The only time to start a business
Wanna make coffee? You need to do a few things first.
You probably need to get the beans before you turn on the coffee machine.
You probably also need to steam & froth milk before you pour the milk in for a nice cup of Latte.
This is the same for business.
A LOT of people today want to start and own their own business, which is great.
I'd be lying if I said building my own business isn't one of the best decisions I made in my life. Not just from a financial and control aspect, but mostly from within.
A bigger level of self-awareness that no other training can really provide.
Who am I?
What do I want?
Why am i going through all this pain to solve <whatever business problem at hand>?
Who are the types of people I want to work with? And vice versa.
How can I get my revenue from $100k to $1M? Should I reinvest all my profits this year for more growth? Whats the expected value (ev) from reinvesting all my profits here? Why not just put it in S&P/Bitcoin/ etc? What about taxes? Oh let's not go there.
All these thoughts are constantly in your head and you really need to truly understand yourself, what you value and what kind of life you want to live.
But back to my point, A LOT of people today want to start and own their own business, but it's not a simple 1 step decision.
Wanna do business? -> Yes -> Become financially successful.
This literally never happens.
They say things like:
- "What's a good business to do that can make money fast"
- "Give me an idea"
- "My goal is to make $XYZ/year doing ABC but I don't know what problem I'm solving in the market today"
Personally, I feel where they're coming from but I don’t understand it.
It's like wanting put a plaster on when there's no injury.
But majority actually do have an idea, but no customers and no revenue.
“Don’t start a business until people are asking you to.”
This is a quote I saw somewhere in the past. And this is the same thing I'd tell them.
It's not meant to demotivate them or to discourage them.
It just means you need to get the beans before you turn on the coffee machine.
- Find a problem faced by real people.
- Listen to their dream scenario. What would they want in an ideal world?
- Figure out how to solve it, and make sure they happily pay you enough.
Don't worry about running ads, shouting the idea to the world, working on SEO, partnerships, etc etc.
Don't worry about the business name.
Don't worry about a website.
Don't worry about building systems and processes to help you scale.
Don't worry about registering for a business entity.
If it's painful enough, your first customer will pay you for it.
Understand their problem deeply, do unscalable things to serve them (eg: one-on-one personal service)
Then, you get another paying customer.
Prove a real need for what you have to offer.
Keep it lean and quick. If it doesn't work, move on.
When you do enough of this, you'll NEED to start a business.
That's probably the right time to start a business.