Entrepreneurial Bone

I have a genetic flaw.  You see, I am surrounded by folks who have an entrepreneurial bone.  But I don't have one.  I have a sister and brother in-law who renovate and rent houses, along with 3 co-workers who do the same.  I had a mom who had her own cleaning business and a niece who does the same.  I have parent in-laws who own their sewing business (www.alterationscorner.com).  My brother is starting a knife and scissors sharpening business (contact me, if you have some knives that you need to have sharpened).  And I have a wife who wants desperately to start her own business.  She has considered a baking business, primarily a cheesecake baking business.

But I am stuck.  Every time I have an idea to start a business or to support my wife's business, I think things like, "ya, that will never work."  The reality is that they probably will work... in fact, I'd put my wife's cheesecakes against the ones at The Cheesecake Factory any day.  I once started the process of creating a PC repair and tech support business.  I had everything in place... the business name, the business was registered and all the other stuff that you need to do to start a business.  But I never opened for business.

I tinker with website design.  I'm not great at it, but I have fun doing it.  Currently, I manage the site for my in-laws sewing business and the site for our Homeschool Co-op (www.wchscoop.org).  And I plan to host a site for my brother's sharpening service (I will be signing up after I post this blog, but I'm thinking www.parkinssharpeningservice.com if it is available).  I maintain these sites free of charge.  Maybe I should get serious about it and start that as my business.  Sure these sites that I manage aren't spectacular sites, but I've created them while teaching myself some fundamentals of new (new to me) technologies like PHP, VBScript and Javascript.  My mother in-law gets compliments on her website all the time.

Maybe I should throw more support behind my wife's entrepreneurial ideas.  Why am I so risk averse?  Am I afraid of failing?  I know well that the only sure way to not succeed is to not try.

Maybe I need a bone transplant.