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| At what point did you decide 'now or never' to quit your regular job and go full time for your own business? When you saved up a certain amount/percentage? When you were making more with your side gig than your day job? You were fed up with your job? You got fired? I know there are a thousand different answers and scenarios that wouldn't work for everyone but I want to hear your story.
What do you know now that you wished you knew back before you took the plunge? What has been the biggest struggle or lesson? Any and all advice is welcome.
I have a side business that I have been working towards making my real job. It has been steadily growing the last couple years but has been hobbled due to my day job and I am feeling more and more like I need to make it happen. I have been saving and have a decent nest egg to cover myself while it gets rolling. I have reinvested back into buying equipment and supplies, I have a website up and generating business, I have accounting and business management experience, I spend every free moment on my business so I know how to put the hours/effort in. I am just trying to be as prepared as possible so I can hit the ground running. |
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 Expert
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Location: The best kept secret in TX | If your business is generating more income with you behind the wheel I would go part time at your job first. If Everything works out go full time at your home job. Never be too prideful to get a part time job when things get slow for your home business. Don't quit just becaus eit gets hard or slow. Keep going.
Keep in mind you will have slow months. The months where money is rolling in you still need to save like it's not rolling in so that you can make it when things get slow.
Always look for ways to cut costs. I used to work from the coffee shop because we turned our internet off. It's cheaper. Just figure in your cost for gas each day.
I understand you have a degree in business but sometimes it's great to have someone look over your costs, profits, etc to see if they can help you better manage. A financial advisor is great, even if you only see them one session. They may point something out to you that you've never thought of before.
Keep in mind that you will be self employed. You will need to pay taxes. You will need to look for health insurance that covers a small business like yours. For example, Etsy sellers are covered by Stride Health if they choose too.
Know how to keep business expenses seperate from personal expenses. Make sure you are paying yourself hourly through your items. For example: How long did it take you to make, photo, and add the product to your website? 30 min? Round up to one hour. How much are you earning per hour? Did you have to pay shipping on materials for this item? Calculate that in as well. Make sure you have at least that much profit in that one item you add online. Are oyu using models for photos? Are you paying them? Add this cost in to your item. Don't worry about prices being too high. People will pay more for things in different seasons. You can always put things on sale or have a blowout sale to "get rid" of items that aren't selling. This type of pricing ensures you still make money to cover expenses when you have a sale.
One thing I wish someone had told me was: Keep every receipt for any reason and keep copies of those receipts in case the ink on the receipts fades. Keep records. Detailed records of every purchase you buy. I don't even care if you purcahsed a light bulb for your office and it only cost you $0.50. Document it. Every expense. Every single expense. Every profit. Even if you only made $1. Do the math on each item you sell to show how much you made on each item. File it both on the computer and in a filing cabinet on paper. Keep your information for taxes. Don't trash it after tax season or after the quarter. Keep files for up to 5 years in case you get audited. I personally used to keep a copy on a USB Drive, on my computer hard drive, and in paper form in a filing cabinet. That way you can pull the file for that quarter and say why yes, yes I did show a profit for this quarter and here is how I got to that conclusion. File, organize, and seperate personal from business finances. You'll make your life so much easier if you spend 20-30 min extra each day working on finances and organization. |
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Expert
Posts: 1409
Location: Oklahoma | runonfaith what do you do? I have been reading your responses and you have great advice on financial and budgeting!
thanks |
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Expert
Posts: 3815
Location: The best kept secret in TX | Turnburnsis - 2017-06-20 10:08 PM runonfaith what do you do? I have been reading your responses and you have great advice on financial and budgeting! thanks
I am a Jack Of All Trades and a Master of None. Tehe  |
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 Googly Goo
Posts: 7053
 
| Make sure you have a good grasp on the cash flow of your business. How long does it take to turn a sale into cash in the bank? A good rule of thumb is to have twice as much cash as you think it's going to take for working capital. Best of luck. |
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| Thank you for the ideas/input! I am lucky in that my husband's job has really good benefits so I can jump on his plan when I make my move. I have brought up reducing my hours at my current job at least when I need to fill orders and while they have said that it wouldn't be an issue, it has been when I have needed that time so I am not confident going part time will be an option. It would be nice though.
I am going to go back through my costing to make sure everything is accounted for and realistic for build times. It is so hard to account time when I have to start and stop over and over. I should just take a few days off to use up PTO and really get my time frames dialed in. I am sure it will be a kick in the pants when I really look at what I waste time on and what generates the bests ROI. Then I am going to build up inventory so I have the prospect of a 'steady' income once I pull the triggger. Thank you again for the ideas!
