Level's Former Prison Education Program

How To Start Your Own Business: Prepare To Launch

(4.54 stars) · 1,830 learner reviews

Entrepreneurship can be a rewarding and meaningful path to independence after release from prison. The first guide in Level’s How To Start Your Own Business series for people in prison breaks down the important decisions to make before starting a business. Interactive worksheet questions help sketch out a clarified vision.

This guide was part of Level’s prison education program, which has now ended, and is no longer available. We plan to make our guides available under an open-use license in the future.

What they'll learn:

  • Evaluate and increase your readiness to start a business
  • Understand the trade-offs between having a job and starting a business
  • Learn about product-market fit and how to test your concept with prospective customers
  • Understand the benefits of listening to your customers and continuous improvement
  • Discover the types of businesses that are most likely to succeed
  • Estimate your costs, revenue and break-even point

Guide includes:

Career exploration
Worksheet
Quiz
Goal setting

Schedule

Self-guided - learners complete at their own pace

Guide length

44 pages

Time to complete

~10 hours

Testimonials for this guide:

I had no idea how to go about starting my own business and the information in this guide was very helpful. It provided information on how to conduct research before starting a business and how to plan everything. I want other people to learn how to be entrepreneurs, too, and help create a better society.

- Gabriel, in prison in Pennsylvania

I found your entrepreneurship guide to be very informative, especially to those of us with little knowledge of how to start and maintain a legal business. I learned about unfamiliar terms like product-market fit, unmet needs, buyer persona, ROI, continuous improvement, break-even point and working capital. Thank you.

- Branden, incarcerated in Nevada

I've used this entrepreneurship guide frequently and continue to do so, as I am making a list to track my ideas, cost, etc. It is easy to read and easy to follow. I like that it's almost a step-by-step guide. What Level does is such an inspiration, keep up the amazing work! Thank you for this opportunity.

- Kimberly, incarcerated in Wisconsin