1. To succeed in entrepreneurship, it’s more about soft skills than hard skills - You will need a healthy dose of self awareness + ability and willingness to reflect/measure/pivot often (nimbleness) + creativity + persistence/resilience (+ yes, you will still need the hard skills and expertise in the area that you’ll be providing a service or product)
2. Talk to 5-10 people who have started a similar or same type of business on a 20-30 minute call to ask key questions/get ideas; if you have fears, blockers, concerns -- use this time to turn your uncertainties and hesitations into questions, questions into information, and information into strategies; you can learn a lot and make a decision on whether you want to start the business or how you want to run the business by leveraging others who have been through it to hash out what you’re nervous about (ie length of contracts, average price of contracts, how best to find clients, etc)
3. Talk to 5-10 potential customers, or more - Understand their actual needs and dispel your assumptions. Look into “customer discovery” to run these calls in the proper way.
4. Form your initial plan - Don’t make this a long windy document or formal business plan; don’t worry about administrative stuff like forming your company or other legalities (unless your business has a lot of legal/compliance considerations) -- instead, focus on 1) what is your offering (literally define what the person will receive and a price and how you’ll charge), 2) who is your customer, and 3) where are they?
5. Get your calendar in order - Where should you spend time, ie lead gen/business development, marketing (website, collateral/assets, branding, socials, emails, pricing, thought leadership, partnerships, events, competitor research, etc), continued networking with key contacts, measuring efforts so you know where to adjust (ie how much outreach did I do? How much traction have I gained? What channels are working?), strategy (forming your plan), operations, financials (fundraising if required), hiring, operations, legal) - assign a percentage to each area and allocate time each day/week. Use timeboxing to create a solid plan for each day. The key is assigning the right percentage to each area (most time should go towards getting your first client in the door!!)
6. Don’t Wait, Start Small, Start Today -- Most of your time in the early days should be going towards getting yourself out there -- often before you feel ready. Many new entrepreneurs want to make their website, branding, or socials perfect before they ‘launch.’ Instead, launch today. You can make a 1 page website versus a 5 page website. Start way smaller than you think -- You can always add more later! Your business will evolve over time constantly -- the sooner you start, the sooner you can pivot and no one will care about looking back years from now realizing that your branding or logo shifted. The first thing I did was start posting on my personal Facebook to get my first clients. This required 0 upfront effort whatsoever.
7. Identify/tap key contacts -- Who is well connected in your world that can make intros or offer resources? Know what you want to ask them for before you reach out.
8. Find support -- There are TONS of startup/entrepreneurship groups-- Whether its groups like BNI or others. They often give resources for free like legal support or bring in mentors and you’ll learn from your peers and gain momentum this way. You may find industry specific groups too. When you do your networking calls, ask the entrepreneurs you chat with which groups/communities/resources they like to use. You could consider finding a mentor or peer to meet with once or twice per month to drive momentum and ideas, or paying a coach if you feel you need a higher level of support and strategy. 
9. Identify your gaps → hire or upskill if necessary - Know what areas you’re lacking in - be self aware. Do you need an intern or business partner? Sometimes taking a new certification can drive momentum/commitment but if there’s any expensive upskilling efforts you’re considering, be sure you know whether it's worth your time/money and whether your clients truly need you to have that or how beneficial it’ll really be for you. 
10. Reflect Daily - Tap into that critical, vulnerable self awareness to figure out what’s going well or not well and what you want to adjust for tomorrow.

‍