New Year Goal: Start A Side Business Doing What You’ve Always Wanted To Do
You’ve got an idea, which you think is a pretty good one. However, it’s always been a pipe dream, and you’ve always had all the excuses as to why it should be priority..
It’s a new year, which means it’s the perfect time to try something new. Why not take your idea off the shelf, dust it off and turn it into the perfect little side business to supplement your main income?
Let’s take a look at how to do so.
Don’t Dive into Investors
It’s not that you don’t ever want to bring an investor onboard – it’s that you don’t want to quite yet.
This is because most people who want investors early on in the game do so in order to quit their day job and work on their sideline business full-time. However, most investors who are worth affiliating with aren’t going to buy this.
They don’t want to be the leverage that enables you to work on your startup from scratch. They want to see hard evidence that you’ve fanned the flame yourself for some time.
If you’re looking for an extra bit of capital, there are a number of ways to get it. If you have a great idea and funding is all that’s holding you back, you can even get a personal loan or a title loan on your car to use as equity. Don’t invite the first investor you come across – nurture it yourself for a bit first.
Make Sure to keep it Legal
When you’re venturing out to place your eggs in more than one basket, you’ve got to be wary of the legal stuff.
One of the most important things is to make sure you’re on concrete legal ground with your current employer. This way they can’t come after you when your side business has taken off.
The best way to be sure about this is to work on an idea that’s utterly unrelated to your current job and your employer’s business. It’s also important to remember to work on your sideline on your own time and with your own equipment.
Seek Out a Trustworthy Co-Founder
Just because your startup is initially a sideline business doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy. In fact, it’ll most likely end up taking up much more of your time than you anticipated.
This means that you’re going to be taking on a pretty hefty workload. For this reason, we recommend seeking out a co-founder. Your chances of success will increase substantially if you’re synergizing with someone who’s equally passionate about your idea.
Put Your Idea to the Test
You can have what appears to be the greatest idea in the world, but if it doesn’t appeal publicly, you’ll need to just do your 9 to 5.
From surveys, prototypes and customer interviews, there’s a lot that can be done in the name of testing your idea. The more information you can gather about your target demographic and their response to your product, the better you can grow it into the business you’ve dreamt of.
Final Thoughts
Who says you have to quit your day job to focus on your startup?
While you might have this goal in mind for one day, there’s no rush. By simply getting the ball rolling and testing out the waters with your idea, you can get a good feel for how life would be like with your idea turned into a dream business.
Start the New Year off right by putting some business plans into action.