What opportunities are 90% to 99+% success rate with low steady return? 50% with medium return?

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

I always say Entrepreneurship is tackling the biggest problem you know with the best solution you're capable of delivering. You can wrestle with odds of success etc. all day long but truth is, the 'odds' bend in favor based on what you're already familiar with, and it makes what you decide to pursue very individual. "Grow what you Know" in the words of @Andy Black.

If I can see people make money flipping houses, but I know waaaay more about flipping sites than flipping houses, I will pursue the latter because my odds of success are higher. That doesn't mean you have to stay in your lane per se. But if we're talking purely about odds, it's best to look at what you know how to solve first.

Competition, Market Size, etc...all factors but overrated in my opinion.
Follow the need and the rest falls in place.

 

[Andy Black]

“You can’t steer a parked car.”
- James Schramko

Pick a direction. Get started. Keep going.

Business is simple: Help people, get paid, help more people. (Start, sell, scale.)

Make friends, build relationships, create win-wins.

It’s only complicated because we don’t keep it simple.

Pick something that resonates from the above, or find some other way of thinking that gets you out of mathematical models and engaging the market instead.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GuestUser4aMPs1]

Jesus, I hop out of thread for a day or two and come back to a mountain of texts.

I'm seriously beginning to believe these new posters are troll bots.

Entrepreneurship isn't debate club my friend.

Get tf off your computer (after you print this post and hang it on your wall) and go do something.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

Asking for a business with a high success rate is like asking

"What are the odds of a basketball going in the hoop?"

It depends who's taking the shot.

Lebron James or some dude at a park?

Experience, talent, knowledge, relationships, etc. are some variables in business.

You can fail at things with a low return so you might as well go for something with a high return.

It's funny you say the diamond in the rough opportunity is dumpster rentals. I think that would be a mediocre business to run in the real world.

The opportunity of a business or industry pretty much completely hinges on MARKET FORCES. Any industry can become incredibly lucrative, profitable, easy to run, etc. if there are NO competitors and HUGE demand. With the right market forces working for you, you can kill it in any industry. If there are no home builders around and everyone wants a house, and the price of lumber was 30% lower than normal, and labor prices were low, you would be a rich MF-er if you built houses. You need to know the market before knowing what kind of opportunity you have on your hands. You can do this by running ads and getting preliminary or fake signups/sales. This shows market demand as well as a bit of competitor forces since you were the best choice they decided to go with. Advertise, get sales, now you have some data of market forces. Back to our basketball shot example. What are the odds you make a basket? What if we are standing 50 feet away or 5 feet away? What if the rim is the same size as the ball or it's the size of a swimming pool? What if the ball is 1 pound or 30 pounds? These variables are market variables. You need to know them before knowing if an opportunity is good or not. And you figure that out by testing.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

A lot of the debates on this forum come down to theory vs. practicality.

If you want to start seeing success, go with the practical advice.

 

[ANON29512]

There's no such thing as a business with a "90-99% chance of success".

Success needs to be defined with exact parameters. What's a low, steady return? With how much money and time investment? With what business form (sole prop? ltd?)? Is your goal to be able to pay yourself a 24,000$ annual net wage to support yourself, so that you can start a real Fastlane business later, a la MJ's 4-step leveling up process?

A convenience store is by no means a low means, steady return business with a 90-99% rate of success.

You are tied to the business 24/7, unless you can afford an employee or two, who are hugely expensive, need to be managed, who can steal from you, quit at any moment, be high while during the shift, etc. Don't expect high-octane workers for minimum wage.

You also need an already booming business first to afford them. Food is a low-margin business and every other big or small convenience store will sell more or less the same items as you. Your target market is limited to your local neighborhood, so no law of effection for you.

If you do all the work yourself, it's better, but you still have to pay rent, utilities, inventory, legal-admin-bureaucratic fees, and do 12-hour days.

The odds or chances of success depend on how well can you execute. If I were given 50,000$ right now and wanted to start a private label e-commerce company, my odds of success would be reasonably high, since I've already done it and am familiar with the process. It's like riding a bike. My odds would be lower if I wanted to succeed with building a SaaS app since I'm unfamiliar with the process.

The solution I recommend for you:

If you have low savings, do MJ's 4 step level up process. Aim to go from doing anything to survive to a higher paid, specialized skill set before venturing into product based business.

