10 Essential Career Change Tips to Becoming an Entrepreneur

3. Speed up your learning curve

When you’re thinking about starting something new in any field you always want to speed up your learning curve as much as possible. 

But when you’re diving into being an entrepreneur for the first time you really want to do everything you can to avoid spinning your wheels. 

That’s because unlike a traditional job, there’s not going to be anyone there to tell you that you are not cut out for what you’re trying to do.

You’re going to have to make that determination yourself and typically you will base your conclusion on the amount of traction that you gain over a certain amount of time.

If you don’t create enough traction or you simply plateau, you will likely hit burnout and your dreams may crash and burn.

Luckily, there are a couple of ways that you can help avoid this burnout scenario.

Find a good course or two

The first is to take relevant courses that can help jumpstart your endeavors. 

For example, if you want to get into blogging then consider taking a course that shows you how to monetize your blog or create a brand.

A lot of times these jumpstart courses are not terribly expensive or time-consuming. 

What you’re trying to accomplish is learning the fundamentals so that you don’t have to spend months or years figuring them out on your own.

One course is not going to give you all the fundamentals you need but it will help you find the necessary footholds to get going.

Find a good mentor

The second way to avoid burnout is to find a good mentor. 

Finding a mentor is not always easy but it is one of the sure-fire ways to expedite your learnings in an industry. Try to find someone who is already doing what you want to do and start interacting with them. 

A good way to start that is by commenting on their emails, blog posts, Instagram posts, or whatever type of outlet they output content on. 

If you show them that you are sincerely interested in their space and appreciate their content, they will almost certainly take the time to interact with you. (If they don’t, chances are that’s probably not a good mentor for you or it might mean that they offer advice on a paid basis.) 

After you build a relationship then you can have the “hard ask” which could come in the form of a direct message where you ask them for 30 minutes of their time. 

Go into that 30-minute meeting prepared with lots of good, well-thought-out questions that will help you fill in the holes that you need and you will be off to a great start.

If the conversation goes well and you feel a connection, then make sure they know how much you appreciated their time and plan to follow up with them 3 to 6 months later. 

At that point, you want to update them on your progress, continue to pick their brain and do your best to nurture the relationship on a human level.

Rinse and repeat until you have a true relationship with this person.

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5. Get familiar with entities in your state

One of the first questions people have is “What type of entity should I create?” The answer to this of course is that it depends.

You could start as a sole proprietorship, LLC, C corp, S Corp, etc. (the majority of small businesses are run as sole proprietorships or LLCs). 

In some states, it's very easy and cheap to create something like a single member LLC where you are the sole owner. You literally fill out a couple of forms, make a payment, and set up a registered agent. Even if you need to create an operating agreement, that can also be done with automated software.

But things get much more complicated when you start introducing multiple owners and potential investors, shares, etc. 

If you're comfortable with basic legal principles you can generate the paperwork needed for these things yourself. For example, Clerky is a great software for creating documents for corporations.

But if you have any doubts at all you should involve an expert or attorney. You probably also want to talk to a tax professional about tax implications.

And make sure you are aware of all of the fees that go into forming these entities because they can sometimes add up, especially for corporations.

Don't rush into choosing your entity type but once you get it settled, go ahead and set up your bank accounts for the business as quickly as you can. 

If you have good credit, apply for a good business credit card and start segregating expenses for that business. 

If you need an EIN you can often get that in minutes.

6. Find out what you need financially to get started

Another big question you need to figure out early on is how much money will it take to launch your new business. And secondly, how will you get that money?

The great thing about online businesses is that they can be extremely cheap to begin with. On the most basic level of creating a blog, you can basically get started for free or for sure under $100. 

Obviously, things are much different if you’re trying to set up a brick-and-mortar shop where you might need to get approved for licenses, and permits, and obtain SBA financing to purchase equipment, real estate, etc.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, you may or may not need to put together a business plan or executive summary (business plans are always helpful in my experience – even if they are not required). 

Another route is the investment route. If you’re trying to build something like a tech startup you want to start thinking about things like SAFE agreements and convertible notes. 

Typically, you would probably begin gathering financing from friends and family but some people go right in and approach angel investors once they put together a solid pitch deck.

You could also apply for a respected incubator or accelerator program and if you get accepted you could plan on leaving your job at that time since the program might require just that.

Regardless of which route you take, it would be best if you did sufficient research to determine which routes appeal to you and would be a good fit. 

This process of your journey typically takes a few months to really sort out so once again try to be patient and remember there is often not one single “right” way to do these things.  

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