Back in the day, the common way to handle the whole marriage thing was to either have an arranged marriage or get one of those matchmaker ladies to hook you up like on Fiddler on the Roof. No so these days. Finding someone you fall in love with and with whom you want to spend your days with is tricky.

Developing a relationship that can lead to marriage requires work, hard work, patience, and sacrifice. Sometimes, I think we treat our futures in much the same was as those in the past treated marriage, we expect someone else, or mere chance, to take care of the dirty work for us.

Not so.

Our futures are entirely in our hands. If we want to realize are dreams and succeed according to our own, personal definition of success we must be will to work, work hard, be patient, and sacrifice. We can’t expect to cruise through school being uninvolved in classes, squeaking by with C’s because we would rather sleep in than go to class, constantly haggle with teachers for better grades we don’t deserve, and somehow expect to have a sweet job waiting for us the second we walk off the graduation podium with our diploma.

If I want to marry someone great who I love, I’ve got to be great and I’ve got to be ready to work at it and sacrifice. If I want to have a great career I love, I have to be great and I have to sacrifice and work as hard as I can.

A few years ago I started getting lots of business ideas, I put a few into practice and one worked, which I am still running today. Soon after my ideas started working, I realized that more and more ideas started coming and some of them were really innovative and clever, but…no matter how clever they were, some of them we’re awful ideas simply because they could never product enough revenue to make it worth it.

A friend of mine started an online business based around a hobby he has a passion for…fly fishing. He had become extremely talented at fly tying. I watched him tie flies one day, it took him about 10 -15 minutes to tie a fly, depending on the type. He sells these flies for $1.25. Supplies cost about $0.25 each. Assuming the best, he is making about $6.00 an hour…less than starting wage at the local grocery store, less than minimum wage in many states.

This example is one of many, some people will get so carried away with the originality and uniqueness of their idea (myself included) they sometimes don’t see the clear flaws in the feasibility of making the business an income or they do see these flaws and choose to ignore them. Many of my ideas have fallen into this category and in the end, as hard as it is, I have to put it in the pile “nifty but not” ideas. So I keep asking myself what makes a great small business idea for a solo-preneur? I came up with a few things:

Repeatability
A product or service that is needed again and again by your customers makes each sale much more than just a single transaction, but the beginning of a series of transactions as long as you can keep the customer.

Ability to Be Automated
The ability to fulfill orders with as little human effort as possible allows you to spend time marketing and working on the products and business, not simply trying to keep up with current orders.

Good Price per Time
So what if you sell a product for $200 if it takes you two days to fulfill the order. A $5 product may not be a bad thing if it takes you 2 minutes to get your customer their product.

Parallel to Your Passion
No matter how great a business pays, you can get burned out quickly if you are doing something you really don’t enjoy. A business that is related to something you love helps you enjoy working, stay innovative, and understand your customers’ needs.

Large Target Market
Its great if your city needs a widget, but what about when they all buy one? Do people all over your state, country, or the world need the same thing? The larger the target market, the more you can grow your business.

What would you add to this list?