How to Start a Business While Working Full Time

One of the biggest fears that people have when they want to start a business is that they have this idea that they have to quit their day job, and that they have to launch themselves into the deep end without any security.

In reality, many service-based businesses that are successful today started with the founder still keeping their day job whilst they worked on the business on the side. So in this video, I'm going to show you how you can build your business on the side while keeping your day job and the security that it brings.

Hi, I am Marcela and I am a business strategist and coach. And here I share tools, insights, and strategies to help solopreneurs and small business founders to grow and scale their businesses without working more hours and without getting burnt out. Let's get into it.

The "Burn the Boats" Myth

You may have heard some advice out there that promotes this notion of burning all the boats, quitting your job, and just going all in on your business. And honestly, for most people, this is really not recommended, especially if you have never had a business before.

Back in 2018, I had a tech startup and I followed this advice of burning the boats and just throwing myself completely into my business. I quit the medical work that I was doing because I'm a doctor and I threw myself into this tech startup, which I had absolutely no idea how to even build, let alone grow and scale.

And I spent a year and a half. Just drowning in anxiety, in and having no idea how I was going to survive as I watched my savings go down every single month. Genuinely, I wouldn't recommend that to anyone, and I think you need to be a certain kind of person to be able to bear the anxiety and the overwhelm that comes with having a business that's not yet profitable and having no income at all. For some people, maybe quitting their job and starting a business might be the best idea for them, but for most people, actually having and keeping their day job is the safest and most sensible approach. building a business because we need to be able to regulate our nervous system to keep our security in check, in other words, our financial security, and to allow ourselves a transition period because building businesses takes time and we need to be able to give ourselves time in order to not put all of that pressure on the business to be working and be profitable from day one.

Step 1: Create Space

Okay, so step one is to create some space. We all have rhythms and cadence that we already follow in our lives, and what we need to do is to create some space outside of that so that we can start working on our business.

So you need to look at your weekly schedule and figure out how much time you're able to dedicate realistically to your business every single week. There's going to be some sacrifices that need to be made. I'm not going to lie. When you are working a full-time job and you have a business that you're building on the side, you will have to sacrifice some of your spare time, and it's going to be. time consuming, but that is okay because what you're doing is you're building yourself a life that is much more intentional, much more enjoyable, and you are going to be following your dreams, and I fully advocate for that. That is exactly what I did when I was working as a full-time doctor. I started creating space in my week so that I could learn, so that I could attend so that I could read books and so that I could start testing ideas and trying things out.

Without creating that space, your life has its own rhythm and momentum, and it's not going to stop by itself. There's never going to be a perfect time. And so the first piece of advice that I would say is to please look at your schedule and actively create some time in your week to be able to think about what you want to do with your life and to start executing on that and taking action.

Step 2: Start With Your Existing Skills

Step two is to start thinking about the skills that you already have. So if you're a professional, you will have already accrued expertise, life experience, personal insights, knowledge. Case studies and some intellectual property that you can monetize. So if you already know exactly what you want to do for your service business, that's great, but if you're not sure, start making a list of all of your accrued knowledge, expertise, experience, and so on that you could potentially monetize.

So you don't have to make a decision right from the offset, but you can start gathering. The information and the data to help inform what sort of business you could start up.

Some of your experience and your knowledge might not be so obvious in terms of how to monetize it. So you need to start being creative and understanding how your particular skills could be transferable for something that is easily monetized.

So start doing a little bit of brainstorming, a little bit of reflecting. Start capturing all of that data so that you understand what your professional experience and expertise is, and you can then start thinking of how to monetize it. 

The key thing to remember is that you don't need to start learning something completely new in order to start. In fact, that would probably slow your progress down. It's a lot easier to think about everything that you already possess and to start thinking of ways in which you could monetize this.

Of course, in some cases it might be that you completely want to get away from your current job and profession, and that's fine, but think about skills that you already have in terms of your hobbies, in terms of your interest, in terms of knowledge that you've accrued. And capture all of that so that you can really start shaping up an idea that's going to help you set up your service business.

Step 3: Start Testing Your Idea

Step three is to start testing your idea. Once you have an idea as to what your expertise, knowledge, and transferable skills are, you can start testing out some ideas. The way to do this is to test it in the real world with real clients. So you could start perhaps with a pilot programme. You could start with an introductory offer. You could start doing some campaigns and asking people what sort of ideas resonate with them. So doing a little bit of market research and validating whether this idea is viable is actually going to save you so much time and money down the line. So start gathering some information and intel from people in the real world.

Test your ideas out before you commit to anything.

One of the easiest way to do this is to reach out to people that you already know in your professional network. That could be interested in your idea and offer them a discovery call or offer them a conversation. This is not something where you're asking them for any payment. This is something where you are doing market research. You are letting them know what your idea is. You are finding out whether that's something that appeals to them. You are getting a little bit more information as to what their specific problems are so that you can then decide how you can best deliver that solution and that value.

One of the worst things you can do is to try and figure all of this out in your head. It's so easy and it happens to so many of us, we think we need to go out there with the perfect plan, with the perfect idea, with the perfect offer, with the perfect price point, and that is not how it works with entrepreneurship. In fact, that is only going to be a recipe for disaster because if you try and figure it all out in your head and you don't go out there and speak to real humans who could potentially be your clients. You won't be able to know what works, you won't be able to get that real time feedback and you will likely end up in this analysis paralysis situation.