If you have a reasonable amount of capital then you may start a product based business, but I would still work my day job do keep myself afloat. However, knowing so little about you and your background, options, skills, current life situation, I can't write anything specific, so you have to figure it out.

 

[biophase]

So far, my approach is do everything ultra lean and validate.

So far your approach is to spew ridiculous numbers backed up by anecdotes and misguided perceptions. When you do something like this all your credibility goes out the window.

I don’t believe that you’ve run a business before based on what you’ve written. At best you were self employed and had a 1 person service business.

When I was in the corporate world I had a few coworkers like you. They got their MBAs from top tier schools and would tell me every day theoretically how to run a business. They’d go on and on about how they would start this and that. I listened to it daily and guess what, they are both still employees today. That was 20 years ago.

 

[ZCP]

@DavidL41 lot of questions can be answered in the lab.

let's get you out of the red box and into the green box for a while

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZCP]

......... Telling that to a person is like a basketball trainer saying just throw it however you want at the rim a bunch of times, and then when you get somewhat proficient is when you know how to play basketball. There is an entire process in how a basketball trainer teaches strategy, tactics, and so on as they learn...............

I coach basketball, run travel teams, volunteer in the 2nd largest basketball organization in the world, and have a business making money teaching kids how to play basketball. The way to learn how to play basketball is to PLAY BASKETBALL.

All the theory and guides and rules and hypothesis and don't mean jack if you don't put your damn shoes on, get a basketball, and START PLAYING.

If you would get your head out of your 'paralysis by analysis' a$$ cloud, you would see we are trying to get you IN THE GYM and ON THE COURT. Once you are there and DOING, then we can help you with guides / theory / specifics.

Get off the couch and start playing. Please. .... no more posts, theory, dismissal of help, trolling, inaction, disregard for people trying to help UNTIL YOU GO DO SOMETHING.

Turn $1 into $2. Do it today. Then report back.

[For those coming behind years from now; go find your shoes, get your ball (or borrow one), and start dribbling. Make a few layups however you know how. F it up some. Then find some experienced players to help you with form and workouts (don't dismiss immediately what they say). Then find a good coach and give them a CHANCE to coach you in sound fundamentals (meaning, shut the F*ck up and listen). Couple that with the amount of research and analysis done by @DavidL41 . Then go crush it.]

TLDR; 'You learn how to play basketball by playing basketball' - basketball coach

 

[BizyDad]

If you developed the general skill to optimize processes, and can take that distinct skill into something where competitors are unoptimized in that in say Car detailing. You can be a top performer by dramatically optimizing the logistics and the car detailing process.

Ultimately, the goal is to always approach business in a way that you can perform as good or better than the top competition which more often gives you the best chance to gain all the spoils so to speak.

Pick the most promising/lucrative market opportunity that you can also be a top performer in. Is this an accurate enough way to look at it?

You are over thinking this. You don't have to be a top performer. You just have to be able to fill a need.

You are also looking at it wrong. Maybe you have the skill to optimize generally, but maybe there is a valid reason why the car detailing industry hasn't been optimized the way you desire to.

You wouldn't know that without any industry experience.

Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with trying to be as smart as possible in picking the industry you're going to start with. Generally speaking.

Specifically speaking, it is much better to go into an industry that you are already familiar with, rather than worrying about which one has the highest success rate generally, or which one has the biggest opportunity or market or room to improve or disrupt or whatever.

What value do you bring that people will pay you for? Start there.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZCP]

Yes, he is, and he has a real business and real experience...

His point is correct. You need to start doing something besides theorizing

the cool thing is that @BizyDad had some theories ..... then his company applied them to do some work for my company and he got paid to test them out and learn. Without 98 pages of % theory.

GO DO SHIT.

lol

for those coming behind, go fail. Try. Learn. Pivot. Continue to make daily progress.

it is super cool to theorize and think and plan and come up with ideas ..... just do them WHILE doing shit. then you can test / adjust / pivot / revamp on the fly and MAKE PROGRESS.

 

[Varlenheit]

I think strategy becomes actually counter-productive when it actually stops you from launching and taking real action It seems that's where you are right now.
If not, please give us more context about yourself, because based on the talk you look like a beginner without much real life experience actually runnning a business but maybe I'm wrong.

