my interview last week. Grr.

I could come up with an idea about hairnets for pets (cough, just an example), which might be a good idea or it might not, but if it isn't personally relevant and doesn't matter to me then I'm not going to be prepared to do what's necessary.