One thing in advance: the one perfect time to take the step into self-employment does not exist.
Once you have made the decision that you want to leave employee life, it is important to tackle and put things into practice.
Many of the entrepreneurs I deal with every day regret not having become self-employed earlier. In retrospect, the worries that plagued many before self-employment were not justified.
So how should one approach self-employment?
The first thing you should do is to be clear about what you want to do. This is not about determining everything down to the smallest detail. Rather, the goal should be to define the direction in which the entrepreneurial journey should initially take place.
Secondly, you should create a money buffer so that you don’t have to worry financially for a certain period of time (ideally 2-3 years). This way you can put all your energy into the sustainable development of your own business during this time and you don’t have to worry about how to pay the rent in the next month.
Get to work!
If these two criteria are met, then you should approach the self-employment project practically step by step. As soon as you get to grips with self-employment in practice, you will see that many doubts disappear and you will become even more motivated.
The first practical task should be to make a list of things you need to do to start your own business.
This list will be different for each prospective entrepreneur, as each business has its own characteristics.
Here is a sample list of tasks that such a list could include:
- Define which services/products should be offered
- Define possible target group for my products
- Researching what the requirements are for practising the trade (Chamber of Commerce can help here)
- Gathering ideas on how I want to reach customers
- Calculate for which price/hourly rate the services/products should be offered
- Determine company name
- Create a website
Then you should work step by step. Reserve time for this every day and make the “Project Self-employment” a habit.
Be aware that not everything should be perfect for the start of your self-employment and that perfection does not make sense for many aspects. During your self-employment you will see that many things develop differently than you thought. This is a completely natural process that you do not need to worry about. It is important that you remain open to this constant change and that you focus on simple rather than more complex solutions at the beginning.
The very last step is to quit your current job and register the business. This step is certainly the most difficult for most people. However, once the notice of termination has been submitted, many things will become even easier. Because from now on you will have the start of your business clearly in sight and probably gain even more motivation.
In the end, my most important advice is that if you have the desire to be self-employed: Get to work!
Because in the end it’s all about implementation and not just about constant thinking. That is what entrepreneurship is all about!
In this sense: Good luck!
