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8 Things To Do Before Launching A Side Business

Thinking about starting a business? You aren’t alone. 44% of people are more interested in doing so now than they were two years ago. A research revealed that nearly three in four people who work a 9 to 5 job admit they are unfulfilled by it and therefore want to start a side business to pursue their passions. However, while your new business may consume much of your time and energy, you shouldn’t give up your full-time job just yet.

Let’s face it, times are tough. The unemployment rate is high and it doesn’t help that the cost of gas and food prices are also on the rise. Out of necessity, many people have started to look for ways to supplement their income. Some have succeeded with side business ideas while they worked their full-time job before making it a full-time career. I’ve launched a side business while in school and have some great advice on how to be successful with it.

Here are 8 things to do before launching a side business:

1. Make The Commitment

First and foremost, you need to ask yourself how bad you want this. This will get difficult, it will strain your relationships and you’ll continually be forced to make tough decisions. In fact, if starting a business while working a full-time job is ever easy, you’re probably not doing everything you should be doing. Growing a side business will be an incredibly challenging experience and that’s because nothing worth having comes easy.

You need to set round rules in order to get started with your side hustle idea. You have to take action in order to be successful and that’s always the first step. Make an actual commitment to yourself before launching a side business!

2. Plan Out Your Schedule And Strategy

Have a realistic accounting of the time and energy needed to launch and run your side business. Create a small schedule of when you plan to work on your side business. You can do it before going to work in the morning or work on it for a few hours each night after work. Your first schedule will probably not be the one you go with for the long haul, but some kind of guide will be extremely helpful.

In addition to the schedule, you also want to plan out a proper strategy. How are you going to execute this? Do you have the finances necessary to get your business off the ground? Will you need help or a business partner? Ask yourself the tough questions early so you’re on a solid path.

3. Assess Your Finances

One of the most important considerations in your decision to start a new business is your financial standing. Keeping your regular job when you first launch your business does help reduce the financial burden of startup costs. However, before getting too far into your business plans, make sure that you are accounting for those costs with your current salary min mind.

4. Don’t Be In A Rush

When you’re operating a business part-time, realize it probably won’t grow as fast as a full-time business would. Many side business owners get discouraged because it takes so long for their businesses to grow. Generally, the growth of a business  is directly proportional to the amount of time put into it. So when you can only put in a few hours a day plus weekends, it will take longer to get up to speed.

5. Check Your Employee Agreements

Depending on what type of business you want to start, you may run into some issues if you’ve signed an employee agreement with a noncompete or nondisclosure clause. Check with a legal adviser to help you understand your state’s laws about employment agreements before you start your business. If there are any discrepancies or conflicts with your existing agreements, you may need to wait until you’re financially able to quit your full-time job before you can officially start your business.

6. Check Your Employee Agreements

Depending on what type of business you want to start, you may run into some issues if you’ve signed an employee agreement with a noncompete or nondisclosure clause. Check with a legal adviser to help you understand your state’s laws about employment agreements before you start your business. If there are any discrepancies or conflicts with your existing agreements, you may need to wait until you’re financially able to quit your full-time job before you can officially start your business.

7. Outsource Your Weaknesses

This one is all about focus. Look for opportunities to outsource every possible part of your business creation that you can. Obviously, you don’t want someone else planning your goals, roadmap or telling you what your product or service should look like.

The point here is that you need to be doing what you do best. While it would be great if you could code your own website to test out your digital service idea, if you don’t already command a knowledge of web development, you’re looking at a few months of dedicated learning time just to get to the point where you’ll be able to understand the basics.

8. Get Ready For Stress

Imagine this scenario: You’re at work and a customer from your side business calls your personal cell phone. He has a problem with a product you delivered the night before and needs you to fix it immediately. If you don’t, he’ll refuse to pay for it and you’ll have to eat up the expenses and potentially get a bad review. On the same token, you also have a project that’s due in a few hours at work that can’t be late. What do you do?

Every job has a stress factor. So when you’re juggling both a full-time job and a side business, you’re going to have numerous tense situations. You need to be prepared for the stressful situations that may come up. Entrepreneurship is only for the mentally strong people!

Conclusion

Starting a side business sounds so simple, but it’s much harder in practice. It may be challenging to build a sustainable side business while working a day job, but if you make a consistent effort over time, you can make it work. In this post, I shared with you 8 things to do before launching a side business.

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