21 May How to Jump-Start Your Career as an Entrepreneur

Many individuals do not see themselves working in a cubical from nine to five. Most have broken free of this monotonic routine and started working as entrepreneurs. However, kickstarting a career has risks or failures without a proper plan and execution. Riveter Consulting Group can help you fulfill your entrepreneurial goals. Here is a guide to start fresh.

Find Your Passion

Whether you are a fresh graduate, a corporate worker, or someone needing clarification about your career, the first step is to sit back and brainstorm ideas. This idea could be a passion you had when you were a child or something you developed later in life. It is often the base of your entrepreneurship.

You could have a passion for cooking, coding, brewing coffee, modeling, or designing; your new career will build on that passion. It is essential to find what you are innately good at or at least have a potential for growth in that skill.

Your passion will allow you to eliminate the mundanity of corporate life and help you earn doing things you care about. But you may still need to remember what you liked as a child, what you care about, or that exceptional idea you had while showering. There are various business ideas you can take into consideration.

Make A Plan

It is the stage where you map out your career. You research the competition, learn from your mentor/s, learn new skills, and communicate with peers who have entrepreneurial careers. It is also the stage to develop your skill set, communication skills, and marketing strategy.

Finding an idea you are passionate about will only get you so far. Careers do not build on ideas. You may have liked cooking when you were seven, but now you could barely get the stove on, or you could have won the beauty pageant in high school, and now you may be camera shy.

Hence, you must adequately work on that idea and determine how good you are at that skill. You should take personality development and communication classes or learn something from scratch. Your ideas or passion have to make you believe you are confident to start anew.

You should thoroughly map your ideas, find out probable problems that may arise, find solutions to those problems, and build a network to help you build your career. But if you still need help, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will assist you in every step.

Gather Your Fund

Ideas manifest into the business through funds. First, you must adequately estimate the capital you will invest in your business. It accounts for buying office technology, hiring professionals, building office space, or investing in yourself for skill training programs. There are different ways to gather funds. You may fund your business through bootstrapping (self-funding) or finding sponsors who believe in your business pitch.

However, other options, such as crowdfunding, venture capital investment, or small business loans (SBA loans), are available. If you apply for an SBA loan, your options may include the SBA Microloan, 7(a) loans program, or CDC/504 loan.

Crowdfunding has been made famous by celebrities, artists, writers, and filmmakers by collecting funds from several people online. You can also opt for crowdfunding if you believe your business will help a cause or people via employment opportunities or philanthropy.

Venture capital is a type of private equity or funding investors provide to startups or small businesses if they find growth potential in your business. You can also choose a venture capital with a solid business pitch.

Structure Your Business

A business structure affects your taxes, paperwork, licenses, permits, and liabilities. After gathering your capital, you must find a structure that benefits your business and protects you from potential risks and liabilities. It depends upon capital, type of investment, the scale of your business, and your idea. The business structure is categorized as follows:

Sole proprietorship

A sole proprietorship means that only you own your business and have the power to control it. This type of ownership is better for small and low-risk businesses. However, your assets will not be separate from your business assets. Only you will reap your business’s profits, but you also have sole liability for loss.

Partnership

In this type of business, you will share your business and its profits and losses with one or more people. There are two common types of partnership: Limited Partnership (LP) and Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).

An LP has at least one general partner with unlimited liability and limited partners with limited liability. Limited partners usually have limited control over the business’s day-to-day operations to maintain their limited liability status. In LLP, all partners have limited liability. It protects each partner from debts against the partnership and does not hold each partner accountable for the actions of other partners.

Limited Liability Company

LLC protects you from personal liability by segregating your personal and business assets. Your vehicles, house, and savings will not be at risk while bearing your losses. It can be the best choice for medium or high-risk businesses and owners who want their assets protected. It also helps you pay lower taxes than they would with corporations.

Corporations

A corporation is a business entity that has many owners as shareholders. There are mainly two types of corporations, namely, C-corporation and S-corporation. A C-corporation exists as a separate legal entity from its owners, while an S-corporation may have up to 100 shareholders working as partners. The corporation helps raise more capital and saves its owners from personal liabilities.

Cooperatives

Cooperatives are business organizations that are owned and operated by the people who are using their services. Their members divide the profits among themselves. Cooperatives are owned by purchasing their shares.

Build Your Office

Many people start a small business from their garage. However, having an office registered with your business is vital as it provides authenticity to your business. It is a place where professionals come together to work for the benefit of business. For example, if you are to build a mobile app for your organization, the app has to capture the essence of your business and its management. And that app idea will come from your office space rather than some remote place.

Offices provide space to organize team meetings and working stations where you strategize your business ideas. A designated workplace can help you tap into your creativity and manifest your ideas. Office locations and interior designs can significantly affect your business.

Investors hesitate to travel to inconvenient places no matter how brilliant your business ideas are. Thus, office locations should be easy to reach. Also, the ambiance sets the mood for you and your employees to be productive. Proper office furnishing and decor will add hospitable character to your office.

With proper decor, adding technology should elevate proper office functionality. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, several office technologies, such as inventory management, project management, and e-commerce, are value-added tools. However, the requirement of advanced tech will depend on your business’s scale and objective.

Work As An Entrepreneur

You can call yourself an entrepreneur after carefully executing all the previous steps. There are many advantages to becoming the owner of your work, such as flexible hours, networking with like-minded people, and freedom from monotonic mundane routine.

It does come with a cost, and you need to be more careful. Every step should be carefully planned and executed. You should analyze your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential risks at every step, even after becoming an entrepreneur.

Becoming an entrepreneur using these steps is the beginning, not a formula for success. It may take a while to get to breakeven and a few years to generate profits from your business. With Riveter Consulting Group, you can get started in a career that you are passionate about. To learn more, call us at 1 855-444-2515 or message us.