On the lower left-hand side of my bulletin board in my home office hangs a receipt from a local saloon. It's a credit-card transaction of $5.47. It's dated May 10, 1996, about a year after I left Corporate America to join the entrepreneurial parade.

The reason I decided to pin that receipt to my bulletin board is the same reason I decided to pin my 1977 pay stub from Westchester Rockland Newspapers on the upper left-hand side: Both mark my humble beginnings. As a reporter working nights, I grossed $295 on the week of Sept. 18, 1977. And the credit-card receipt reminds me of the time when things were so lean I had to charge two beers.

Also on this bulletin board are reminders of my early attempts to keep motivated and to forge ahead with my new business, making things up as I went along. There's a bumper sticker with the famous Nike slogan: "Just Do It," which sits next to a quotation from a former baseball commissioner: "Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first." Next to that is a business card that bears the first name of my company, which I quickly dropped after I found myself spelling it out for everyone. (If I have to do that all the time, I figured, no one is ever going to get it right on a check.)

I don't ordinarily use my home office anymore, having outgrown it a couple years ago, though I still do some work in it. From time to time, I get nostalgic for the days when I was so exhilarated about my first customer that I popped a bottle of champagne later that night.

That was an innocent time, before I had to deal with growth and its many challenges. It was a time when I agonized over cutting a check for $100. Now, I agonize over dealing with a few more zeroes in that number.

When I first started my business, all I had was an idea and a passion to see it through. And, counter to just about every business book ever written, I did almost no research into the venture I intended to launch. Blindly, holding a buy-out check from the company I left -- and sometimes my breath, since I jumped into the water without testing it -- I took the plunge. And I'm glad.

I can now say, without hesitation, that had I done the research everyone says you should do, I'd still be working in the bowels of the mother ship. If I knew then what I had to learn along the way, I wouldn't have the stomach for self-employment. So it follows that acting without knowing was the best thing I've ever done.

Ignorance is bliss, a condition conducive to trying new things without the weight of knowing what's ahead. Officially, I'd never recommend to anyone that they leave their secure jobs and go blindly into the night. Unofficially, though, why the heck not?

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.