For enthusiastic entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting and running a small business, I admire your independent spirit.
As you know, any business venture does involve some risks and dependency.
You depend on family members for emotional and maybe financial support.
You depend on legal and financial advisors.
Minimizing risks could lessen your involuntary dependency.
I would like to offer some helpful tips:

• Don't confuse enthusiasm with passion - Enthusiasm comes and goes.
  True passion holds the key to success.
  The idea of having your own business is so exciting that it is easy to mistake enthusiasm for passion.
  
• Don't imitate your competitor's strategy - Identify your own advantage point and capitalize on it.
  
• Prepare a business plan.
  A cookie recipe tells you how much of certain ingredients to measure and how to assemble them.
  Likewise, a business plan tells you, your investors, financial lenders how you are going to manage your business.
  
• Know the size of your market and customer base.
  As valuable as the Internet is at providing helpful information, I would not rely on it as a sole source for customers.
  
• Don't spend a lot of money on any one marketing program until you see the result.
  
• Connect with your customers and expand that connection.
  
• Don't sell your goods or service as a product, but focus on their effect.
  For example, your customers are cookie lovers who can not afford the extra calories or require a special diet.
  How can your homemade cookies solve this dilemma for your customers?
• Don't price your goods or service just to cover cost plus a mark-up for profit.
  Instead, price them to their value to your customers.
  
• Don't commit to a large inventory until your small business is stable and growing.
  A large inventory can adversely affect your cash flow which is the lifeblood of any business.
  

Do you know what the #1 cause for small business failure is?