Money. Fame. Freedom.

It seems like being an entrepreneur is the hottest new job title. When we think of founding a company, images of billion dollar IPOs come to mind. Who wouldn’t want to start the next Uber, or become the next Jeff Bezos? Then there's reality: founding a company is not all money, fame and IPOs. More times than not, becoming an entrepreneur is a lifestyle choice that involves anxiety, sleepless nights and a lot of hard work. If your only motivation for starting a company is to make a lot of money or gain power, you will likely not achieve success.

Thinking about about jumping into the startup world and building your own business? Ask yourself these three questions first:

1. Am I passionate about solving a specific problem?

Pain points are the start of a business idea, and the best founders don’t get stuck on a single solution. They are crazed about learning to serve a population of people. Being passionate about a specific problem is essential for climbing up and out of the valleys inherent to Startupland's landscape.

Be ready to improve upon your initial idea, alter your first product, or even pivot to a completely new solution in order to meet customer needs.

2. Do I have unique talents to solve a specific problem?

At the early stages of building a company, the founding team IS the company. Possessing a unique skill set allows you to create advantages that aren’t easily duplicated. This creates a high level of confidence that you’ll be able to get the job done even under the most stressful conditions.

Combining a unique skill set with the openness to continually learn will allow you to better position your team to create value and concoct innovative solutions.

3. Am I ready to fail...A LOT?

Richard Branson said it best: “Few first ventures work out. It is how a beginning entrepreneur deals with failure that sets that person apart. In fact, failure is one of the secrets to success, since some of the best ideas arise from the ashes of a shuttered business.”

Choices within the startup world rarely point in one clear direction or another. To be successful, you must be ready to be wrong, immediately own up to it, and quickly make a course correction.

Surprises are guaranteed to be around every corner, and being ready to adapt easily allows you navigate uncertain waters. The only thing guaranteed when making the leap into building a business from the ground up is that you will constantly be surrounded by surprises. Even if you’re ready to work late into the night solving issues that arise at every stage of the growth process, uniquely equipped to solve these problems, and humble enough to learn quickly from mistakes, success is never promised. But if you answered 'yes' to all the above questions, then it might be the right time to consider jumping into entrepreneurship.

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