5 Steps You Must Take To Successfully Quit Your Job To Start Your Own Company

In this article, I share 5 steps you must take to successfully quit your job to start your own business. I highly do NOT recommend anyone to quit their job without following some of these guidelines.

 

Over 75% of the emails I receive on a daily basis are from disgruntled employees who want to leave their job to start their own company. I can’t blame these individuals because I was frustrated and in that same position myself 7 years ago.

 

However, it’s not always the easiest decision to make. You need to have a strong plan of action along with the ability to take on some risk when making the leap from employee to entrepreneur.

 

In this article, I’ll share 5 steps you must take to successfully quit your job to start your own company:

 

1. Be clear with your financial & lifestyle goals. 

 

Often times, people underestimate what it means to be a business owner. You need to ask yourself from the beginning, what do you want your life as an entrepreneur to be like and how much time are you willing to spend?

 

Have a good reason WHY you want to quit your job. Do you want to have more self-fulfillment? Do you want freedom or financial abundance? Tap into the deeper parts of your mind and understand why exactly you want to take this entrepreneurial route.

 

In addition to this, you need to ask yourself how much money you want to make and how much money you NEED to make to cover all your expenses. Ask yourself how much cash you need to invest in your business and how much savings you need to continue paying your expenses while you work on your new business.

 

2. Decide on what type of business you want to start. 

 

What type of business do you want to start? What type of business is ideal for you? Often times, people want to start a business because they heard someone who made a ton of money in that industry. However, that doesn’t mean that industry fits your skill set and education the best.

 

Find a business that you have knowledge in and something that you’re truly passionate about. Ask yourself important questions such as if you’re going to sell a service, digital product or physical product and how your sales process will go.

 

3. Figure out how you like to work. 

 

In elementary school, you often heard your teachers say that everybody learns differently. Some people are visual learners, others learn well with audio and some even need to break everything down on paper to learn things the fastest.

 

Work is very similar. Everybody has their own style of work and you need to identify what fits your style the best. Do you like working in systems? Do you like working with other people, can you trust others to bring on a partner?

 

4. Find your customers, identify a problem and determine how you plan on obtaining sales. 

 

Many people email me saying they want to make the leap to starting their own business, but they haven’t spent any time thinking about any of these issues. First and foremost, you need to come up with an idea/problem and the solution you plan to deliver.

 

After that, you need to identify who your customers are going to be and where you’re going to find/obtain these customers. If you don’t have a planned strategy of how you’re going to find your customers and market your products/services, you’re going to be in for a lot of trouble. These are all things that you can plan and prepare before quitting your job.

 

5. Create your product/services and set up your infrastructure. 

 

Finally, before you can quit your job to start your own business….you need to have a plan of action on how you’re going to create your product or services. If you’re making a mobile application or website and aren’t a developer yourself, you’re going to have to enlist the help of a technical person to build your product out.

 

Not only do you have to build your product out, but you also need to set up a business entity, figure out where you’re going to work and set up some kind of routine to follow. If you don’t have the following steps taken care of, I HIGHLY recommend that you continue working your job until you figure all of these things out.

 

Conclusion 

 

In this article, I shared 5 steps you must take to successfully quit your job to start your own company. What are some things that you did before quitting your job to build your own business?

 

11 Tips For Starting A Business While Working Full-Time

After starting a successful startup of his own, guest blogger Nathan Chan decided to share 11 tips for starting a business of your own 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

 

 

photo credit: Philipp Lücke via photopin cc