Is there a perfect candidate for starting a profitable business profit center? Does it take some extraordinary background or experience? Is there some elite, inside information that can make it happen? If so, a lot of people would like to know.

As a matter of fact, there is no mysterious inside information or magic formula for starting a profitable business that can earn substantial income for you. And the perfect candidate does not have to be a member of a secret society or elite club that has access to this information.

In reality, there are a lot of regular people succeeding with home-based business enterprises. Probably even people you know, relatives, schoolmates, or friends.

Because anyone is capable of starting a profitable home based business.

You're skeptical... naturally. Maybe you've given it a shot already and been discouraged. Maybe you just read the reports stating that 95% of small businesses don't make it through their critical first 12 months. That's what federal agencies report, and yes, it's a daunting number. Maybe enough to keep you from even trying.

But don't let yourself be discouraged! Take a lesson and some inspiration from history.
Once upon a time a man had a truly great idea.

Somehow he knew it was a great idea, and it's a good thing he believed in himself and was not easily discouraged, because it took him literally thousands of trial efforts to finally make his idea a reality. Thousands.

Have you heard this story? Because the man with the idea was none other than Tom Edison, inventor of the light bulb.

Edison kept going because, as he said, "every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." And he finally succeeded because he told himself, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." It's Edison who made that famous pronouncement that "genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration," and his own accomplishments certainly seem to bear that out.

Thomas Edison found more than 1,000 ways that would work--ideas that have totally changed all our lives. Edison actually held 1,093 patents in the United States and more around the world, for inventing or developing things that millions upon millions of people still benefit from. Most famously, of course, the light bulb (or rather, the first really practical and commercial incandescent bulb), but also the record player, the movie camera, the essential systems for distributing power, and some of the foundational elements of telephone communication.

I hope you caught the magic formula to success, the inside information that just slipped in there. "One percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." What worked for Thomas Edison can work for you too, but don't think you are going to make it if you are not willing to put in the perspiration!

A lot of people will offer to sell you a different magic formula, one that supposedly will make you rich fast without the work. If you buy that, the only one getting rich fast is the person who fooled you. If you fell for that once, don't keep kicking yourself or beating yourself up. Just be sure you learn from your experience. Look at it as Thomas Edison might have, as one of the things that didn't work. And one step closer perhaps to the one that will work.

Don't give up. Be realistic. And accept the fact that you do need that one percent inspiration. But if you have that idea--if that light bulb did go on in your head--from that beginning you can be in control and build something successful--as long as you are willing to put in the other ninety-nine percent as well.