Think twice, before you jump into starting your own business or franchise. It’s unlikely you will work less, or have more financial security for the first few years. Be prepared and know it is not a walk in the park.

Know yourself. Do you automatically take charge or prefer to wait for things to come to you. Are you okay with working on your own a lot? Are you self motivated and run your life according to your inner motivation or do you prefer to have some guidance in what to do.

Be honest with yourself and make sure you're not idealizing what it is like to be your own boss. Be true to yourself. Make sure that you run your business consistent with your values. If an environmental commitment is important to you, it will make you miserable in the long run if you have to compromise your values just to make enough money to break even.

Double it up. Whenever starting a new endeavor that you may have limited knowledge about, do not underestimate the time and money required to get your business going. Countless entrepreneurs have stumbled and fallen before profitability, not because the business idea or execution was not good, but because they ran out of money before the new business started to break even.

Keep it lean. It is easy to add expenses, infrastructure, employees and other fixed cost to a business, it is much harder to shave it off. When starting out, it is wise to outsource some functions, like payroll and invoicing, that you do not have time to do, but does not take enough time to warrant adding a person or two. There are many good outside services for basic business functions.

Give back. When you are making it. Consider giving money back to the community, the environment or whatever cause is important to you. Make sure your customers know you are doing this, it gives you an extra reason for them to patronize your business.