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Read "My Personal MBA". It's a great book to learn the ins and outs of running a business.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

Talk to knowledgeable people, preferably other business owners about your startup. Ask for honest feedback.

Talk to potential customers to be sure you've got something. If possible get them to sign up or buy your product before you actually start the business. Lots of people will promise to do business with you and not follow through once the business is up and running, so keep that in mind too.

Best of luck to you!

As others have mentioned, spending time with people at your company to cross train and learn how your company does things will be invaluable.

That said, I got an MBA. The curriculum where I went had a strong focus on partnering with your business folks. For instance, the finance course had me working with my company's actual financials so that I not only learned the finance concepts in the course, I learned how they applied to my company. That worked out really well for me because I'm a hands on learner and when I can immediately apply new knowledge I'm more likely to retain it.

I've also heard really good things about the book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, though I haven't read it myself.

Oh man. It's a long journey from "no clue" to "men's suits" even without the business aspect. To get started in garment sewing, I'd recommend starting with aprons and then pajama pants. Both are those are simple, use cheap fabrics, and require you to learn the techniques you'll use in more advanced sewing - and you can still wear them around the house, even if they turn out embarrassingly bad. (The first few probably will suck pretty bad!) You can also experiment on those forms with buttons, zippers, elastic, embroidery, lots of design elements you'll need for other garments.

The name of the game in this learning cycle is "fail faster". If you work on a more complex garment (even in the muslin stage) you'll be significantly time-invested before you see how it's turning out. You can make an apron or some PJ pants in an afternoon. Almost-instant addicting gratification and you can see where you need more practice quickly.

On the business side, becoming a recognized brand happens via marketing. You should read The Personal MBA as a primer on business in general. I work for an ad agency, and I've worked on fashion brands - it's tough to make it in fashion, whether it's fast fashion or designer. A lot of people want to "become recognized", it's a high-competition field. Not saying you shouldn't go for it, just be realistic that "recognized brand" does not happen overnight (or cheaply).

Try "the Personal MBA" http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434453844&sr=8-1&keywords=the+personal+mba .

It covers several aspects of starting and running a business. It does not go in depth. But for an introduction its a good book, nice read too.

Recommended reading

Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.

Entrepreneur Mindset

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO

Business and Marketing

These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. High level practical information. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, seems like he stretches it out. But one of the few business authors who gets into nuts and bolts and not just rah rah. I would highly recommend.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI

Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs

This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Inspired by LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)

For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/

Other links 21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000

E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.

https://www.nickkolenda.com/

A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.

https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

This book discusses platform or marketplace apps, especially networking apps like Uber for x or dating apps. A must read for anyone thinking about attempting any kind of similar online platform.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2

Also

http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/

A good page of links

http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/

For Restaurants

http://www.restaurantowner.com

Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.

https://www.restaurantmastering.com

http://www.typsy.com

Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.

Dealing with delivery aggregators

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/

The bigger problem is the first one - getting a good grounding in Marketing, as the fundamentals don't really change although the media does. Social media marketing is Marketing, and follows many of the same principles.

Would recommend taking a look at Josh Kaufman's book The Personal MBA (Amazon) and here's his list of 99 books from his website of which the marketing books listed there is a very good place to start.

You can basically waste a TON of time on the plethora of so-called 'social media marketing experts' who are experts at selling to others social media marketing 'secrets'. It's a bit of old-fashioned hucksterism that makes them a lot of money (true) but may not be all that worthwhile (unless you want to sell social media secrets for the future career).

As a professional marketer myself, having been in many roles in Marketing (and outside sales and product development), you've got to have a foundation to build on.

Even consider taking a MOOC from a reputable place on Marketing, it's a discipline of study for good reason, and then see how the social media part fits into it.

In my own situation, Large Mega Corp the revenue from Social Media is on the order of 1% (we track such things), while the web is on the order of 15%. We still have a direct sales force (we are B2B) and have events and exhibit at conferences; I have no illusions about all the marketing that needs to be done offline (where still many of our customers are).

Just my $0.02, FWIW.

Not a course/boot camp, but there's this book: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1591845572/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_eTEbGbHPJJZNF

I'll sometimes scroll through locked threads to see if there are loose ends to tie up. This is one of them...

_____

A quick analysis:

Full-time work is 2,080 hours/year. Take out two weeks for holiday, you have 2,000 hours/year remaining.

