Starting a small business takes a lot of courage. But, as they say, courage doesn't pay the bills. To be successful — to stay in business — you need more than courage. You need a combination of hard work, skill, perseverance, and good old-fashioned luck.

In this section, we'll take a closer look at just how much hard work, skill, and perseverance you'll need if you're to be successful. (We can't do much about the luck.) We'll try to give you a sense of what you can expect from a small business, as well as what a small business will expect from you.

To evaluate your own aptitude for small business ownership, you need to:

• Understand the responsibilities of ownership. What's involved in owning a business and what are the roles you'll have to play if you own one? This is a good place to start if you're considering starting your own business but haven't owned one before.
• Set your goals. What do you want from your business? If you want to "succeed," how will you know if you get there? Knowing what you want from your business permeates all of the other decisions you'll have to make in starting a new business. It will affect which business you choose, how you evaluate your chances for success, and how you determine if you have the right skills.
• Do you have the right stuff? How can you evaluate your own skills and make judgments about whether you're ready to own your own business? This is a good place to start if you already know that you want to own a business.

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