11 Tips For Starting A Business While Working Full-Time

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11 Tips For Starting A Business While Working Full-Time

This is a guest post by Nathan Chan.

Many entrepreneurs, working hard to launch a business, have to contend with another force—their day job. It’s hard to start a business while working full-time, but it can be done. How do I know?

I did it. I started Foundr Magazine, a publication filled with actionable advice for young entrepreneurs, while working full-time in IT. In this post, I’ll let you in on 11 things that helped me launch my business and ditch the 9-to-5.

1. Want It Bad Enough

You can’t just talk about it—you must really want it. People make a lot of excuses for why they haven’t gotten serious about their business idea yet, but your excuses get you nowhere.

A cool trick that helped me was to view my first business as a “passion project”—it took the serious weight away. And it was a passion project, because I wanted it so badly!

2. Commit to Showing Up Every Day

You absolutely must forge a habit of working on your business every day—that’s every single day, without fail.

That’s not as hard as it sounds. People (should) brush their teeth every morning and night. Developing your business and brushing your teeth should be the same thing: an unquestioned routine.

Here’s my tip: start off each day by working 30 minutes on your project.

3. Know That Research Isn’t Time Spent

The web has so many amazing resources—guides, tutorials, stories, statistics—but don’t use “research” as an excuse to procrastinate. Since you’re working full-time, you need to make full use of the time you do have.

You need to accept that research, while great, is not time spent on your project. Talking to potential customers, getting quotes, building the product or service, getting the website online—these activities count as time spent.

Focus on things that move the needle forward and allow you to ship.

4. Test Your Product

Here’s actionable advice: go read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It features compelling stories and terrific tips.

The book has birthed a serious movement embraced by companies like Buffer, Dropbox, and IMVU. The key? Test early and often—let your customers tell you what they want.

5. Hold Yourself Accountable—Financially

Sinking cash into a course or some other investment is a powerful way to hold yourself accountable, since nobody wants to lose money. Buying the publishing software for Foundr motivated me to work, work, work.

If you want to go the course route, there are a few I recommend: “Earn Your First $1,000 On The Side” by Ramit Sethi, “How to make a $1,000 a month business” by AppSumo, and Tim Marc’s Freedom Business Blog.

6. Set a Deadline and Ship

You need an end goal, an end picture, in mind. That helps motivate you.

With Foundr, I know that in the middle of every month, we must ship a new issue—rain, hail, or shine. With that hard deadline, I never miss it. A cool resource to help you with this is Go Fucking Do It.

7. Follow the Money

Always focus on bringing in revenue—that’s what will allow you to leave your day job, and leaving your day job will allow you to grow your business even more.

Making your first dollar, closing that first sale—those things can electrify you because they’re powerful. They’re absolutely game-changing.

8. Think About Outsourcing

If you look for freelancers in countries like India, the Philippines, and China, then you can find amazingly talented staff for an affordable price.

Here’s the beauty of this: you can also leverage time zones. I assign tasks to my designer in India, and when I’m sleeping, he’s moving forward on a magazine issue.

9. Admit You Might Fail

90% of startups fail. Your first business won’t always succeed.

This is especially important for people who are working full-time while trying to launch a business of their own. With limited time, you might be tempted to shrink away from entrepreneurship because you’re afraid of failure. Admit that failure is possible, however you’re liberated from that fear.

10. Always Provide Value

If you try to make money fast, you’re wasting your time.

One of my mentors taught me something that I remember to this day: the amount of money you earn is proportionate to how well you serve your community. So Serve your community DAMN WELL!

11. Prepare to Leave Your Job

Don’t rely on a theoretical “someday” for when you plan to leave your job and work on your business full time—make that concrete.

How? Get a number in mind for how much you need to earn to get by each month. Then save at least six months worth of savings as a buffer in case things get tough. Once you have your savings and your business is bringing in enough money, take that leap of faith!

Conclusion

That’s it: eleven tips, drawing from my experience, on how to start a business while working full-time at your day job. It’ll require adept time management, but you can do it. And once you do it, you’ll thank yourself for years to come.

Are you trying to launch a business while also working a full-time job? What are your greatest struggles? What ways have you found to cope with them? Let us know in the comments below!

Bio: Nathan Chan is the Publisher and Founder of Foundr magazine. He is extremely passionate about entrepreneurship and has had the pleasure of interviewing some of the world’s best entrepreneurs. He showcases this insider access in Foundr Magazine. You can find him and the magazine at www.foundrmag.com.