One of the most daunting moments of the journey to becoming an entrepreneur actually occurs before the startup process of a business begins. It’s when you have to decide to leave a secure job and walk away from a guaranteed salary in hopes of finding success with your new business idea. It’s the first of many challenges you have to deal with along the way.
From tech stars to graphic designers to life coaches, the affliction seems deep-rooted and unprejudiced. Ambitious, inspired entrepreneurs find themselves stuck in their traditional 9 to 5s because they don’t know when to cut the cord. Even the sideline business ventures ruin relationships, become energy-suckers, and money-wasters. Some budding visionaries experience burn out and start agonizing because of their unfulfilled potential.
Of course, leaving something predictable and steady will always be a hard decision to make. Entrepreneurs, though, have one thing in common – the desire to become their own boss. Maybe you have it too, but you still can’t find an answer to the common question – “Should I quit my job?”
To help you out, here are seven signs that you should finally call it quits and start a business:
If you have been working full-time and spend only evenings and weekends to work on your venture, then that’s a fantastic feat. However, it’s nearly impossible to handle the work required for your business to make money for you and create long-term sustainability and growth with that arrangement. It’s also difficult to hire people, train them, and be a responsive and reliable leader when you have to work on something else throughout the day.
While it’s true that you can always make money, time will be a finite resource. And, at some point, you’ll realize that you’re missing the golden opportunity to scale up only because you don’t have enough time to devote to it.
When you finally hit the point where you don’t have the time for all the things you want, then it’s an indication that you’re at least partially ready to take the next step.
It will always be up to you to change your current situation if you aren’t happy with it anymore. Yes, it may take a few months or years for you to finally implement the change, but always remember that no one else will do it for you. The best thing to do is to come up with a plan, understand your financials, set and define your goals, and take action to move forward. When you feel ready to leave your job and focus on starting a business, do it, don’t let yourself get stuck in a situation that’s no longer fulfilling.
In some professions, moving up the chain of command will always be difficult. It’s even utterly non-existent in others.
If you think that you don’t have a chance to get a promotion and you can’t use your skills to their full potential, then it should be time for you to promote yourself and become the CEO of your own company.
You can’t let your quality skills go to waste; there’s no point in doing that.
No one can deny that money is one significant driving factor for entrepreneurs, but it shouldn’t be your only end goal.
You might find starting a business very difficult when you’re only going to be in it for the money. It’s true since you might not be as interested or willing to learn from creative criticism to help you in improving your vision.
So, if you got a startup idea that you’d be happy and passionate to follow through with, without paying attention to the profit side of things, then write your letter of resignation now.
Aside from the desire to become their own boss, many successful startup entrepreneurs get to where they are now because they genuinely want to show the world that they can be the best at what they do. It’s nearly impossible for you to achieve that if you’re still stuck with your 9-5 job.
Take a look at your potential competitors and study how they have succeeded from the ground up. Use their strategies as a benchmark in carving your own success.
When you have successfully found an existing market that demands a solution for an unsolved problem, creating a service or product that effectively addresses the issue will lead you on the pathway to success. It doesn’t only limit the number of other businesses that you have to compete with early on, but also help you identify and reach your target consumers easily.
Once you have identified a gap in the market, don’t hesitate to leave your job and take the leap.
While your business will be profitable in an ideal setting, you still need to ensure that you have enough to support yourself until it really starts to take off. That’s the reason why you need to understand how much you really require to live and how long it will realistically take until your startup begins to turn out enough of a profit as a livable salary for yourself.
It’s important to have a sense of your total spending every month and how it would break down into general categories like fun, food, and transportation, among other things. It’s also worth considering the ways on how you may need to implement some lifestyle changes to make your dream business work. Once you already have all of these sorted out, you may already confidently quit your current job.
Diving into something unknown will always be an incredibly tough decision to make. Not everyone gets thrilled about having to endure a volatile cash flow or paying for health insurance themselves despite the dream of forging his/her own path. However, if you know deep down that you want to get your business idea off the ground, then it’s time to look at the signs above and push through the challenges ahead to make it happen.
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