My suggestion is for you to is to:

1.) get a job, get relevant working experience
2.) take night classes to upgrade your education foundation
3.) build up your savings to be able to run the business expenses + your living expenses (including family expenses) for at least 6 months

then consider starting up a business. Without a firm foundation, you will lose all your money and be worse off than you started.

Let it be known here that I started my first business on 21 May 1996, just after my GCE O Levels. I made over half a million SGD in revenue within the 2nd year and nearly went bankrupt the following year. And for the record, I was a GCE N level student, dropped out of Polytechnic after 1 year before finishing my diploma in another polytechnic 3 years later, so do not associate me with some experience-less university graduate.

I speak from experience, both from my own and from the various startups that I look after and invest in these days that a fundamental education and life/work experience is absolutely essential to business success. If you expect a baby to write you an essay in quantum physics, can it? Or ask a person who never rode a motorbike to ride a Hayabusa at Sepang? It all takes baby steps to succeed in business and life.

Taking CALCULATED risk is the key, not stupid risks for the sake of taking them by doing business when 1.) you have no experience and 2.) you hardly have enough capital to start.

This post has been edited by nicholaschan: Feb 12 2008, 12:12 AM

One of the best answers in this thread.