There are things you can do to improve your chances of success both before and after you make the entrepreneurial leap. Here are a few:

• Cut Spending to a Bare-Minimum. Learn how to live frugally (even if you don’t want to start living like that right now). In a startup life, a lot of times you have to figure out ways to cut down spending to improve your survival rate. Learn how you can do that now. If you have figured out how to live 12-18 months without a paycheck, you are on your way.
• Build Networks. Keep meeting people on local entrepreneurship meetups and other events. You never know who among those will give you the lifeline at the right time.
• Learn Sales and Marketing. Your startup’s future depends on it. You just can’t think that you will hire someone who will automatically sell stuff for you.
• Build your savings. The one who has gold in his pockets sets the rules in a startup.
• Figure out the top 5 things you want to do in your life and do it NOW (if you can). In a startup life, you won’t have time to do them. By doing them before, you will have less regrets starting up on your own. You can always convince yourself that you did those things that many of your peers (who are still making that hefty salary) have not done.

“It is hard to completely prepare yourself for the journey.” 

• Do something adventurous (such as hike the Grand canyon, a 5-day camping in Central America or volunteering in Africa). You will learn teamwork, withstanding pain and taking the right level of risks. I know many who use their hiking/camping lessons in startups.
• Meet family, friends and attend parties. After you start up, you will get in your bunker and meet people only when they can generate a business lead. You won’t have any time for the personal life you had before.
• Mentally prepare yourself and your spouse (if you are married) to look for the long term gains to overlook the short-term pains. The spouse needs to be strong to enable you to run your business.
• Ask yourself if you are really in it for the money. If yes, you will be disappointed as statistically you will make a lot less than what you could in a big corp. On the other hand, if you are in it for creativity, satisfaction and adventure, you will be able to withstand the long pause without funding.
• Learn to collaborate, work as a team. If you play team sports you probably have understood the importance of team collaboration. However, if you have not taken up any team activities, then it is time to focus into this. In businesses, you have a highly diversified set of people – age, gender, race etc. Learning to collaborate with people from all walks of life is extremely important skill.
• Have no opinions, learn to listen. If you are highly opinionated it’s hard to collaborate. While having strong preference is very useful in product design, it may be detrimental to team building. Learning to listen to people regardless of your personal opinion helps a lot in entrepreneurship.
• Form a small group of like-minded friends and build something working with a mentor. Nothing beats hands-on learning. Find a mentor and see if you can meet regularly with a group to talk about your business.
• Communicate to others. Verbal and written communication are two of the most important skills you would need to build businesses. Listen to your role models share ideas, present at TED Talks. They have acquired these skills over their lifetime.
• Study subjects you’ll need to understand. CEOs need to have a good understanding of various functions within their business (e.g. accounting, marketing, human resources). There are lot of materials available to teach fundamentals of these functional areas.

Finally remember that reading a swimming book is very different from getting into the water. No amount of reading books will actually prepare you for what you are going to face. Get ready to embrace the fun and unpredictable turns.