Ready to start a small business ?

When someone tells me that they have a business idea. I would ask them three questions before moving on to the next step:

• What is the qualification of partners involved ? Ultimately investors invest in people, not just ideas.

• Can you give me the names of prospective customers? Their answer must be very specific (target audience). If unable to name customers immediately, it's simply an idea, not a market.

• How much of yourself are you investing in it? Both monetarily and physically? If you don’t believe in your business I don't think anyone else would.

Take the answers and put them all together to form a complete picture of what this idea really means, what it will accomplish, and what its potential consequences will be. After that the decision is yours.