In this post, we are going to look at the steps required to build your own thing. This is for those who feel confident enough to take the BIG JUMP, to leave their office job, quit working for anyone else but themselves without having to get an MBA or spend a fortune on it.

Contrary to the side hustle, where getting there first without waiting too much is one of the most important things, when it comes to building a small to medium business, it may actually be better not to rush and not to be the first one out there. “It’s much better to be a last mover”.

The 4 pillars to start your adventure should be:

• do what you love…or better said, do the thing you love that can make money
• find a connection between what you value and what other people will pay for – as discussed before, it’s useless to put something out there that no one will ever buy
• start with a low level of investment
• analyze, study results and change the course if needed

The last point is particularly important. You might have the greatest idea, but maybe your delivery or accessibility or targeted demographic is not the right one. And this is normal, it happens, and it shouldn’t drag you down making you feel like a failure. Bumps on the road will happen all the time. That is why testing out and changing whenever necessary and trying again, it’s such an important part of the process.

“When you have a project that’s going well and it seems like it could take off to new heights if you devoted more time to it, that’s when you want to get serious about ramping up to a full fledged business”. And the growth from a side hustle to a permanent business venture it’s the most natural way to develop and it can easily happen by doing one of two things: sell more to existing customers or sell to more customers. Additionally, there are four areas that you need to consider:

• SKILLS – improve both the technical aspects that you need for your business and the soft skills too
• CONNECTIONS – keep networking and meeting everyone you can
• EXPERIMENTS – try new things and expose yourself to new places, people and ideas
• OPPORTUNITIES – say yes more than you say no at this stage – that is where opportunities are found

You need to do all of the above ground work not only at the start, but continuously, as this will create a solid base but also the opportunity to become bigger and better all the time.

Your next question for sure will be: so when do I finally quit my job? Unfortunately no one can say for sure, and no one can tell you the right time to do so, as there is not one size-fit-all answer to this. But to speak logically, it is probably best to take the leap of faith when your business is making enough money for you to live on. Until than, it would be a bit risky and could jeopardize your future plans. Better to wait and resist a bit longer, instead of regretting it later.

I personally love the idea of having my own business but I am completely terrified by it. I’m much more intrigued by the idea of the side-hustle, which would allow me to keep a steady and secure job and paycheck, and then feed my passion by doing something on the side that makes me happy and not terrified of the future. But that doesn’t mean that if I have the right idea that has legs and potential for more, I wouldn’t explore it. At the end of day, who doesn’t like to be their own boss? Have the freedom to control their own timings, take their own decisions and simply create something out of nothing that it’s successful and makes money?

In the next post, we will explore the way of getting the job of your dreams in what I would like to call, probably wrongly, the more traditional way. A paid steady job as a hired employee, but the one that makes you the happiest.