Stop! Don't get excited.  I don't mean to rain on your parade but this first step of asking the question could quite possibly be the most important step since this is where you need to determine if self employment is right for you and can your hobby actually make money.  In other words is there a market for your product and do you have the passion, drive and ability to find that market?

Consider the employed civil servant leaving her job to start a small business in the Accounting field. She immediately sets up an office and hires a Secretary. After a year, she will hire another Accounting clerk and this increase in staff will continue.

The people of the Caribbean use traditional recipes consisting of indigenous ground provisions and fruits. As a community these can be traded and where necessary taste that is attributable to our foods.

Over the last seven years, the Caribbean Business Enterprise Trust Inc. (CBET) has developed the CBET Shepherding Model™. This model speaks of business facilitation and partnership with the entrepreneur in their "start-up" business.

The overarching advice to entrepreneurs is be realistic, do extensive market research on your business idea, get third party evidence to support your assumptions, have a knowledgeable, objective person who will tell you the truth...

Incorporating a business provides the entrepreneur with the opportunity to separate their own personal liability from that of their company. The process effectively creates a new legal entity-that is a new, taxpaying corporate body with its own "soul" and presence.

Most people, who live and work in the Caribbean region, have never been formally schooled in money management techniques and strategies in any of the educational institutions.

Although the present rate of change itself is unprecedented, innovations occur at lightening speeds and when you buy something on Monday, it is outdated by Friday. 

One of the main negative effects in the business world, which is highlighted in the entrepreneurship arena, is that of stress. Symptoms like irritability, excessive worry, insomnia and irregular sleeping patterns all lead to the weakening of our ability to cope.