Aug 12 in Mastermind
Going from "job" to starting a business
Someone asked this in another thread, and I thought my response was worth reposting because I get this question kind of frequently.
The internet offers some really bad advice here lol, so I am happy to share what I learned when I transitioned from Government Work to Real Estate (where I went from 0 to building a small team that did about 50 million in sales per year) to Apex Mindset.
I won't go over the entire backstory but here was what I learned from experience, helping other successful people make this transition, and from research.
The reason the internet offers bad advice in my opinion is because it's not practical. It's all stuff to satisfy the ego of the content creator, or to promote an entrepreneurial coaches program. Whether the people giving the advice are aware or not or giving bad advice intentionally or not.
So what is usually suggested is some form of "burn the boats" strategy. This is where you quit your job and you go all in. Usually this involves buying someones "make a million dollars without any work" course, and some such shaming tactics about how you have to grind 32 hours per day or you don't want it bad enough.
Guys, if you need a motivational speaker, or someone to shame you into being successful into your business, I would argue that you aren't fucking ready to start a business yet. Motivation is a given, and also only plays a small roll at the end of the day. What matters is taking the right actions, having the discipline to do so, and following a scalable plan.
There is a point where you let go of the "paycheck" of working for someone else, and do your business full time. But doing so without a plan is retarded, and it's how must people fail.
Cash flow and revenue is what drives a business. So you need to have the revenue to support your success in getting started, and the revenue to carry you into scaling to the next level. You also need the revenue to absorb the failures and mistakes that you will make, as well as the fluctuations in the market.
Apply this to transitioning from "a job" to a business.
Do the research in your sector first and look at models of growth, and what you need to do to get yourself out to the marketplace. Look at what it is going to take to start; market, brand, and sell to bring in clients/customers, fulfill your product or service, and manage the business.
Then break it down by cost so you know how much it'll cost to get started.
Then, how long will it take to be profitable. Meaning you are making enough money to pay for running and growing the business, with some profit left over.
Then, how long will it take to be profitable enough to sustain your minimal income.
Most entrepreneurs are vision driven, and not accounting or numbers driven enough to do a good job with the above. They are way off in their estimates, as they represent the dream scenario rather then the practical one.
Reality is, things WILL take longer than you think because you have problems to overcome that you can't see yet, and won't be able to see until you are in the middle of experiencing them. A coach (like myself or discussions we can have in the mastermind group for guys working on success and entrepreneurship) like myself or an experienced mentor in your business sector can help you see a lot of problems coming, but NO ONE will help you see all of them.
So just anticipate that you are going to run into problems that you can't see yet, and mitigate for it with REVENUE. I have made the mistake of not doing this before, and it can really fuck your progress and direction.
So you are going to come up with a plan, and the cost and revenue you have to have to meet the standards of the plan.
When you have that assessment, there are 2 pretty reasonable ways to go about this.
One is to save up enough money to start the business, AND to live off of for at least 6 months. Then quit or take a leave of absence, and go after it FULL GO for 6 months. Have a plan if you fail to meet your profitability standards in 6 months, and what you are going to do to make money to reset. If this happens, don't give up. You go make some money elsewhere while you regroup. Figure out where you went wrong and then set up to go at it again.
So for example. I had my real estate team. I went on a deployment in 2019, and decided to start on youtube. I had no idea what I was going to do at first, I just knew I had to get my thoughts out or I would fucking explode lol. I had people hire me for coaching while I was deployed, so I decided I would give a crack at it when I got back.
I saved my deployment money and a bonus and gave myself 6 months where I was going to go FULL GO at Apex Mindset. I had a plan to transition back into real estate where I had my team running if I wasn't looking like I would be profitable enough to coach full time by month 4. If I had needed to, I would have gotten back to real estate, and did Apex Mindset part time until I could scale it enough or raise enough capital to go at it again FULL TIME.
I never had to go back to real estate. Apex Mindset took off and so here we are.
Now another way to do this is to start your business as a side hustle, and scale it until you have the revenue to walk away from your "day job." This can take much longer to start and can be a grind, but is a way for people to transition from "job" to business as well.
The main thing here is you have to make your decisions business decisions rather then decisions based on blind hope or emotions. Everyone loves those movies where the main character has no other options but homelessness or failure and he pulls a success out of his asshole and becomes a millionaire. I love those stories too... except they are success porn. They resemble reality but aren't real. In real life, entrepreneurs that are successful take calculated risks and they do their homework. Because I promise you, even with calculated risks, shit happens and you don't know if you are going to eat or pay rent next month, or if you just made a decision or two that will bankrupt your entire business. Even the best planners and entrepreneurs run into this from time to time.
There is that other side where someone sticks with their "safe" job, and only talks about starting a business, or never really transitions to running his business full time because he is scared. Don't be that guy either. If you are scared and have no plan or ability to predict where your revenue will be, then those fears are REASONABLE. You need to do more homework and gain more knowledge if you can't predict anything or make a plan. But if you have a plan and projections that are reasonable and well researched, then just execute the plan and don't be a pussy. Part of every plan involves the "what if it fails" strategy so that YOU DON'T FAIL.
So be smart, do the numbers and the research, and make a plan. And then execute that plan. And be in the mastermind group with other entrepreneurs to get feedback as well so that you stay on track. Do this, and you will succeed!
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Going from "job" to starting a business
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