The best way to optimize is to actually go out there and test your strategy on the market as FAST as you can, get the feedback from it and adjust from there (and you don't need to burn all your money to do that btw).
You can theorize all you want and come up with the best approach, you still cannot guarantee how the market will respond, which is why SPEED is important.

I honestly hope that all the talk you're doing isn't actually stopping you from actually taking action each day because right now all of this feel like a huge waste of time for everybody involved.

While strategizing is cool and feel good, it doesn't actually move the needle one bit, it actually delays everything. Someone with the same idea as you who's faster to implement, execute and adjust from market feedback will most likely outperform you.

I'm not against strategizing, i think it's pretty useful but it shouldn't take as much time as you think it should.

I'm still interested in the context of your life right now though because you seem to have knowledge about the theory but not that much practical experience.

Have you already launched a business ? Do you actually have real life experience running a business ?
What have you tried ? What failed ? what worked ? What are the next ACTIONS you'll do to get where you want to be ? and obviously, WHEN are you actually going to execute them ?

 

[ZCP]

@Flint he is not looking for particular help. he is just talking out loud. he'll get there eventually when he gets started.

my replies were for those coming behind looking to take the next steps. hopefully there are enough bread crumbs to follow!

 

[SteveO]

Most of the people you are arguing with here have successful businesses. Perhaps you don't know that as we just appear to be random people on the internet. You are certainly able to do things however you wish but these people attempting to help you are worthy of listening to.

There is an entire subset of people that are busting their asses on this forum. Many of them are working together and getting help from others where they need it. Many also know what each other are doing, where they are in their progress and where they are going.

To get real help, you need to be moving forward with something and showing honest effort. It does not seem to me that you really want help though with the constant responses telling everyone you are right and they are wrong.

I honestly don't know why anyone is still trying to help.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

you misconstrued everything that was said to a level that is unusually stupid. There really is not a real point in what you said. Also, are really a banker? You can't even spell theoretical.. And say stupid things like safe businesses/investments(franchises) aren't providing relatively safe, low returns. Just saying. There isn't anything of use in what you said.

Yes, he is, and he has a real business and real experience...

His point is correct. You need to start doing something besides theorizing

 

[biophase]

There are businesses and assets that are 99% to 99.99% going to get you to break even and return an investment. Real estate is typically this way, right

I haven’t read the rest of this thread yet but it’s clearly written by someone that has never invested in anything before. Lol

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BizyDad]

There are businesses and assets that are 99% to 99.99% going to get you to break even and return an investment. Real estate is typically this way, right?

Wrong. My dad bought his house 20+ years ago. He is still -10% value, not adjusted for inflation. There are tons of places that go down in value and do not recover. And there are tons of reasons why a real estate can lose its value. I personally believe real estate is generally safer than other investments, but that's a belief and not something I say as fact.

99.99% is essentially a risk less investment. If anything was 99.99%, then don't you think that's where all the smart money would go during panics? Flights to safety...

Please stop peddling these made up numbers. Everything you mentioned has risk, and nothing has a 90% success rate.

90% of businesses fail in 5 years, right? To be frank, that means only a few low performers, some average, and some top performers survived, let alone thrived.

Based on your comments I would think the 10% that hasn't failed is the 99.99 successful industries like laundrymats and real estate and good franchises, right?

Wouldn't the concept be to develop: strategy, execution, and capability.

Isn't the concept to choose the opportunity that you know you can do the best in, and succeed?

These are two different concepts, but you present them as if there are the same.

I agree with the second concept wholeheartedly.

But the first one, and some of your other comments, sound like you need to do a swot analysis and a MBA level business plan before you pick a business to start.

And that's why I said you are making this more complicated.

When I started my dog business, I got some suppliers, and even before my website was built I was calling people to find out what I could sell them.

I didn't have a "strategy", and I didn't have an org chart. I just focused on making sales.

Find a need. Fill it. Repeat.

That's the concept.

Hope that helps somebody on here...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZCP]

Now we are getting somewhere!

Your outcome is to build a business not a job. A system / machine that functions on its own.
You did it before. Now you want to do it smarter. Use your brain / advice to create a better machine.

Yes. Hire experts, read, take advice from all of us on here working to do the same exact thing. Keep doing it while you work to get your business 1% better every single day.

Keep creating / working / finding / buying / selling businesses as you work to create the perfect biz.
We have a running joke in one of my mastermind groups that 'our next business will be amazing!'.

