Are you feeling trapped by a hum-drum job that leaves you unsatisfied and short of cash at the end of each month? Do you love solving problems, being creative, and being a hard-working, dedicated self-starter who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty?
If that sounds like you, then it’s likely that starting a new business might be just the thing to inspire you to greater heights and ultimately put you in control of your destiny. But starting a new business is not easy and often comes with substantial financial risks that can leave you penniless or even in debt.
Luckily, plenty of great advice out there to help guide you through those all-important first steps. By empowering yourself with the insights, creativity, and knowledge provided by our top 5 list of sites for entrepreneurs, you’ll be able to:
- Reduce the amount of time it takes to find and validate a fantastic idea
- Research and build a top-class business plan
- Build a cutting-edge, responsive website
- Promote and market your business like a pro
- Know which software, tools & services are available to increase productivity and cut costs
- Understand tax, financial, legal, and industry rules and regulations
- Work efficiently with your money
Sound good?
Each of the sites listed here focuses on at least one of the above-listed points, sometimes more. It’s important to remember that almost no single website will give you all the answers you need in one place. I suggest browsing through all of them to build up your own broad and deep understanding of the challenges ahead.
Bplans
Bplans offers an incredible range of business plan templates, advice about how to research and create plans, and insights into finding funding, selling, and pitching during the startup phase.
Has it bookmarked from when you have an idea until the business is established and out of the startup phase?
Along with their vast selection of free downloadable plans and templates for virtually any type of business imaginable, they also have a decent blog and lots of in-depth, valuable guides on a range of startup-related topics. In particular, you’ll find the following guides of great use:
ThePennyHoarder
ThePennyHoarder, unlike the other sites on this list, is not focused on business per se but instead on personal finance. But, what they do bring to the table is a massive variety of creative money hacks and advice for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Ideas to stretch or save a dollar that you wouldn’t think of in a million years are part of their daily routine, which is super helpful if you have to bootstrap a startup without funding or loans to keep things afloat.
In addition to plenty of information focused on working from home, they also have lots of budgeting tips and coupons available to help save money when it counts the most.
Here’s where I recommend you start:
SBA
The SBA (Small Business Administration) is a U.S. government-run resource aimed at helping small business owners and entrepreneurs navigate the complex world of tax, finance, grants, loans, contracts, commerce, government rules, and business legislation. Anything you might need to know about your business and industry’s regulatory environment.
Use this site as a companion from start to finish. It’s not only helpful in learning about complex rules and regulations, but it can also help you find tax breaks and incentives, make connections with other entrepreneurs and business people and make full use of the local, state, and federal resources available to you.
For my money, the most valuable aspects of this site are the following:
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is arguably the world’s leading online resource for entrepreneurs because, in addition to all the standard guides and advice you would expect from leading business resources, they offer something more… real-world insight. Their reach and reputation are such that they can get the inside scoop on news, developments, leaders, influencers, and trends that allow them to gain valuable business-related insight into your hands earlier than other sites.
If staying on trend is vital to the survival of your business, then Entrepreneur is the site to bookmark immediately.
Entrepreneur’s site is also so massive that it likely covers every bit of information you could need. The downside is that because much of their content is contributed by third parties, it isn’t always easily discovered or presented uniformly. With that said, there are a few stand-out pages that you need to check out:
So those are my top 5 sites that will help you realize your dreams of leaving the rat race and taking control of your destiny by building the business of your dreams. Of course, these sites aren’t the only game in town. What resources do you find helpful? Share your suggestions in the comments.