Edited by AnotherRound 2017-06-21 4:41 PM
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Expert
Posts: 3815
Location: The best kept secret in TX | AnotherRound - 2017-06-21 4:40 PM Thank you for the ideas/input! I am lucky in that my husband's job has really good benefits so I can jump on his plan when I make my move. I have brought up reducing my hours at my current job at least when I need to fill orders and while they have said that it wouldn't be an issue, it has been when I have needed that time so I am not confident going part time will be an option. It would be nice though.
I am going to go back through my costing to make sure everything is accounted for and realistic for build times. It is so hard to account time when I have to start and stop over and over. I should just take a few days off to use up PTO and really get my time frames dialed in. I am sure it will be a kick in the pants when I really look at what I waste time on and what generates the bests ROI. Then I am going to build up inventory so I have the prospect of a 'steady' income once I pull the triggger. Thank you again for the ideas!
I kept a notebook with start and stop times on specific items. I would also round up if it only took me 30min to finish an item from start to end.
Think of it as an 8-5 job. If you have to leave in that time to take a lunch, or to grab kids/dogs always write down a "clock out" time and a "clock in" time. If you work 30min here, ten min there you'll never get anything done and end up not getting paid for your true time.
The beauty of working from home is you don't get interupted by customers.
I used to fill orders at night and do customer service and paperwork during the day simply because everyone kept calling me and interupting me while I was trying to build/create.
I worked 6am to 8am getting my paper work straightened out and got a list of to dos together for the day. I took an hour for breakfast and went back to work 9am-12pm on paperwork/finances/social media/ads/etc. 12-1 I took lunch. 1-2pm I took a nap to get a fresher outlook on numbers. 2-5 I worked on paperwork/taxes/etc. I answered emails, took phone calls, took pictures for social media and got my to do list down and area set up for my night time work in this time frame as well. If I finished early I would "clock out" and not account for the hours I wasn't working.
6pm-until I would work on filling orders/shipping. I found it was very quiet at night and found it easier to work without interuptions. It makes it very easy to do paperwork during the day without having to stop in order to ship. You also have tracking numbers to email out during the day as well. Again, I kept my time. At the end of the week I totaled up my earnings from working and made sure to get that cost covered in the items I was selling. I found custom pieces don't sell as well as pre made pieces. People need to be shown what they like instead of asked what they like. I made many pre mades and took one or two customs per month from the people who wanted to build their own simply because I wanted to be creative myself instead of having people tell me what to do. lol. I found it more enjoyable to create from scratch without instructions and found that those items sold faster premade. If I found a pattern that sold well I would make multiples so I could sell more in a shorter period of time.
I don't miss that work schedule at all. Lol. But I found that I was more productive if I seperated my work out.
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| Those are all good points and I have read how important it is to establish a schedule and routine to keep yourself on task and acountable. I hate that Facebook put that stupid timer on replying to messages. Makes it hard to get stuff done when you feel like you have to reply to everything immediately or they take your badge away. I also told my husband just yesterday if I had a dime for every email/facebook/text/smokesignal I had to reply to I would be rich, lol! Comes with the territory but when I make it big I'm hiring a secretary ;) I have found things come together so much faster when I am home alone on weekends and I can just hammer it out, no one around to distract me, just me and coffee and the shop cat. It is hard trying to split it up before work, late at night, etc so I am looking forward to when I can dedicate more daytime hours to it. |
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 Go For It!
Location: Texas |
It sounds like you've done your homework already! Don't be afraid to jump... I believe that fear of the unknown stops a lot of us from doing what we'd love to do. Some of the most successful people around have had struggles. You just never give up. Owning your own business is like raising a child, it ain't all peaches and cream for sure! We own a business that our son runs now, and it took a long time for it to become profitable. There are days you want to throw your hands in the air and just give up... but you don't. You just trust God and keep going.
I just started another business in April called Rebar Ranch Naturals... I make and sell all natural nebulizer products for horses. I tossed it around for a long time before I decided to do it. I had been making this stuff for myself and some of my friends for several years with great success. My vet, Dr Honnas, had been telling me to bottle it for the last couple of years, but I just couldn't make the commitment. Since I'm not hauling like I had in the past I figured, what the heck! So far, it's going great. I'm trying to hire my neighbor to do all my office work so that I can be out there doing the other stuff. I'm hoping she says yes soon, because I DO NOT LIKE PAPERWORK!
Jump In! You'll never know how that chapter turns out if you don't take the plunge.
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