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How do you decide to leave work to focus 100% on your business, and should I?

Anything related to matters of the mind

Kokaka

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Hi all.
So as some of you know, I opend an advanced beauty clinic in august of which I own 25% and 10 weeks ago I opend a new business focusing in importing and selling machines to such clinics.
So far, Im just the middle man for some agencies but I am taking most of my profits and investnig in developing my own brand so I can increase profit by up to 600% per unit I sell, a webpage, more ads, marketing material etc.

Things are so far going well. The machine business has been up and running for 10 weeks and so far had a turnover of 74k and a profit of 20k from an initial investment of 50usd (just shitty ads on craigslist equivalent sites). This gives me about 30% profit per unit I sell. Might increase to 125k next week if Im lucky.
Was also able to get a loan for 25k of which I will invest everything in the company to get my brand up and running and get 5 new machines on the market.

The problem I am seeing is that I work part time as a nurses assistent at the hospital and trying to catch up on my medicine studies.
I only work with the business about 5-10 hours a week and work 50% at the hospital so I really want this to work so I dont have to work part time anymore and just focus on things that are important to me.
The thought of leaving work is very tempting but the initial fear is still there. I mean, what if I was just lucky?
Last year this time I was on welfare due to burnout and bad insurance and I dont want to go back. Mental health is all good now but I want to be able to pay my bills on time.
I find it a little stressfull since the units I sell are very expensive and every sell counts and I feel that its whats holding me back from leaving the saftey of my work and just focus on the money I have left from my business after my investments.
I understand what someone famous said sometime ago. "Starting a business is like eating glass and staring into the abyss".

Anyway.
This situation got me thinking. When is it a good time to leave work and just focusing on building your business and what thought processes is involved?
Thanks
 
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TheLearner

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A lot of sensible people would say when you’re earning 3x the income of your normal job. But I don’t think you’ll ever feel “good” about leaving. I say just do it when you’re ready to burn the boats and be an entrepreneur, that way you can focus all your efforts on growing the business. Part time is tough if your competition is full time. Think about the worst case scenario if you left and it all failed, could you handle it? Could you get your old job back? Just cover your downside so you can take another shot if this doesn’t work out.
 

ravenspear

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Be aware that humans value certainty in decision making too highly generally. This leads to negative hesitation in many cases. This need for certainty can be conscious overridden with logic however, so the right time to leave your job imo is when you logically can sustain yourself without that income for a long enough period of time to make substantial progress on the business.

This overprotective aversion to risk which triggers fear has its basis to some extent in a very ancient instinctual pattern that mammals developed when we were still very small helpless creatures. Today humans are the apex alpha predator on this planet but many of them still run around like frightened church mice at the slightest troubles.

To put it more eloquently, this is a good TR video on decisions that goes into some more detail on this, it helped me some on this.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVP1CwEBz_Y
 
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Thinh

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Beware of the often erroneous assumption that quitting your job will enable you to double, triple, or 10x your output/profits.

Do you really need to quit? Does this 50% of your time at the hospital truly is a hindrance to your developing your business?
When I would launch projects in the past, I would always quit my "regular" job, telling myself I needed to go "all-in."
Maybe it's only me, but it was utter bullshit. I was telling myself a story. The scarcity mindset that came out as a consequence of not being sure I'd be able to sustain myself for a prolonged period ruined my creativity and enjoyment of whatever activity.

I have a friend who worked a full-time job, while growing his project for more than 5 years. By this point he was making mid-5 figures every month.
Then he quit. But he didn't quit because he thought it would allow him to work more on his project. Once he quit, he kept working 2-3 hours per day on his business. He just quit because he had loads of cash, and his business was paying him 5-6x what he used to earn as an employee, since a couple years. But he didn't quit so he could work more, only so he could work less.

In short:
  • Most of the time, it's not a good idea to quit your job because you think you are scarce on time.
  • You can quit when your business has consistently paid out 3-5x your current income at least for a year (but a 2 years is much better)
As always, context is everything, your mileage may vary, etc. But honestly, quitting after 10 weeks of business?
Doesn't sound like a good idea.
 

BLIM

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Beware of the often erroneous assumption that quitting your job will enable you to double, triple, or 10x your output/profits.