So my recommendation is to have a rough idea, an MVP, which is a minimum viable product, a minimum viable idea. Go out there and speak to real people. Do some market research. Try your idea out with a few pro bono clients, so don't charge them initially when you're just testing things out and see how it lands.

You will get so much more information and feedback that's valuable from this than trying to figure it out in your head.

Step 4: Keep It Simple

Step four is to remember to keep it really simple. You don't need to overcomplicate anything at this stage. You don't need to have a website. You don't need to have a name. You don't need to have a brand, you don't need to have a logo. You don't need any of that. You just need to go out there and speak to real people.

And often what people end up doing is that because it's feels so scary to go and speak to someone real, they end procrastinating by building a website and building a brand and creating a logo. All of those things have their place, but Honestly, the most valuable thing you can do is to go out there and speak to real people.

Practise your skills, practise your delivery, get some research done, understand what the market needs and where your ideas sit within that before trying to do any of the other things. It's only going to delay you and is going to cause so much overwhelm, so keep it as simple as you can. Focus on helping people, delivering value, delivering transformations. That will build your confidence and your momentum in terms of building your first offer, focus on delivering a specific transformation or solving a specific problem for your client, and that is all you need to do. Do not try to over complicate it. Just create one simple offer that solves one specific problem.

Step 5: Build Momentum Gradually

Step five is to remember that it takes time and that we need to build momentum gradually.

Whilst you have your full-time job, you'll likely be working on your business in the evenings and maybe some hours over the weekend. You need to focus on serving a small number of clients and being able to deliver value for them so that you can start building your momentum.

You can start building your confidence, and as you start charging for your services, you can start validating the fact that you're able to deliver this value so that you can then see  how it might look like to start scaling back your job in order to be able to bring more time into your business.

In my case as a doctor, what I did was that I started providing my medical services within a business model. So I created a medical services company, which allowed me to be able to contract my work whilst I was building my coaching business. Which meant that I was able to choose the number of shifts that I was doing as a doctor, and so when my business started to take off, I started reducing my shifts, but I did it in a very gradual way over the course of three or four years because I wanted to feel safe.

I wanted to have financial stability. I wanted to regulate my nervous system, and I wanted to give my business breathing room to be able to grow without that pressure of having to produce all of these results from day one.

And that is what I would recommend for the majority of people starting businesses. If you are someone that's already very experienced as an entrepreneur, if you've had multiple businesses in the past and you know how it works, then fine. Go for it. Launch yourself into having a business that is absolutely not a problem.

You already have a lot of the skillset. Being an entrepreneur requires. A whole new set of skills, which we do not have when we are employees. It takes time to develop these skills, and so we need to develop our confidence, our entrepreneurial skills, and our client base so that we can then trust that our business is going to sustain us financially before we start contemplating the idea of quitting our day job.

The key point here is to remember that we need to be patient. A lot of marketing gurus and online business gurus are trying to sell us this idea that we can have a six figure business within three to six months, and honestly, they are selling you an empty dream. Please be mindful of that because you could end up in a situation. Where you are not financially secure and it's going to set you back.

And my idea here is to be realistic with you. I'm a very optimistic person by nature, but I also really want to be grounded here and tell you that it takes time. It takes a few years to be able to fully transition to being a profitable and sustainable entrepreneur. Okay? And so my advice here is to embrace the fact that it's gonna take a little while. Embrace the fact that your job is going to fund your business. So try to see your job as the fuel, in terms of financial fuel to be able to support yourself whilst you start working on your business. And as your business grows and gathers momentum, you can start thinking about how you can scale back your day job and eventually you will get to that point where you know that it's right for you. To quit your day job, and that is such an exciting time. It is also quite scary. At least it was for me. But you will get to that point. You will, but you need to create that space. You need to work on your business gradually. You need to develop all of these new skills. You need to practise, you need to get your clients. You need to still have that financial security, don't you? So keep that whilst you're working on this and it will make the transition a lot smoother. That is what I would recommend for the vast majority of entrepreneurs.

Summary

To summarise, if you're thinking about starting a business, it is a good idea to keep your day job and to start creating some space every single week to work on your business.

Start with the skills that you already have. Start capturing your intellectual property, your expertise, your knowledge, your insights, and your experience so that you can start building an idea of the kind of value that you could potentially monetize.

Go out into the real world and test your ideas with real clients. Speak to people. Do market research and gather real time feedback so that you can start refining your offers and understanding how you can provide value, where you can get money in exchange.

Also, remember to keep it really, really simple. Don't overcomplicate anything and don't worry about creating any kind of business structure. At this point. You are just starting out.

And finally, remember that it takes time. Allow yourself to build momentum gradually. Keep the security of your day job and reframe your day job, not as a cage or a prison, but as the thing that's going to set you free eventually. That is how I did it, and honestly, it works. It just takes a little bit of time. So we need to be patient, but be intentional and spend time every single week working on your business, and it will eventually become the reality that you're dreaming about. I really hope you have found this helpful.