That’s what I used to fear…

…until I figured out how to start executing.

I’m R.C. Thornton, and just a year ago, I was a graduate student 6 months away from graduation.  Like many people, I knew my true calling in life was entrepreneurship: being my own boss, living my life the way I wanted, and making money doing something I enjoyed.

But, like most people who dreamed of doing something entrepreneurial with their lives, I was scared stiff.

I thought I wasn’t smart enough to be successful (in my mind, compared to other successful entrepreneurs I knew, I was significantly less experienced, and less smart).

I didn’t have any great startup ideas, and I didn’t know how to come up with one…frankly, I was completely clueless, and that drove my confidence into the ground.

I figured I’d “goof it all up”, and lose my money, time, and pride in the process.

Maybe you can relate to how frustrating this felt: I knew what I wanted to do, but I was too afraid to do it.  The consequence of that is simple: I’d go get a job somewhere, doing something that I hated.

“Entrepreneurship” seemed like this great mystery box…an alchemy that only the smartest, most-focused, and luckiest of mankind would ever be able to be successful at.

A few months before graduation, I had a revelation.

In March before graduation, I was talking with an old friend, complaining about how much graduation would suck because that would signify the beginning of my career in something I knew I would hate.

Why not just say “screw you” to following the path-most-traveled, and try to start a company instead?

Instead of being afraid because I was clueless, why not embrace my cluelessness?  Why not devote the months after graduation to learning about business and entrepreneurship, and developing a skillset in something I actually cared about?

This went against everything I’d ever been taught in life…

…but I knew my happiness depended on it.

And it occured to me–for the first time ever–that, just maybe, entrepreneurship wasn’t an alchemy-style magic: maybe it was a skillset I could, through trial and error, learn and perfect.

Well, it seemed like a good idea.  So I decided to take the plunge.

Fast forward to today.  It’s been a terrific adventure.

Today, I’m fully embarked on an adventure that’s been beyond my wildest dreams.

I’ve had major victories.

I’ve had stinging failures.

And I’ve learned–in 8 months–more than I’d learned in my 5 years of college.

I started a venture, Focosos, developing software for academic research.  I have a team of 5 programmers working with me (NB I am not a programmer; I just managed to recruit some to help me .)  We’re currently doing beta testing, and looking forward to a launch around May 2013.

I’m working on an iPhone case that will launch on Kickstarter called FusionCase.  That’ll be on Kickstarter in early 2013.

I’ve been successful because I learned the biggest secret EVER of entrepreneurship

It’s a secret so simple, yet so elusive that almost nobody understands it:

Me

It’s something I can teach you.  It’s something you can learn.  If you put the time into mastering the skillset that is starting a company, you can do it too.

I also realized that if I had spent more time researching, I could have made a lot fewer mistakes and learned a lot faster.  That’s why I write here: to help you learn fast, and avoid the mistakes I made.

8 months later, something I never would have believed in the slightest a year ago is something that I know is 100% true for everyone:

You can live the life you want.  You can work for yourself.  You can make money doing something you enjoy…and you can run your own company, be it anything from a side project to a full-fledged tech startup.

It’s a matter of learning the skillset of entrepreneurship.

Now that I’ve learned the secret, I can teach it to you too.

My niche is helping first-time would-be and current entrepreneurs launch their companies.

The problem with a lot of articles about entrepreneurship is that they’re too “pie-in-the-sky”.  An article about raising Series A funding or hiring key employees is completely useless to someone trying who is still stuck on coming up with a good business idea.

Because I’ve just gone through all of this myself, the “feeling” of struggling to learn the skillset necessary to start and launch is still fresh in my mind; that puts me in a perfect spot to teach it to you.