Starting a business is something a dream for most of us. However, we are often worried about uncertainties over income from a business. This translates as reluctance to leave a full-time job. Most successful entrepreneurs will testify that you can start a business while working a fulltime job.
Facts & Figures
Over 300 million startups and new businesses open every year around the world, according to various sources, based on Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) reports. One-third of these are tech-based and cater to specialized industries. Others are general businesses that cater to ordinary people. Most of these new businesses are usually online.
Advantages of Online Business
New entrepreneurs opt for online businesses for one main reason: lack of sufficient time to manage the enterprise. Obviously, you require time to operate the new business. For working women and men, this is possible only after office or work hours.
Online businesses offer another distinct advantage: your business remains open even while you are busy at work or asleep.
Follow these 10 simple steps if you intend to start a business while working a fulltime job, here are 10 easy steps to follow.
10 Steps to Start Business while Working
Getting down to brass tacks, here are 10 simple steps to start a business while working. You can adapt these steps depending upon your location and nature of the business.
Know Your Market
Studying the market is most important before starting a business while working fulltime. Understandably, it requires extra efforts and time. There is no point in launching a business where several competitors are already present in the market: you will waste time and money to outmatch them.
Identify how your business is unique and why would people become customers. Unfortunately, most new startups and businesses are copycats of existing and well-established companies. Instead, use any of the several innovative business ideas you can find online. They stand better chances of success.
Identify Your Passions
Surely, you will require specific skills to start a business. These need not be related to your fulltime work. In fact, if you have a passion for something and are good at it, put these skills to work for your business while working fulltime.
Setting up a business that matches your passion or hobbies can prove truly refreshing. It takes away your mind from the stress of a fulltime job and allows you to enjoy the free time you get after work. Also, you can rapidly innovate products or services. A passion-based business stands better chances of success than one that merely aims at making money.
Opt for Online Business
Projections suggest global ecommerce will cross the US$24.3 trillion mark by 2025. This is a very good reason why you should opt for an online business. The Internet is proliferating rapidly worldwide. Smartphone prices are also dropping sharply. This means we can soon expect more online shopping from mobile devices.
An online business remains open round the clock throughout the year. This means you can make money even while busy working fulltime job or asleep. An online business can be operated even while traveling or on holiday.
Use Blogs and Vlogs
Blogs and Vlogs (video blogs) are a great way to market your business for free. Create a blog website that supports your business. You can do so free from any blogging website or buy a great domain name, hosting and other essentials.
Make excellent videos about your business and post them on YouTube. Opening a YouTube channel is free. Further, a blog and vlog are also sources of income. Signup for Google Ads. This enables you to earn a side income too. Google displays ads on your blog and vlog and pays you whenever anyone clicks on them.
Offer Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a system that allows bloggers and owners of websites to promote your products. They will provide links to your business from their blogs and websites. For the service, you have to pay a small commission whenever anyone makes a purchase using their affiliate links.
Affiliate marketing saves you a lot of expense and headache of promoting your business solo. Affiliates do the work while you are busy at fulltime work.
Outsource Stressful Work
When you start a business while working fulltime, it is best to outsource all stressful tasks. And outsource work where you lack the necessary skills. Outsourcing enables you to better utilize time for important functions of the business without hampering your fulltime job. And it eliminates the need to acquire new skills that can be tough to learn.
However, you need to outsource tasks with astuteness. Outsourcing can prove expensive and add to the operational costs of a new business.
Deploy Social Media
The largest corporations of the world are also active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest among other social media platforms. The reason: social media has a very broad reach worldwide. Facebook alone has over 2.32 billion subscribers- or about a third of the estimated population of 7.7 billion people living on Planet Earth.
Using social media has several distinct advantages and is an important step to start a business while working fulltime. Facebook, for example, allows you to get vital feedback from customers. It allows you to share product or service updates rapidly. You can also use Facebook to sell your stuff.
Avoid Conflict of Interest
This relates to Step-2 about starting a business based upon your passions or hobby. Try and avoid starting a business that uses the same skills you utilize for a fulltime job. Often, employers have a clause that bar employees from launching independent enterprises that rival their businesses.
Conflict of interest does not serve your purpose. It can land you in serious legal problems if an employer finds you are running a competing side business. You can lose the fulltime job despite needing it to meet living and other expenses.
Create a Corpus Fund
Borrowing money from banks, credit unions and other lenders to open a side business can severely dent your credit score. Needing extra money is imminent during the initial days of the business. To overcome the cash shortage, create an excellent corpus fund.
You can stash away some portion from profits aside or invest it in various savings schemes to earn interest. This corpus fund will prove useful should you need money suddenly. You need notrush to lenders.
Never Quit Fulltime Job
And finally, never quit your fulltime job. At least till your business is very well established and flourishing. You may have to continue working fulltime for two or more years before giving up the job in favor of your own business.
A fulltime job guarantees income and helps maintain a steady lifestyle. Rushing to quit for any reason can land you in psychological and financial doldrums. Quit only when your business has reached that critical stage where it can sustain your lifestyle and yet earn decent profits.
In Conclusion
You can also depute family members to run the business if necessary while you are busy with fulltime job. Remember, a side business is not something to be taken lightly.
Your business can well prove to be the bridge between ordinary, mundane lifestyle or, that of a successful entrepreneur with high net worth. These 10 simple steps might prove useful when you plan to start a business while working fulltime.
