If you’ve been wondering about how to start a business doing something you love, in this post I will walk you through the 5 most essential steps to get you started with cash.
Now, I must warn you, starting a business around doing something you love means, you will not do the thing you love. Other people will. You will have to do sales, and accounting, and marketing, and recruitment, and so on.
If your goal is to continue doing what you are doing but get paid more, then maybe you should just switch jobs. Now, if your goal is to start your own, build something, and become independent, then go for it!
All I’m saying is that business requires you to have a different role. You need to change your identity, who you are, and your mindset.
For a business to work, you can’t be stuck in delivering the service or the business will fail.
And that requires a whole different set of skills, responsibilities, and tasks.
What You Don’t Need To Start A Business
If you are looking for the most essential path on how to start a business, here is the list that nobody talks about. The thing is that is not sexy. And most people writing articles like this do it to position their product.
But I think the biggest challenge of this list is that immediately pushes you out of your comfort zone. That should be your first sign that you are on the right path. Now, before we go over the 5 things you need to get started, there are a couple of things you absolutely don’t need.
You don’t need a website or an office or a logo. You don’t need a bank account yet, or anything else. You don’t need a financial plan, marketing plan, etc. What you need are customers. Without customers, there is no business.
And to get customers, you need to figure out your product. What are you going to sell them?
This article covers how to figure out both so that you can get started without needing investors.
But Juan, how do I process all the customers once they come in?
You first need to figure out how to get the customers to come in. That is the hard part. The part that companies spend trillions every year trying to solve.
The deliver part, that’s easy, you will figure that out. But until you have customers to deliver something to, you have no need to figure out those details.
Catch yourself whenever you are worrying about step 75 when you are on step 3. In time learning, learn only the things you need so that you can solve the step in front of you. Anything further is hypothetical.
So first, sell, then you have a real reason to develop the rest.
So how to start a business around your skills in 2023?
Follow these 5 steps.
1. Define what you are good at.
Think about what comes easy to you. The things that people flatter you for. Things that you do that others are impressed with.
The things that you obsess with. That you read about all the time and can’t stop learning about it.
Something you can easily see yourself doing in 5 years without a problem. Something you can teach others how to do it.
If you love cooking, which dish is your favorite? If it’s driving traffic to a website, or speaking in public, or whatever else.
2. Identify problems that companies have that you can solve with those skills. Yes, problems.
People pay to solve problems, and companies have bigger budgets to pay for the solutions to those problems.
It’s easy to think of products you could sell to other people because you buy products as a consumer. Your friends buy products as consumers. But, for sure you want to sell to other businesses.
So brainstorm what kind of companies would have the problem and would they care to solve it. Are they 10 people businesses or 1000 or 10000 people? Are they particular to an industry?
3. Within those companies, identify the person with the job or role that has to deal with the problem and ask them for a call.
Brainstorm, who in those companies may have to deal with the problem you can solve. You want to come up with some titles or roles.
Then search on LinkedIn for those roles and see what comes up. Filter by 1st connection to see who of them you know. Then filter in 2nd level connections and find who do you have in common that could introduce you to them.
Make a list and start writing to them. The shorter the better. Something with a benefit to them (even a Starbucks gift card). Coordinate a call and send them a calendar invitation.
Record the calls and take notes. The goal here is not to sell them but, to learn everything you can about the problem, their job, and their relationship with the problem. How do they solve it? What is costing them? etc.
End the call with… if I develop a solution to this, should I let you know? Is this something that would be interesting for you?
4. Package your findings into a solution, a service you can provide to help them solve the problem.
Develop the framework of the solution, the outline. Define the starting point and the endpoint. What it’s the result they will get at the end of the solution? Then work your way backwards to identify the steps they need to go through.
The faster and shorter the better. There is more value in getting them to success faster than taking them through the long route. They don’t pay for time with you, they pay for the results. The faster they get them, the better, and the more value they get.
Forget about how you run the solution at scale. You are not there yet, right now is about figuring out what the solution looks like and what kind of results you can guarantee.
5. Take the concept, and the framework you developed and pitch it to the people you spoke with.
Don’t develop the whole solution in advance, instead do it as you implement it. You just need to be a bit ahead so that you can adapt it as you get feedback.
Write back to the people you had calls with. Tell them that you have something and would like to present it to them. Try to get at least 3 paying clients.
It’s not about making the big bucks yet. It’s about building your portfolio and confidence. It’s about learning and improving the product. You want testimonials and case studies.
So how much should you charge?
Depends on your product. It’s not the same to sell cake as selling marketing campaigns. But don’t charge them on your time, sell it as a package.
Think how many hours it would take you. Estimate a price you would like to get per hour, double it, and multiply it by the hours.
Let’s say you want to get $100 per hour. Double it = $200. Multiply it by the hours it takes you to deliver the product. Whatever you get, it’s probably underpriced but, will help you cover some costs. You’ll be amazed at how much cash companies need to operate.
Remember, the goal here is to learn, build a portfolio, get marketing materials, and above all get something started.
Did you manage to make a sale? Great! Congrats!
Now you can go ahead and develop the rest. Look into how you invoice, rules, regulations, etc.
Companies need time to organize themselves so they can implement your solution. Use that time to put everything together so that you can collect your money and operate legally.
Trust me, they will not rush you to invoice them.
Best
Juan