-------------------
Have a stack of books and several thoughts for you. Please clarify that the words in bold above are your desired outcome.

 

[ZCP]

but @SteveO , the others!!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BizyDad]

Everyone I've ever seen made money on real estate

Count yourself lucky to be surrounded by such experts.

Why don't you go out and do what they did?

I worked in banking in a place with a lot of real estate investors. No, it is not a 99% success rate. Not. Even. Close. Even the ones who look successful often aren't.

Respectfully, you saying 90-99% makes you sound like you don't have a clue. If I am wrong, and you do have a clue, then go forth and do.

The 1 in 100 or 1 in 50 odds of debt rather than profit for the year is for some sort of black swan event to use the term (housing bubble, corona..), though they often can be accounted for happening a few times per century

Define a few? Seriously, go back 100 years and look at all the black swan events that exist. Wars. Fires. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Floods. Market crashes. Industries toppling, and taking down a local economy. Water supply contamination. Terrorist attacks. Termites. Dust Bowl. I'm sure I'm leaving some out. Depending on where you live, "once a century" type events happen once every five to ten years.

Look, I got on here because I thought a young man who was interested in business was spending too much time in academic pursuits trying to understand business, as opposed to actually doing business. I used to be a young man like that. And having run a couple businesses now, and having helped to run a couple dozen more, I know there is no substitute for actually doing it.

So I wanted to tell that young man, Hey bro. Go out and actually DO BUSINESS.

Would you not agree that after a business has it's revenue streams, and operations under control for a steady profit. It makes sense to design and improve the business organization to be more efficient & effective, improve execution, develop improved strategy in order to further excel the business(pour gas on the fire so to speak). A business is in game of delivering and promoting better value and customer experience to grow and profit. In your opinion, why do you think a person should not improve those things?

Sure. Duh.

But I'm not here to debate the merits of business strategy. If you have specific examples about how to optimize your own business, I'm happy to talk about those. That would be time well spent.

Any discussion about the theoritical running of businesses is just action faking at its finest. You seem to think that safe businesses have high success rates and low risk/return. And that returns I creases as success rate lowers.

It doesn't work like that, and it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what business are you working on?

I've said what I had to say a couple times and a couple ways. I am done flaying the expired equine. Good luck to you.

 

[Johnny boy]

Do you mind elaborating? It's in high demand as people are moving and renovating at a high rate from the low mortgage rate. Supply hasn't caught up with high demand yet. There aren't many alternatives people use. It's very convenient rather than having to get a box truck and going to the dump(which scares and is inconvenient to a lot of residential clients who don't want to do that). It's $300 per day per container for residential clients. Commercial clients use it for longer. The competitors are not that savvy or interested in effective physical and online marketing. A person more interested in the business side of things and making things more optimized can remove a lot of bottlenecks to allow the business to grow at a fast rate, and hopefully scale it. In addition, a company can even offer or outsource services to help the client dump the items in the dumpster more safely(specialize in taking things down, and safely out the house). If a business wants to go further they can even see if it's possible to take a look at some items that they can repair, or sell for scraps. Even just the basic business is promising. There is lots of room to add revenue streams and optimize the business.

What about the dynamics of the business and the market conditions makes you say the opposite?



Yes. I can't agree with that more. It's an established industry standard (porter's 5 forces).

If the market forces side heavily in your favor, and you have the passion for that business and capability to be a high level competitor(including company building, strategist, execution) then the odds tilt in your favor given all that. Especially, if there is high demand, low supply, and the profit margins and revenue streams are good.


My mentality is I only delve into and stay in opportunity that is are in my favor. Work to optimize every part of the business (strategy, business model/organization, execution) to provide a superior service/product, and experience (value proposition). Then it's matthew's law(the higher level competitors get more, and more profit and growth). Simply put, I am looking at it in terms of effectively getting a business to profitability(being competitive with value), growth stage(gaining superior value), and hopefully to a stage to scale(superior value and superior business model).

That is my own approach. Idk why I have a preference in looking at things in a macro view, as well as a micro view. But, in my view it is a no-brainer(and something people instinctively can see) that it's setting up scenarios and finding an approach where the situation is in your favor. Given enough opportunities, and doing it properly leads to being able to snowball and grow a venture, and with luck scale it.

