If you’re seeking a 6-step solution on how to transition your side business into a full-time business, you may have landed on the wrong page. When building a sustainable business, shortcuts rarely exist. There are ways to streamline and scale certain processes, but when it comes to building a fulfilling and lasting business, each business owner must do the work.
It’s hard to know when it’s finally time to take that leap to launch the business you’ve been dreaming up for years.
It really is.
You have one foot in, one foot out, and circumstances around you make it impossible to dive into your passion. You want to create, to run your own business, to live, and to earn an income doing what you love doing most.
You’ve had a solid career which provides you with a healthy, consistent income, but you’re waiting for the right moment to break free and venture out into your own. You’ve been waiting patiently strategizing a safety cushion, or building just the right amount of financial security. Meanwhile you’re also making the necessary baby steps to build your side business into a full-blown business.
You’re on the right track.
Right now your passion is a hobby; a side business you turn to because it fulfills your being. But it’s a side business because it doesn’t fulfill your financial obligations. And besides, your present job is the angel investor for this side business/hobby/weekend-gig of yours so how could you leave it? Again, you’re one foot in, and one foot out waiting for the right moment so you can finally dive all in.
In the meantime, you’re pretty unhappy and going through the motions of daily employment. We get it, we see this quite often in our area of work, and if you find yourself in this situation, then it’s time to ask yourself these foundational questions.
Are you enough of a risk taker?
Adam Grant, a New York Times Bestselling Author talks a great deal about risk and entrepreneurship in his book, The Originals, How Non-Conformists Move the World. In one section, he identifies famous entrepreneurs who maintained their day jobs, while successfully transitioning into the world of their passion which made them high-impact performing entrepreneurs. Larry Page, Sergey Brin (Google), Phil Knight (Nike), Steve Wozniak (Apple), and creatives like John Legend (Grammy Award Winner, Consultant), and Brian May (Queen, Astrophysicists) were examples he used to suggest that the will characterized by entrepreneurs or innovators is not ascribed to the riskiness of a person.
Against common belief he contended that successful entrepreneurs had a balanced approach to risk, and that those who maintained their day jobs while working on their side business were more likely to establish a lasting business.
He likens the investment of energy, time, freedom, financial stability, creativity, etc., to a financial portfolio: well-performing portfolios are ones that are well-balanced between risk and protection. Further, he makes the case that entrepreneurship isn’t about the willingness to risk, but the act of “taking the risk out of risk-taking.”
Where are you investing your energy?
When you take inventory of where you’re spending your energy, it’s also necessary to distinguish the difference between careless and discerning passion. When we explore and question where you’re investing your energy, we’re not urging you to take the plunge into the treacherous sea of passion. Rather, pay attention to balance, and put a conscious intention towards what you want to create. At this moment, do you know where your north star is? And how are you consciously making efforts to fulfill that journey towards the business of your dreams?
While mitigating your risk is a crucial step to building a lasting business, it’s important to sit with yourself and evaluate how and where you’re dispensing your energy. At some point, those high-impact entrepreneurs finally had to make their transition, otherwise their pursuits would not have grown into Amazon, Apple, and a Grammy Award.
When you invest your energy towards one direction and you fine tune your focus, your path becomes becomes flooded with the kind of clarity that leads to operative decisions. If your energy is distributed in multiple directions, you miss opportunities that allow you to break free from existing unhappiness or setbacks. When you realize and harness your power to create, and you put your energy into it, your experience evolves into a whole new meaning and you’re able to build a new foundation for fulfillment.
What’s really keeping you from moving forward?
Many of us have the legitimate concern around making enough money and being able to provide for our families. We’re conscious about profit margins and doubt our ability to create a viable business. We’re driven by fear-of-the-unknown or paralyzed by our own ambition. These obstacles come from the rational mind and are part of the careful balance we’re warned to make between risk and protection. However rational, we’re also bound by normative constructions of business that have been prescribed to us by society, economy, and history. In the Booming Model, we uncover a few “shortcuts” that have revolutionized the entrepreneurs’ approach to building a business.
Our mind is capable of the most beautiful creative works of art, and business is one of them. It’s the root of brilliant scientific and financial theories, and the origin of innovative solutions for complicated problems. But, the mind is also caught up within the boundaries and limitations of the physical life and the fear that comes with it. It can be completely out of touch with our true essence, the source of wisdom and creation emanating from within and the knowledge of who we truly are.
Confronting the tough questions
When considering the whole of who you are as your truest self, what values spring out? What attachments and entanglements do you have, or give priority to? Are they holding you from living out the business of your dreams? Are they superficial entanglements or non-negotiables for a healthy life? In most cases, we discover that the things that keep us from moving forward are within ourselves to overcome. Things like fear, insecurity, and doubt.
When we confront the toughest questions about ourselves, we’re opened up to a deeper wisdom that often surpasses conventional wisdom dictated by the normative expectations in economy and society. When we open up beyond the rational mind, we begin to discover synchronocities that align with our purpose, resulting in the “groundbreaking” for the business we want to build.
What’s the Function of Your Vision?
As you wait to launch your business full-time, you don’t have to wait to fulfill the function of your vision.
What’s your vision?
Identify the function that’s performed in your vision. Is it to help young women? Is it to eliminate high costs of medication? Whatever it is, you can begin to fulfill the function of your vision.
For example, let’s say you’re creating a platform that offers legal aid to middle class earners. If your vision is to help people get quality, dedicated legal representation, the functions performed within that vision may include actions like offering guidance or advice, or becoming a leader among like-minded lawyers. Whatever the function may be, you can simultaneously fulfill the function of vision, as you work towards launching your business full-time. In doing so you’re already building the foundation of your business and fulfilling your vision as you take the right steps towards launching your business full-time.
What Practical Steps Are You Taking to Launch Your Business?
One of the toughest and most common questions we run into is: “where do I start?” We meet creatives and business owners who have great ideas but remain stuck when figuring out where to start. Perhaps you’ve done your research, sought business coaching, and read hundreds of small business material. Yet, you still feel overwhelmed with your next steps. What practical steps have you taken towards launching your business?
Can you succinctly describe your buyer persona? Can you identify the true value you offer to your customers? Do you understand your branding? These are initial, practical considerations to start taking seriously. These steps go hand-in-hand with acquiring your business license, creating a business bank account, figuring out your billing terms, or finding the right space for your business.
Building a business is a journey with no real shortcuts. Regardless of your stage in business, Booming Collective provides the space for entrepreneurs, creatives, and business owners to incubate their ideas. We help business owners confront the toughest questions and guide you on how to create the structure that will help you launch the business of your dreams. If you’re serious and committed, consider a business journey with the Booming Collective as a practical step towards launching your business.
