Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Patricia Bottero, Founder of OPEN FOR BUSINESS, located in Los Gatos, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

OPEN FOR BUSINESS is a Start-a-Business lab. We help aspiring business owners create or buy the right business for a life of their design. The framework of our services is the Right Business Right Life™ formula. With unbiased coaching services and digital courses, and membership, we support entrepreneurs in researching, vetting, and planning their best idea for a business to create or buy before they invest significant resources in launching it. Our ultimate goal is to help entrepreneurs objectively start the right business and get faster and greater profits.

Tell us about yourself

I spent most of my career in the trenches of Main street business and digital enterprise. My first business was bootstrap, started on a shoestring. I launched this brick-and-mortar retail and service business, later including e-commerce, when I was 25 years old with a team that grew from 1 to 40 employees to multi-million dollars. It made me realize that my ideal life is self-empowered, self-sufficient, and self-employed. Then I discovered that many business owners were unhappy with their businesses or failed because they didn't pick the right one or built it on a shaky foundation. That's when I decided to specialize in helping small to mid-size business owners launch their entrepreneurial careers the right way. For the past decade, I have coached new business owners to exercise objective due diligence and unbiased validation in ensuring that the business they want to start is not only economically viable for their market but can also deliver the right life for them. In addition, we want these new owners to succeed faster with a business that aligns with their strengths as owners.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Starting a business from nothing, making it work, and creating an excellent life for its owner, myself, opportunities for my employees, and worthy products for our clients was my most significant accomplishment with my first business. But today, with OPEN FOR BUSINESS, I get up with a spring in my step every day because my business supports my life purpose, which is to show people a way to have more "freedoms" - time freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom to grow with the right business for them. I feel it is my most exciting accomplishment to date.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Entrepreneurship is a practice. As a business owner, you are 100% responsible and must be 100% committed to what you intend to accomplish with the business. Yet, many events are out of your control and can create unnecessary stress if you are not mindful. I found that practicing a growth mindset allows you to accept that:

  1. To grow your business, you must also grow yourself. Your business will only grow as far as you do. And to grow, you must accept your mistakes and not be afraid to make them. Treat these mistakes as teachable moments that show you dare to step outside of your comfort zone.
  2. Events outside of your control are also opportunities. Bad things can have positive outcomes if you have a growth mindset.
  3. Whenever possible, take shortcuts by prioritizing learning from other people's earned mistakes. In the short and long terms, it is cheaper to hire coaches and advisors and outsource or delegate your weaknesses or blind spots. Some mistakes are too expensive and are not worth the price of their lessons.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Treat your mind and body as your business's most valuable assets. Take the time to take care of both. Continuously learn, eat well, exercise, sleep and take vacations. If the business doesn't allow you to do that, there is no point in having a business. A burnout owner is a business liability.
  2. Treat your heart with kindness. Spend time with your loved ones. Make them a priority before the business. Again, if you cannot do that, you don't own a business; the business owns you. That's a business flaw that should be fixed, not just for your life but for the business's longevity too.
  3. Make your success easier and faster by investing time and money in early-stage research, vetting, and planning before you invest significant sums in it.
  4. Bonus: Seek to begin your entrepreneurial career by picking the business that is the best fit for you. This means you are clear on the life and lifestyle you want this business to facilitate for you, and the business capitalizes on your strengths, not some weaknesses you need to overcome.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://openforbusinesslab.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/businessownershiplab/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startabusinesslab/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/startabusinessL
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciabottero/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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