What is your return on ad spend and number of clients acquired at what price? Have you tested demand yet? If not, then it's speculation.

"Tons of people buy it".

x number of people buying things and y number of people selling things at z price and costing $w per lead to advertise and acquire customers. You don't know your variables enough to be so certain of anything. Go get some customers.

I don't like the model because it's a scheduling nightmare. Not recurring, not consistent revenue, etc. You're going to need some busy customer service reps, BUT I do like that pricing is formulaic. Pricing will be hard for my company as we scale. Not impossible but it is a hurdle.

Your company will be a commodity. "Our garbage bins are pretty" isn't a value add. There's limited ways to add value. If answering the phones is a value add like it is in my industry, then I guess there's an opportunity, but you don't know that yet. I have a funny feeling that it won't be the same as it is for my industry and you won't have competitors that don't answer the phones.

As I almost always do, I suggest you do it anyways because you will learn from it and it's better than doing nothing.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZCP]

@DavidL41 what are your next three specific actions to achieve your goal?

what WILL get done this week?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZCP]

Would you advise this plan to get experts in the chosen industry to get up to speed, and professional mentor(scores, and small business consultants) that are trained to developing entrepreneurs as they are doing business?

Would the thing to do is getting a free government business mentor(scores.org), effective and affordable small business coaches, talking to experts in my chosen industry while I engage in business?

With the answers to these two questions, would you then get started DOING it?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kung Fu Steve]

I couldn't find the original article I read but here's a similar one on CNN:

Nearly 1 in 3 new stores opening in the US is a Dollar General

Three dollar store chains will make up almost half of all the new stores opening up in the United States this year, a reflection of the dollar store sector's outsized growth in the retail industry as other chains close shops or stop building new ones.

www.cnn.com

 

[Flint]

Sure! Sounds good... so what are you going to do with it?

@DavidL41 what are your next three specific actions to achieve your goal?

what WILL get done this week?

What have you tried ? What failed ? what worked ? What are the next ACTIONS you'll do to get where you want to be ? and obviously, WHEN are you actually going to execute them ?

Show us your CENTS assessment of that business... and you'll get your answer.

Have a stack of books and several thoughts for you. Please clarify that the words in bold above are your desired outcome.

@DavidL41 do any of these deserve an answer? Why?

 

[DavidL41]

I always say Entrepreneurship is tackling the biggest problem you know with the best solution you're capable of delivering. You can wrestle with odds of success etc. all day long but truth is, the 'odds' bend in favor based on what you're already familiar with, and it makes what you decide to pursue very individual. "Grow what you Know" in the words of @Andy Black.

If I can see people make money flipping houses, but I know waaaay more about flipping sites than flipping houses, I will pursue the latter because my odds of success are higher. That doesn't mean you have to stay in your lane per se. But if we're talking purely about odds, it's best to look at what you know how to solve first.

Competition, Market Size, etc...all factors but overrated in my opinion.
Follow the need and the rest falls in place.

If you developed the general skill to optimize processes, and can take that distinct skill into something where competitors are unoptimized in that in say Car detailing. You can be a top performer by dramatically optimizing the logistics and the car detailing process.

Ultimately, the goal is to always approach business in a way that you can perform as good or better than the top competition which more often gives you the best chance to gain all the spoils so to speak.

Pick the most promising/lucrative market opportunity that you can also be a top performer in. Is this an accurate enough way to look at it?

 

[Flint]

I have started a business before that was profitable. It ended up being basically a job that I created, not an organization I was building and leading. I am looking at what type of training/development and approach to take to get that extra edge.

Show us your CENTS assessment of that business... and you'll get your answer.

Follow the graph that @ZCP posted, close the feedback loop and learn your lessons.

Don't be a sniper looking for a silver bullet and that one perfect shot.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DavidL41]

Some business I can think of that if you get the opportunity you will often succeed 99+% are convenience stores. Good franchises. Real estate. If you open up a high demand service or local business in a brand new neighbourhood(85% to 90+%). Local businesses that are in high demand and low supply 85% to 90+% success rate.

Opportunities around 50% (that you can bootstrap) are businesses that aren't super high level competition and have more demand than supply(ideally you have a knack or are higher level than the direct competition). anything far below these odds I believe these local businesses aren't favourable, or they are high risk, high reward businesses local/online business.