You get this:

$12.75/hour x 2,000 hours/year = $25,500/year

	Gross Wages	Benefits?
Current Work	~$26,000/year	None
Minimum Wage Alternative in MA @ $12.75/hr	~$25,500/year	Yes (or very likely)

Please take any financial arguments off the table for job and career conversations? The math doesn't support it.

A full-time minimum wage job in Massachusetts would give some stability. Yes, there is the valid concern of how you feel about the work -- but know that any job of this sort would be part of a larger plan to get something better within a few months to a year-ish.

It is a temporary job, not a career.

But how to get start a path towards that career? How does this fit in?...

I can easily see how your narrative would become:

>-- Worked in direct-to-consumer sales for a number of years...
>
>-- Wanted something more...
>
>-- Decided what "something more" as a career looked like...
>
>-- Took a low-stress job to provide stability while developing skills necessary to transition careers...
>
>-- Interviewed for entry-level office job, and when asked, "Tell me about what you've been up to the last few years?", you just let the above story tell itself.

To work, all you'd have to do to uphold your end of this narrative is actively develop skills while you have that low-stress job. (e.x. Something like a MS Office Suite certification would help your resume stand out, and that's fairly ease to do in your off-hours in <1h day.)

And that sort of initiative is an easy sell towards virtually any entry-level office position you want, well, anywhere.

. . . . .

N.B. Specific skills depend on the industry you're interested entering. But really, like my other comment about books:

If I were starting over and wanting to start a career in accounting/finance, one of the first things I'd do is look up the top three "must read classic texts", buy used copies of each, and read all three _before_ sending out even my first application.

You'll learn the jargon, history, and common issues necessary to make you be taken as a serious candidate. No need to sit through 4 semesters when there will be on-the-job training anyways...

In this vein...here is another text for you. Used copies are less than $6.00. Anyone who can quote the concepts will ace almost any 1st round interview.

You shared a lot of information and I have just a few thoughts for your consideration. These are in no particular order. These more focus on the advice-guidance. I am in a technical field and though I lead some strategically, I'm more a technical advisor than director.

Identify why you want the degree. I offer this piece of advice to anyone seeking a degree. Is it for the knowledge-expertise (which you can obtain with research & practice), the contacts (which you can obtain through networking-socialization), the structure of the degree work-study, or for some “credential” or “authenticity?” I ask this because in America (my country), tuition, resources, and books can be… costly. (Consider a book like this that might provide summary information that would lead you to the expertise, “The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business,” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591845572/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_9W8FDbHK047NT )
Cozy up to those two law seniors. Network them and their contacts. This will open up job possibilities, new perspectives, new contacts, and new knowledge-expertise.
Consider rather than “finding” a job or role that matches your vision, that you create your job or role. Immediately after digesting your post, the easy thought of “independent strategic legal consultant” popped into my head. I’m uncertain on the how just yet, but I’m certain there are plenty of opportunities around just in small-mid sized corporations. If Indian corporations are similar to American, a law firm will represent most of the larger ones.
Is it possible that you could also flex (assert?) your current role – department head and department roles and responsibilities to either carry you during this transition of finding a new job/role or grow into that new role?
Boredom will happen in almost all corporate, firm, or hierarchical organization type jobs, not just your current one. Routine diligence, repetitive work, are not areas we excel at, especially if the tasks have been mastered. There’s no challenge. You might have to trick yourself to look for other challenges outside of those routine tasks. For instance, what about your social interactions within the job? Or long term plans to move/shape the role/department to your vision.

I hope they help and good luck.

I don't know if it's the link or the website, but I get a redirection...not the best for thrusting a website.

Wordpress (.org) is great just find a better theme and browse the plugins. for example Louis vuitton is running on wordpress. There is a lot of multinationals using wordpress. And do the updates !!! you're using wordpress 4.5.4, the last version is 4.7 You need a theme with a e-commerce integrated in it and a SSL certificate in order to sell; I didn't get what you want to sell btw.

Also I hope you have a backup of your website!

Online Business query on youtube - Freemium is the trend you can find a lot of free tutorial to learn the basics of business on youtube.

Next I recommend some readings (not affiliate): -The personnal MBA - Josh Kaufman -Growth Hacker Marketing - Ryan Holiday - This blog on growth hacking: https://www.hackisition.com/

I am in a similar situation. I have spent my summers working for my family business. I worked at the assembly, warehouse, R&D you name it. I think its important to understand the people that you work with, understand their day-to-day jobs and really know your company.

