Ep. 6 - The Art of Starting

Last week I wrote about the art of quitting. How quitting shouldn’t be thought of in a negative light. How quitting creates space, and space creates opportunity.

But as questions and comments filtered in there was a common theme. What happens next? Basically, how do you start after you've quit? I thought it would be beneficial to discuss these steps in detail.

First, the best time to start a business or find a new job is when you have a job. It hedges your risk. And plus, if you really take a step back and review your day-to-day and weekly tasks, I guarantee you could cut down to 5 - 7 hours of work per day. Anything more than that is usually the result of poor planning, execution, and prioritization (obviously if there are major deadlines/projects/presentations occurring then this can easily balloon to 10 - 14 hour days, but these are usually short 'seasons').

Working 5 - 7 hours a day frees up plenty of time. And when I first started thinking about leaving my career and pursuing entrepreneurship, I didn’t necessarily ‘do work’ after work. But I read books on entrepreneurship, reviewed people’s LinkedIn profiles, and generally asked questions about how people started.

The most common answer? "I just started, man".

Cool, cool. Well, just starting is actually the hardest part. But it's also the best advice I've ever received.

But where do you start? What do you do? And most importantly, what do you want your life to look like?

This is where I started. I asked myself what my ideal life would look like. Where I wanted to live, what I wanted to do, how much free time I wanted to have, and ultimately what I wanted my total monthly income to be. There is no point in building a business that doesn't serve you.

This is what I landed on:

• I love playing. Mountain biking, snowboarding, running, and playing an assortment of sports. This is where I enter my ultimate flow state. So, I knew I wanted to maximize these activities in my life.
• Where do I want to live? Well I still don’t know. But my partner and I will live a year or two abroad somewhere warm and near the ocean. We’re thinking Costa Rica or Portugal. So, it needed to be remote.
• How much money would I want? I settled on $50k monthly. Although daunting at first, this is becoming more and more reachable as time passes.

When I reviewed these goals, I realized what I really wanted was time. I didn’t want to go to the same job for forty years. It literally gave me crippling anxiety thinking about it. This further solidified that I needed to take the leap and just start.

But, it's key to ask yourself these questions BEFORE starting. Know what you want. If you want five-weeks of paid vacation, benefits, an RRSP package, and the ability to clock-out at five and leave your work at work, then that's great. And if that’s the case, then entrepreneurship isn’t for you. Which is also fine. No harm in that. Everyone has their own priorities.

So, I settled on what I wanted. But how would I get there? What steps do I take now?

Here are the five steps I took before quitting.

1. Save your money.

I’m quite financially responsible. I've always managed to save some cash, even when I wasn’t earning much. But I doubled down on this. The pandemic helped (it was May 2020 when I doubled down on this goal). My aim was to save 50% of my take home income. And I did it for four months before taking the leap.

My goal was to have a 6-month runway just in case things didn’t pan out. Some people will say to just start and not worry about the money (i.e., have unwavering faith in yourself). Maybe some people can do that, but not me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if that was the case. So, I made sure I had a 6-month runway on top of my 'untouchable' investments.

2. Get your first client/sale before quitting.

I landed my first client before quitting. Now, I didn’t do any work for them until I was officially done, however I had the contract signed and in writing before clicking the 'quit' button (this is key - ensure you review your employment contract to determine what is/isn't allowed). I signed them to a 6-month contract. Now I had a 12-month runway. Perfect.

3. Don’t get bogged down in the details.

Business plans are the ultimate form of procrastination.

If someone showed me a detailed 100-page business plan I would likely throw it out. I find them useless. Just start, you’ll find out if it works or not very quickly. Business plans are static, but businesses are not. Businesses are constantly changing. Iteration after iteration they evolve. Business plans are the ultimate form of procrastination.

Imagine writing a business plan for three months - let’s say November 2019 to February 2020. Then, March 11th rolls around and COVID is announced a global pandemic. How useful is that business plan? It’s not. It’s useless. The world changes too quickly. And humans are notoriously bad at predicting and forecasting. Just look at any stock analyst.

Save the time and headache. Ditch the business plan and instead, write a news release announcing your new venture.

4. Get your sh*t together.

Before starting I registered Elevate Financial as a corporation, obtained a GST number, opened a bank account, and bought domains for our website. These steps are simple, but something many people bypass as they are so product/service focused. Just get it out of the way. It will take a combined couple of hours and a few hundred dollars, and it's well worth it.

5. Don’t be afraid.

I was terrified when starting Elevate Financial. Will this work? What will people think? What if it fails? Honestly - fuck it. We don’t live in primal times anymore. These decisions are not life or death. The WORST case scenario when starting a business is you'll end up declaring bankruptcy. You won’t die. And after seven years, your debts would be cleared, and life goes on. Plus, this is an extreme and rare worst-case scenario.

The real risks are minimal. And the risks of chatter and what people think or say are not risks. Those don’t matter. At all.

Closing comments.

I eased into Elevate Financial. I started small. Started with one client in September. After two months I got my second client (from a referral of the first client). A few weeks later another client popped up. Then another. Then another. Then another.

Upfront capital investment was about $1,000. So far, it has been the best investment I’ve ever made.

Now the question turns to scale. We’re a small team. Two part-time contractors and myself. But, do I want to blow it up? Bring on three full-time employees and go after another 5 - 10 clients? Or do we remain small, nimble, and flexible? Remain a Sniper, or start the Brigade?

Next week I’ll tackle these questions. How I am looking at scale, and how it ultimately comes back to those questions I asked myself before starting - what do I want my life to look like?