Firstly I want to draw your attention to an excellent article on starting a business by Kathryn Hopkins at the Guardian website - link below. It gives some excellent advice on the nuts and bolts of taking an idea, testing it and running with it.
What it also draws attention to is the risk factor - what happens if you plough your savings into a business and it falls flat on it's ass. With today's economy you can't just say 'ah well' and go and get another job. Saying that - how safe is your job at the moment? Big picture? I'd say there hasn't been a more ideal time to start your own business in the last 15 years than the present time - but do it safely.
Safely? By its very nature starting your own business isn't safe - it's gambling - literally. You take a load of money and place it on your hard work and instincts to win. With luck you succeed and of course there are always safer bets than others. For instance - if you're an accountant setting up your own firm serving small businesses it's a good bet - business has always needed accountants, it has a tried and tested structure and as long as you do your research right chances are it will make a profit. However, if your life-long dream has been to be a magician then the whole profit and loss comes down to a wing and a prayer and your sheer persistence and fight. When I went to my bank manager and said I wanted to start a business supplying flexible work opportunities to parents she looked like I'd just pulled a gun on her. It was outside her knowledge base, it was an unknown and so too risky to place a bet on. It was an idea without a triple A rating from a company that the bankers pay to triple A rate things - I'll stop there before I start to rant.
As it turns out I have that banker to thank for my present circumstances - I am a few weeks away from launching my company with hundreds of parents and companies already in the mix ready to post jobs and fill them - I have absolutely no debt assigned to the company - and a couple of business partners that are as passionate about the company as I am. How did I pull this off? I did it safely.
What do I mean by safely? I mean that I didn't place a bet, I took the risk out of it and replaced the risk with hours of hard work. For the last year and a half I have been paid to do what I know - which is small business - and have advised start-ups on every aspect of their structure, marketing and funding. When I'd finished that for the day I went home and built another page or wrote another script for this website. I had cash coming in but at the same time I was slowly building an asset in the background until I was ready to fully commit and press the button. And that's how you make the break.
Do not make the mistake of just chucking it all in and going for your dreams...your independence. That's a fools methodology. Take it slow and give yourself a second job and focus on the outcome further down the road when you can go for it with a good foundation. Because you might just lose the bet.
This is where hiremyparents can help. We have all sort of flexible jobs on offer, part-time, job share etc. but we also have hundreds of freelance projects available that could see you through to starting your own business. If you're in marketing and recently became a marketing parent and want to spend more time at home then apply for the marketing projects on the job board and build a customer base while being paid. When you feel the time is right send all those companies an email with your new company's logo on it saying you're open for business as a legal entity. They know you and they know your work so you're off to a head-start. If you sent them an email without forming a relationship before-hand you'd have been deleted before they read the subject line.
There is no way to start a business with complete safety - that's not the nature of things - but you can limit the risk by lowering the bet and building a customer base through completing specifically targeted projects in your business to-be's market and forming relationships with the companies that will be your life-blood in the future.
Let me know your comments on this post and anything you'd like me to expand on. hiremyparents isn't just about offering the opportunities for parents to work flexibly but also about supporting them in their endeavours. Let us know what you want and we'll try and deliver the resources you need.
Check out our blog about flexible work for parents
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