Start with the product, learn every detail of the process it goes through to become a final product. You will also build a good relationship with your workers that is important too.

Once you feel confident, dive into management. Accountants and marketing people are the backbone of the business. Know what they are doing, their strategies. Learn how financing works in the company and who you are selling your products. Make some cold-calls to new customers, learn the trick of the trade.

Only once you really know how things work, set a goal! Say "I will grow this company 2 times the size it is today!" - its easier said than done.

If you didnt receive a former education in business, here are my top sources where I learnt a lot:

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473345589&sr=8-1&keywords=personal+mba

https://www.amazon.com/HBR%C2%92s-Must-Reads-Boxed-Books/dp/1422184056/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473345608&sr=8-2&keywords=HBR+essentials

These books wont tell you how to run your grandfather's business but they will tell you what a business is/does and how you can steer it. The rest is creativity, hard work and vision.

Hope this helps!

Here are two great books to start with:

Personal MBA - https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Entreleadership - https://www.amazon.com/EntreLeadership-Practical-Business-Wisdom-Trenches/dp/1451617852/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466870653&sr=1-1&keywords=entreleadership+dave+ramsey

There's a book you might find useful - The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business http://www.amazon.com/The-Personal-MBA-Master-Business/dp/1591845572

GW1+GW2 Learning Part 1

I do attribute, almost entirely, all my business knowledge, to guild wars 1 and guild wars 2 (I only took macro-economics junior year high school, marketing in senior year university, that's it). It was truly almost all self taught in a sandbox. My idea brain as well. Marketing. Insider trading. Investment. Social Media. SEO. Running a business. Politics. Hiring payroll. IP theft from koreans. Franchising. Determining MVP for a dungeon route. Determining business oppurtunities analytics.
Continued. Bait and scamming, I learned it by getting scammed myself then doing it myself to a poor sap with a pre-sear crystalline sword. Then, geographical selling points, Ascalon vs Lions arch. Seasonal Goods. Supply and Demand trends, predictive economics on what the general population thinks on the forum influencing other people.
Developing rating criteria metrics that no one else had. Catalyzing a virtual great depression, and learning to capitalize on the pros of it, like the housing market. Learning about services and goods, and capitalist investment of equipment (Characters, buying gear, special items) to run said things, as well as the profits/hours and Return on investment. I learned about fast farming techniques, I learned about statistics, I learned about the chinese slave market, I learned about botting.
I learned how to be an economics-ish teacher in guild wars 1. I taught one of my students about virtual economies, after I catalyzed and caused one to break, and was a 0.1% at that point, tutored him for about 5 hours on what you can learn from game economies. All science. That was in eye of the north, in the Hall of Monuments, I remember. I taught him bomb farming too, I think he leaked it
Anyways, I also taught myself leadership in guild wars 1. I theorycrafted many builds. I also learned how to edit wiki pages here too, and was first exposed to HTML when i edited and submitted my builds, but everyone thought it was horse shit, because they used only 3 metrics, I used about 20, and did it fairly scientifically too, I knew my builds were better. Granted no one knew about them.
Also, I learned about nerfing and buffing. Specultative trading. In guild wars 1, I learned the effects of PR on stock trading as well, kind of like today. In guild wars 2, I learned what it was like being famous. Also, how illegal insider trading works. And how to run a youtube channel, how to GTD deal with fanmail. How to write a commentary script like Husky does and in sports channels, its not easy for me. I learned about video editing, social media marketing.
In guild wars 2, I learned about guerilla marketing through different channel mediums such as the forum. I learned about writing my first wordpress site myself, and how to use a content management system and admin to make it. I learned how relevant my searches of me were using unbiased searches on my character name excala / elementalist, and I learned what SEO was, when I tried searching something unrelated, like Guilds but came up with my results first. Since my cookies on my browser and googles data greatly influenced my searches
In guild wars 2, I also was able to eventually fight off depression. I also, learned the basics of book writing too. I also tried running my own guild, but failed, because I didn't care much about it, despite everyone really wanting me too, like a kickstarter project. I also, failed to outsource graphical design properly too, its why I know how to do it and relate to people who do it for a living. I also, learned about copyright music too, Germany always banned my video music first, it was just automated.