Do you really need to quit? Does this 50% of your time at the hospital truly is a hindrance to your developing your business?
When I would launch projects in the past, I would always quit my "regular" job, telling myself I needed to go "all-in."
Maybe it's only me, but it was utter bullshit. I was telling myself a story. The scarcity mindset that came out as a consequence of not being sure I'd be able to sustain myself for a prolonged period ruined my creativity and enjoyment of whatever activity.

I have a friend who worked a full-time job, while growing his project for more than 5 years. By this point he was making mid-5 figures every month.
Then he quit. But he didn't quit because he thought it would allow him to work more on his project. Once he quit, he kept working 2-3 hours per day on his business. He just quit because he had loads of cash, and his business was paying him 5-6x what he used to earn as an employee, since a couple years. But he didn't quit so he could work more, only so he could work less.

In short:
  • Most of the time, it's not a good idea to quit your job because you think you are scarce on time.
  • You can quit when your business has consistently paid out 3-5x your current income at least for a year (but a 2 years is much better)
As always, context is everything, your mileage may vary, etc. But honestly, quitting after 10 weeks of business?
Doesn't sound like a good idea.
That's right and it's better to follow this process.
 

Bearcorp

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A lot of sensible people would say when you’re earning 3x the income of your normal job.

Really? I quit mine when I was earning a little under my job, luckily I didn't have any sensible people advising me! Not that I'd have listened anyway, replacing my income 1:1 had always been my goal to quit.

@Kokaka theres never an easy answer to this, especially since you were on welfare last year due to burnout, quitting your job and going at it full time brings with it new pressure and stress, only you can decide if you're up to it or not. I'd consider your health situation, make sure you're doing everything to help that, eating right, sleeping, exercising, looking after yourself, it will always feel risky, but if you can see the benefits in your ventures by dedicating more time to it, then you need to consider it sooner than later.
 
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Timmy C

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Really? I quit mine when I was earning a little under my job, luckily I didn't have any sensible people advising me! Not that I'd have listened anyway, replacing my income 1:1 had always been my goal to quit.

@Kokaka theres never an easy answer to this, especially since you were on welfare last year due to burnout, quitting your job and going at it full time brings with it new pressure and stress, only you can decide if you're up to it or not. I'd consider your health situation, make sure you're doing everything to help that, eating right, sleeping, exercising, looking after yourself, it will always feel risky, but if you can see the benefits in your ventures by dedicating more time to it, then you need to consider it sooner than later.
With you on that mate.

As soon as its level to my job or close to it im quitting or going part-time.
 

Bearcorp

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With you on that mate.

As soon as its level to my job or close to it im quitting or going part-time.

My fiancé was 3 months pregnant with our first, as an entrepreneur herself she was going to be impacted financially for a while (ended up being about 18 months) and my business had no track record of consistent sales to justify me quitting. To everyone on the outside we were crazy and taking a horrible risk. To us, It was a bigger risk to wait any longer. I was completely done in my job, it was quit and find something else anyway, or have a crack at this thing. And my business partner and I were confident more time working on the business would accelerate things.

There’s no black and white path for quitting the slowlane, my goal was always just replacing my income with a side hustle, when it was within touching distance I dived in. We all need to find that level and then go for it :thumbsup:
 

Timmy C

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My fiancé was 3 months pregnant with our first, as an entrepreneur herself she was going to be impacted financially for a while (ended up being about 18 months) and my business had no track record of consistent sales to justify me quitting. To everyone on the outside we were crazy and taking a horrible risk. To us, It was a bigger risk to wait any longer. I was completely done in my job, it was quit and find something else anyway, or have a crack at this thing. And my business partner and I were confident more time working on the business would accelerate things.

There’s no black and white path for quitting the slowlane, my goal was always just replacing my income with a side hustle, when it was within touching distance I dived in. We all need to find that level and then go for it :thumbsup:

I don't see it as a huge risk doing that. Mainly because in lockdown I made so much freaking progress on the business and when I went back to work it made me realize how much of a time-sucking liability a job is to wealth creation.

You make progress much faster by quitting.
 
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Kokaka

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Thanks for all the insight guys. really appreciate it.
I figured out that for me, it was just insecurity to leave work. But like anything in life, its a skill I need to master if I want to pursue being an entrepreneur. And If I dont quit now, I will just have the same insecurity later on. Better to do it now.
Also spoke to my boss, but she didnt let me leave. I was able to negotiate to only work christmas and new years eve. Wife will travel to her family so I dont mind. So will be without a job in january.
On a sidenote. I have doubled my sales since I made this post so I will not have to worry about finances anymore.
 

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