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14 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of your Dreams

teer 80-90% of the data you need. The same goes for the market, with million^ of
words of research data available either free of charge or at very low cost.

So there is no excuse now for plunging uninformed. Do not rely totally on the
Internet, of course; remember to look at the physical side of the business world as
well. Go and look at where your competitors and customers work. Check out the
environment you will have to work in and so on.

It may seem a bit upside-down, but in order to make sure you are gathering the
information you require, here is the checklist of a successful small business man
projecting himself about three years down the road to the business of his dreams.
'What you will want to have positive answers to', he said, 'are the following questions:

• Who exactly are my customers?
• Do I like working with these people?
• Have I built an effective network with my customers and suppliers?
• Does the work integrate with my preferred lifestyle?
• Are the people I have gathered around me like-minded individuals?
• Am I building something that has real value?
• Do I add real value?'

You will find that this checklist firstly guides you in your research and, secondly,
makes sure that the business you are contemplating will still be a dream in three
years' time and not have turned into a horrible nightmare.

Idea 7 - Feel free - franchise

This is a sort of mezzanine floor diving board, with the not inconsiderable advan-
tage that far fewer new franchise businesses fail than single start-up companies.
(The statistics on business failures are too depressing, so we will ignore them. No
one got rich worrying about following a historic trend.) You also get a head start