GW1+GW2 Learning Part 2

And I learned about military tactics in World vs World vs World. I learned how to play dirty and mind-read people using inception and predictive analytics, similarly to how google knows what you will type when you type part of it in the omnibox. I learned how to operate a siege. I learned how to deal with riot mongering and keeping maggots in line. I learned how to troll a 50 man group solo, and I won a 50v1 (30 ran and got bored, 20 died, did war of attrition using cheap almost-exploitive game items). I did some legendary things there, I have never seen anyone play like me in any video game before, and people have stated that as well
Also, I learned how to conduct research. In guild wars 2, there was lots of lacking data on skill sets. I learned how thoroughly test them in the PvP arena with constants ( skill power and stats items) and independent variables (like my skill level I think, how I handle different situations, as well as overall build) and dependent variables (maximized DPS vs tankiness)
I learned about API's in guild wars 2, by looking at fanmade sites like dungeon timers, and gw2spidy.net for looking at crafting materials (basically real life stock) and there fluctuations on the time.
I learned alpha game testing in a AAA game when a fan invited me into the alpha server. Did insider trading like this. Also, I did do some alpha testing, looked at alpha testing forum, broke some shit, and did at some points provide next to no feedback, but still, I alpha tested shit, that's what matters.
I learned how to theorycraft -ish pseudo correctly. I learned that people just repeat the same pseudo bro science all the time, I truly did not know if my theories were correct, but I learned to test every fucking possibly potential theory I made up as I could. Guild wars 1 taught me how to theorycraft with just 8 skills, guild wars 2 was more controlled, it was more stat analysis anyways. https://daphoenix555.wordpress.com/ .
Anyways, I learned what it was like to be a supposed expert in a specific niche field too. Like in real life, how experts on TV channels deal with interviews, I also had to deal with a fair share of potential sponsorships that I completely ignored, because I knew it was going to waste my time, from guild wars 1.
See, the shit I learned in guildwars1+guild wars 2 far outweighed anything else despite I spent less time total in those 2 games than elsewhere. I wonder, is there something to be learned about my data, my ancedotal experiences growing up, and the future of learning in general for learning business skills, kids , etc?
The thing is, the reason why my learning was so memorable, is because I did it almost entirely on my own, without any help or assistance for the most part. I was the mentor in almost every instance, all my friends in gaming looked to me for advice, sometimes I'd bounce ideas, but I was the expert most of the time. Plus, the thing is, Can this be replicated in todays society?

GW1+GW2 Learning Part 3

The thing is, only so many people can gain these skills in MMO, not everyone can be a 0.1% or most famous Its natural selection in its own ways. A great study to look at, would be people who learned stock trade investments playing the WoW auction house. Wow this guy sounds a lot like me : https://joshkaufman.net/everything-i-know-about-business-i-learned-from-world-of-warcraft/ .
Strange, I feel like i am going in this guys footsteps. http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459997439&sr=1-1&keywords=personal+MBA . He wrote a book, maybe I should read it. But I read these MBA books, and I just think to myself "well fuck, I knew way more about this book than the book wrote about"
Strangely, I feel like I already possess an MBA and a BS business degree, but in paper, it doesn't show anything, not even a minor in business. I did go through 35 of harvards MBA courses, and can confidently say I know 17ish of the courses topic to probably almost mastery level (There's another fucking 80 I can see if i know as well), based on my past experiences. And its 20 credits to have an MBA. Granted, I need to dig a little more digging there.
I mean fuck, I learn from fucking advanced pricing topics of all things. Yes I know my financing blows, that's because I haven't had real oppurtunities to really employ too many of them, and I seriously can't learn angel investment and asset acquisition with the shit resources I have on hand either, but everything else, I know accounting, I learned it on lynda.com, I learned it as a treasurer in my 4 years of working through an organization,, through leadership as president n shits like that. Having to educate myself on managing a bank account, because parents didnt help me there - I convinced a tech support person at my bank to give me a 2 hour overview, r/personalfinance style. I know sad right? Maybe I just have hard times learning from my parents.

END 10 PM, 4/6/16

I found a lot of value in The Personal MBA. Sit down with it some afternoon and it'll help you decide what path to take.

A nice broad crash course is The Personal MBA. I wouldn't say it's in-depth, but a good overview of a wide range of concepts.

There are books like <em>The Personal MBA</em> and free online courses from schools like Wharton (the courses are free but getting a certificate isn't).

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What is Reddit's opinion of The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business? From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

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18 reviews of this product found across Reddit:

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What is Reddit's opinion of The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments