Read this before Quitting your Job! - Kelvin Alaneme
Entrepreneurship is a jungle. As much as "Be your own Boss" is touted as the best thing since sliced bread.
READ THIS BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR JOB. 🎯
Most people won't tell you this - entrepreneurship is a jungle. As much as "Be your own Boss" is touted as the best thing since sliced bread, the reality is that this good feeling lasts a maximum of two days before the reality will hit you hard. Before you sack your Boss aka. quit your day job to launch out on your own, here are five things you need to come to terms with.
1. YOU WILL WORK HARDER THAN AN EMPLOYEE:
If you are starting out as an entrepreneur, most times, putting in 12-hour days is normal. You will work round the clock, just to make barely enough to keep afloat. The first months are usually the hardest - you will need to build clientele, keep your new customers happy and satisfied, try out new things, recruit a team. All these are draining and can be pretty overwhelming. Prepare for it.
2. YOU MAY NOT MAKE MONEY FAST:
As a new business, you may not even make any profits in the first 6 months to 1 year. This is normal. Yes, the goal is to break even as soon as possible, but there is also a high chance this might not happen as fast as you expect. Reality is different from a PowerPoint presentation and pie charts. Life happens. Prepare for the worst. Always ensure you have enough financial runway to tide you over your business winter.
3. YOU DON'T NEED TO QUIT YOUR DAY JOB TO BEGIN YOUR BUSINESS:
Depending on the kind of business you plan on doing, you may not need to quit your day job entirely. Many successful businessmen built their businesses on the side and transitioned fully when it became successful. Your day job is important for two main reasons. The first is providing you sustenance when your business is yet to make money. The second is to provide you a soft landing when your business goes bust. Your beautiful idea may fail to take off as a business. While you are experimenting, having a day job can help fund these experiments and cushion any serious repercussions.
4. YOU MAY NEED TO MULTI-TASK:
At the beginning, you may need to do multiple roles - CEO, customer service, social media manager, etc. Doing these multiple roles saves you costs of hiring staff and conserves your funds which you may not have. A note of warning though - don't handle roles you are not suited for. If you are bad at customer service, you have no business handling the phones unless you want to kill your business faster.
5. YOU WILL NEED TO START SMALL:
Besides a solid customer base and a winning product, the most important thing any new business need is money. Since the business may not be making money yet, the only way to ensure that you have some funds is to cut costs drastically. Run a lean enterprise. Do you really need an office or can you run this from home? Do you really need 50 members of staff? What can you outsource? How can you save money and improve your bottom-line? Start small. This helps keep expenditure under check and will save your business in the long run. Starting small gives room for growth and can make people appreciate your journey even more. It will also help your business stay alive for longer.
Conclusion
I know it is cool to be called an entrepreneur. But that is where the glamour ends. Most entrepreneurs are overworked persons, stretching and pushing, hoping that their business survives the next quarter. Most stay awake, fighting, iterating, innovating, searching for winning products and market fit. It is usually toils, tears, heartbreaks and some triumphs.
If you are not ready for uncertainty, if you are not ready for the chaos that can ensue, if you are not ready for the lonely road of building a business from the scratch, staying in your day job is a very good decision. It provides you the comfort and working environment, without the uncertainty. Your salary comes regularly like clockwork whether the business makes money or not.
Entrepreneurship is a high risk and high reward game. If your head no strong, no put body. 🙏❤️
Acknowledgements
Original post first written here: 👇
©Kelvin Alaneme, 2022.