Many new ventures are preoccupied with all the money they are going to make, rather than how they are going to the about making it. Set realistic goals by setting realistic steps-discreet ‘doable’ actions, each of which connects to the next one in some logical progression.

At some point you have to walk through the wall to get to the other side. But don’t just ‘do it’ until you have a good idea of what you do next. If you can’t get ‘there’ from ‘here’ in a number of very specific steps, then you probably don’t have a business yet.

I am a great believer that the more up-front money a new business requires, the less chance it has of ever getting off the ground.

If and when you do, you will probably find that they aren’t as eager to part with their capital as you might have anticipated or, if they are, they will want to extract a large piece of the business in return for their faith.

Many new businesses never get off the ground, not because they were bad ideas, not because the people were wrong, but because the fund-raising efforts failed. Yet, many of these new ventures, I believe, didn’t actually require the capital the participants convinced themselves that did. If they had been willing to start small, to go back a few steps and start from further back, they could have given themselves a fighting chance.

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of starting small and keeping it simple. When I began, it would have been very easy to convince myself that it simply couldn’t be done on any less than a million dollars. How could I represent the top three superstars in the booming sport of golf without a staff of seven or eight and at least a token presence in England and Japan? A million dollars, in fact, would have been helpful and certainly convenient. But it wasn’t necessary.

Many of the great American success stories emerged from humble beginnings. If you are selling a service, a skill, or an expertise, how much more do you really need than a desk and phone?