business-plan, investment, business-structure, ownershipI want to start my own online business. Currently i am working full time, but have been working on an online business project for awhile now. Been scoping requirements, developing business plan etc. But unfortunately as i have a day job, the business thing was not moving forwards for couple of months now. So i feel i could take 3 major actions:
Quit day job and focus on my business full time (not preferred one)
So to explain those three points in short - as far as its an online business - software development will be involved (frontend, backend, Stripe etc.). Although i have a few years of experiance in software development, i have very little knowledge of overall Web development. So i fear that even if i developed the foundations of core business elements myself - those might be insecure, poorly looking etc. On the other hand - if i hired someone, i do not want to invest much at first and on top of that they might end up doing worse job than i would have done. I do not want to quit my day job yet, because i have wife and children + other things for which i need a constant income.
Could anyone advice/share their experiences being in similar situation and give some kind of arguments of which path they would recommend?
Thank you
There is no right answer to your problem. You pretty much outlined your options, and it sounds like you understand the risks associated with each. Another option you may want to consider is adding another technical founder.
Good luck!
I’m in a similar situation. My solution was to put a small amount of money into hiring a PR consultant to help me promote a crowdfunding campaign. The money from the crowdfunding campaign will allow me to hire freelancers to design, program and my website while I keep my day job.
The reason I hired a PR consultant is that crowdfunding campaigns are not at all guaranteed to produce funds. The PR consultant is advising me on actions to take (and relationships to build) prior to launching the campaign, how to maintain momentum during the campaign, and so on. He’s also helping out by doing research for “influencers” I can contact, and he wrote a press release that I’ll be sending to an influential weblog that focuses on my market.
I have been there too. I had a full-time job at the same time as running my company. I also had a young family & mortgage etc so I needed to ensure an income.
What I did was to change job to an easier role that had less commute time. This meant I had more actual time (less commute) and more thinking time (easier job) to build my business.
I used my annual leave/ holiday time to go and visit clients (I appreciate you are web-based - but you could have these as developer days or business development). Because I did not have huge wads of cash at the beginning I approached people that I knew had skills my business needed (PR, technical expertise, Web-design, etc) and worked out how to get their input without parting with too much cash at the beginning. I did not have a “proper” employee until c.2 years in.
This was a friend who helped with PR, someone with technical expertise who had a another job and accepted a profit share of contracts rather then being employed by me etc.
You can achieve a lot by getting people bought into your vision. Just make sure you thank them appropriate/ meet commitments when you start making money.
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