Today I met with a couple of like-minded people to talk about entrepreneurism and one message seemed clear: start early.  All of those with experience are mostly in their 20’s and certainly not over 30-something.  They started in their teens or 20’s and have been living the startup lifestyle for years.  It seemed to be the consensus that the best time to start is when you’re young and still in college.  That’s when you don’t have to worry about supporting yourself financially – there are parents, scholarships, or loans to help you.  And once you gain traction, you can graduate and hop right into it with more confidence because you’ve been working at it for awhile and you can convince family, friends, and investors that your business will succeed.

Well, that’s not the plan I have.  I’m taking a more “safe” route, I suppose, working first, gaining that experience, taking it to learn in business school, and finally branching off on my own.  Of course, the most difficult part will be letting go of a steady job and living off of savings to get my company going.  But I trust that I can and will do it.  I don’t want to end up being the type who just talks about big plans and ideas and never goes and does them.  I’m not going to be that type.

So though I will be older, more experienced, and have more to lose, as they say, I fully intend on staying my path.  I guess that’s exactly why I’m confident in my plan – because I’ve had it since middle school.  Sometime around 8th grade, I believe, is when I decided I wanted to go to business school.  I can’t remember when I added starting my own company as the next step beyond that, but little has altered.  I have changed my ideas enough to strengthen my plan, but the overall framework has never faltered (like how I now want a green MBA because I want to go into the environmental field).  And after dedicating so much of my thoughts and time to my plan, how could I not follow through?

No matter how daunting it might be to do so, when the time comes, I’ll have to take the plunge.  I even told Panda to be prepared.  In the mean time, I’m not going to get too comfortable working a steady job so that when change comes, I can embrace it.