Businesses that are free are businesses that fail

I hear this a lot from people who want to go into business.  "Ron, I want to go into business but I want to find something that doesn't cost me anything."  Or "I saw this business that I think I could do but they want $500. startup cost and I don't feel like I should have to pay anything if they want me to sell their products."  Sound familiar?  Folks there are some old cliches in life that you may not agree with but are true.  The one that comes to mind most of all to me is this one.  "Free has no value."  Think about it.  If you have 2 Super Bowl tickets and you got them for free but you can't go are you going to work as hard to sell them as opposed to having spent $1000. on those tickets.  You might say yes because they're that valuable; however, I would disagree in this respect.  If you spent $1000. on those 2 tickets the thought of losing $1000. is going to be much greater than the thought of making $1000. for those tickets.

Well going into business for yourself is the same.  If you came into a business and you spent $10000. to get it up and running how serious do you think you're going to take it?  Now if someone came to you and said you can make $100000./year in this great business I'm in and it cost you nothing how serious do you think you're going to take that one?  I contend that that fear of losing $10000. is a lot greater than that goal of making $100000.  After all in most cases you probably didn't have $100000. anyway.  So if you ever decide to go into business for yourself and you see some good opportunities that may have a low cost to it don't try and circumvent the system because you feel like you shouldn't have to pay anything.  It's a recipe for failure and I've never met ONE person who has a successful business that paid nothing for that business.

As with anything there could be an exception but if you go out and interview 100 successful business owners I can almost promise you that 99 out of that 100 paid a lot to be that successful.  There could be that one strange example that didn't but I've never met them.