----------------

What is your opinion what local (or online) businesses are very high chance of success(90 to 99%) with low steady results? What local (or online) businesses are very good at 50% of success AND are bootstrappable with high returns? What businesses are 10 to 30% with very high returns?

Are there businesses that are like the diamonds in the rough. 30% odds of success but with hundreds of thousand of potential profit? I am thinking kickstarter allows that sort of thing where you can put up a product and get $50k to $300k+ in crowdsourcing.

Are there any diamond in the rough business opportunity that you seen? Right now the one I seen which is very high is dumpster rentals which are $300 per dumpster per day and people use them when they move, or renovate. This is $10k to start, a 70% chance of success(probably higher), and very high return.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DavidL41]

You are over thinking this. You don't have to be a top performer. You just have to be able to fill a need.

You are also looking at it wrong. Maybe you have the skill to optimize generally, but maybe there is a valid reason why the car detailing industry hasn't been optimized the way you desire to.

You wouldn't know that without any industry experience.

Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with trying to be as smart as possible in picking the industry you're going to start with. Generally speaking.

Specifically speaking, it is much better to go into an industry that you are already familiar with, rather than worrying about which one has the highest success rate generally, or which one has the biggest opportunity or market or room to improve or disrupt or whatever.

What value do you bring that people will pay you for? Start there.

90% of businesses fail in 5 years, right? To be frank, that means only a few low performers, some average, and some top performers survived, let alone thrived.

Wouldn't the concept be to develop: strategy, execution, and capability. To be a higher level competitor. Pick a promising and favourable opportunity to your skillset. Then develop a business model/organization and try to get it off the ground to profitability or abort, and try a different opportunity. Isn't the concept to choose the opportunity that you know you can do the best in, and succeed?

 

[DavidL41]

There's no such thing as a business with a "90-99% chance of success".

Success needs to be defined with exact parameters. What's a low, steady return? With how much money and time investment? With what business form (sole prop? ltd?)? Is your goal to be able to pay yourself a 24,000$ annual net wage to support yourself, so that you can start a real Fastlane business later, a la MJ's 4-step leveling up process?

A convenience store is by no means a low means, steady return business with a 90-99% rate of success.

You are tied to the business 24/7, unless you can afford an employee or two, who are hugely expensive, need to be managed, who can steal from you, quit at any moment, be high while during the shift, etc. Don't expect high-octane workers for minimum wage.

You also need an already booming business first to afford them. Food is a low-margin business and every other big or small convenience store will sell more or less the same items as you. Your target market is limited to your local neighborhood, so no law of effection for you.

If you do all the work yourself, it's better, but you still have to pay rent, utilities, inventory, legal-admin-bureaucratic fees, and do 12-hour days.

The odds or chances of success depend on how well can you execute. If I were given 50,000$ right now and wanted to start a private label e-commerce company, my odds of success would be reasonably high, since I've already done it and am familiar with the process. It's like riding a bike. My odds would be lower if I wanted to succeed with building a SaaS app since I'm unfamiliar with the process.

The solution I recommend for you:

If you have low savings, do MJ's 4 step level up process. Aim to go from doing anything to survive to a higher paid, specialized skill set before venturing into product based business.

If you have a reasonable amount of capital then you may start a product based business, but I would still work my day job do keep myself afloat. However, knowing so little about you and your background, options, skills, current life situation, I can't write anything specific, so you have to figure it out.

There are businesses and assets that are 99% to 99.99% going to get you to break even and return an investment. Real estate is typically this way, right? If you bought small businesses (self service laundromat) with revenue that would be very high odds of return. Only 1 in 100 odds or less really that you don't break even. Typically these types of businesses require a lot of capital and is where people park their money so to speak.

For a Saas, the odds of one of those making profit to live on is like 1 in 1000 or something rough. Which is fine I suppose because it is investors money. It's time being used. Service businesses that have low supply and high demand are at something like 50% give or take to get to a high profitability.

For a person that is bootstrapping a small local or online business imo it is right to set it up in a way that they are at higher odds of success given the situation. Meaning, they redefined/optimized the value proposition & business model and product that puts it far above businesses that are dead on arrival, and this business is one of the more likely to succeed. In simpler terms, a business is optimizing everything in order to find a favourable situation for itself. Making a more compelling product, finding a favourable market situation, optimize value proposition, strategy & business model.