More and more people in the digital landscape today are choosing to start their own companies. If you’re someone who thinks that you might thrive in the entrepreneurial world, then you might be wondering what you need to know before you jump in head-first. After all, just because it’s easier to launch a company in today’s web-focused world, doesn’t mean that there aren’t various components that you need to consider boosting your chances of success.

If you want to be the next small business owner to make millions of dollars on a unique idea, or you simply want to step outside of the nine-to-five work life, the following tips will help you to get started on the right track in 2020.

1.  Start Now, Rather than Later

A lot of us spend years talking about the things that we would “like” to do, but we never end up accomplishing our goals. This is a common problem for people who are keen to launch their own company. It’s easy to tell the world that one day you’re going to be a success, perhaps after you’ve saved up enough money to feel secure, or after your kids have grown up. However, if you really want to make a difference to your life, you need to jump in.

Make sure you have a couple of months’ worth of income in your bank account just in case, then take out a loan until payday for the other items that you need to start your venture. If you’ve done your research and you know that your idea is a good one, there’s no need to hold back.

2.  Don’t Compare Yourself to Anyone Else

While there are likely to be other entrepreneurs similar to you in your space, it’s not a good idea to compare yourself to them. You can look towards people that you admire for motivation and guidance when the timing seems right. However, the best thing you can do for yourself as a budding entrepreneur is reminded yourself that you’re unique. No one has been in the same situation as you exactly, so you can’t put yourself down because other people appear to be moving faster.

Keep your eye on the prize and think about the goals that you want to accomplish with your company. Stop worrying about what other people are doing and start thinking about what you can do to accomplish your targets.

3.  Learn as Much as You Can

While you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to other people, you should be learning as much as you can about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in your industry. Find out what kind of customers are best-suited to the product or service that you want to sell and think about how you can customize your sales and marketing to reach them.

Read books about starting a successful business, figure out how much you need to invest into your business to get started, and watch videos to help you whenever you can. Living life as an entrepreneur is a process that requires consistent learning and growth. Don’t be afraid to keep making yourself better with new knowledge and talents.

4.  Understand the Legal Stuff

As tempting as it is to focus on the fun stuff, like dealing with clients, networking, and creating new products, you need to make sure that you’re safe from a legal standpoint too. Before you jump into creating your own company, make sure that you have the right certificates and licenses in place to protect you. You’re also going to need some insurance to ensure that you’re defended if anything goes wrong.

While you’re learning everything you can about the legal side of running your business, make sure that you know about things like taxes and the IRS too. Though you can hire an accountant to help you, knowing the basics will be essential too.

5.  Don’t Hire Friends

Finally, as much as you want to help your friends out when your business starts to become successful, you probably shouldn’t hire them. Ultimately, if you need employees to help your business grow, then you’re going to need to invest in the best people for the role in question. That’s unlikely to be the person that you know from high school.

Additionally, hiring your friends will mean that you’re reluctant to fire them when they’re not pulling their weight, which means that you could end up losing money, and watching your company fail, just because you wanted to be a good pal.