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Should I quit my job before soft validation of the business idea?

Idea threads

FlyinRay

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Hi there,

It is not a surprise that after reading both TFM & Unscripted , and as having always had a entrepreneur mindset, I'm about to start the experience again.

In the past I've held my own web agency for 5 years, but unfortunately, by then, I traded my time for money. And I traded a LOT of it. Paying myself little and only whenever possible after my employees got paid. I today see those years as my business & and technical education.

I definitely broke the commandement of time, scale, entry & but also control. I got it all wrong.
I was educated by scripted parents that told me that work always rewards, at some point...

Anyway, I've closed my company and decided to join one of the trendy startups making millions already, mainly as a learning experience.
I'm earning a 6 figure salary, but after having read MJ's books, I feel like I'm in a golden cage. At this pace, a 30-35 years of slowlaning would make me possess 1M., however, that is by keeping a poor lifestyle.

Biggest decision now is quitting my job. No I'm kidding, biggest question is WTF am I going to create as a business. I have to say, it is very hard to come from a very popular product and start from scratch. Especially seeing some other people that started a few years back and now earning the same salary as mine but on a productocracy based model. I'll make sure to not fall into the money trap, hopefully TUNEF is here to help in order to avoid as much bias as possible.

I had a question for you though. I have a project in mind, that mostly fits TUNEF. Of course it needs to be soft validated and I already started reaching out to some people that could help me doing so. A few things that are worrying me are:
- Scale: Even though numbers are there, I'm afraid the marketing/sales process is going to be hard (because of the target). I need more information on how to properly address my prospects.
- Time: My business would need to provide some degree of support, and probably also needs someone to sell and go on field if required.

My feeling is that I should try to soft validate my business idea before quitting my job. How do you feel about that? At the same time, I've never wanted to quit my job as much as of today.
Also to note that I'm the only one bringing in money as of today in a family of wife & kid.

Any recommendations for the discovery phase?
 
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Niptuck MD

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FlyinRay

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Thanks for the link, interesting read.
It does help regarding what to do with the money.

I'm wondering, what is a good time to start a money system? At 1k dollar? 10k?
Most importantly, MJ explains a bit more about how the money system works, but is there any more concrete resource where to learn from? Especially about the when to buy, when to sell?
 

Danny Sullivan

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Hey @FlyinRay

money systems works best if done with a lot of money (as MJ mentioned). Investing a little bit won't get you that far and you should rather reinvest in your business.

I hope your "buying and selling" is not heading towards day-trading. Because a) once you stop, your income stops and b) there's a gazillion others out there doing it and intelligent AI trading millions of stocks per second - if you think you can compete (which i don't think anyone can long run)... no, just forget this. I think it's best to invest long-term in dividend paying stocks or government bonds. And it all comes down to which company you can identify with and has fundamentals that direct them towards a stable / growing future.

I think it's a good thing to have a basic understanding of the company and learn how to analyze stocks.

Here are some english youtube channels i'm watching in regards to dividend investing:

FASTgraphs

ppcian

Aswath Damodaran

There's also a free course where you can start looking into analyzing stocks at open2study (which i highly recommend) here:

Diagnosing the Financial Health of a Business (FinHlth)

If stocks aren't your thing and you'd rather invest in businesses that provide monthly income, you can do that too. There's plenty of people here doing this.

If you got any more questions (was self-improving for at least 8 months daily on analyzing stocks because i thought it's "a way out" of 9-5 before i read MJ's books), i'd be glad to help to the best of my knowledge.

Oh... and dividend stocks is hold for eternity at best. You almost never sell, unless fundamentals of the business changes dramatically or they are acquired or the value of the stocks exceeds multiple years of dividend income.

Best of luck!
 
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Fotis

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- Scale: Even though numbers are there, I'm afraid the marketing/sales process is going to be hard (because of the target). I need more information on how to properly address my prospects.

Go to forums, facebook groups, linkedin groups, trade shows, or anywhere your market gathers. You can learn a lot from reading their comments/posts.

Make sure they are buyers, not just freeloaders. For example, weight loss forums have great stories you can use in your marketing, but most of the people in there never buy anything (they're just trying to stitch together a diet and complain about how hard losing weight is)

If there are sales letters/pieces running, study them. You can discover a lot from them since the writers have already done a lot of the hard work for you.
 

Tanu1234

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Hi there,

It is not a surprise that after reading both TFM & Unscripted , and as having always had a entrepreneur mindset, I'm about to start the experience again.

In the past I've held my own web agency for 5 years, but unfortunately, by then, I traded my time for money. And I traded a LOT of it. Paying myself little and only whenever possible after my employees got paid. I today see those years as my education, business one &

I definitely broke the commandement of time, scale, entry & but also control. I got it all wrong.
I was educated by scripted parents that told me that work always rewards, at some point...

Anyway, I've closed my company and decided to join one of the trendy startups making millions already, mainly as a learning experience.
I'm earning a 6 figure salary, but after having read MJ's books, I feel like I'm in a golden cage. At this pace, a 30-35 years of slowlaning would make me possess 1M., however, that is by keeping a poor lifestyle.

Biggest decision now is quitting my job. No I'm kidding, biggest question is WTF am I going to create as a business. I have to say, it is very hard to come from a very popular product and start from scratch. Especially seing some other people that started a few years back and now earning the same salary as mine but on a productocracy based model. I'll make sure to not fall into the money trap, hopefully TUNEF is here to help in order to avoid as much bias as possible.

I had a question for you though. I have a project in mind, that mostly fits TUNEF. Of course it needs to be soft validated and I already started reaching out to some people that could help me doing so. A few things that are worrying me are:
- Scale: Even though numbers are there, I'm afraid the marketing/sales process is going to be hard (because of the target). I need more information on how to properly address my prospects.
- Time: My business would need to provide some degree of support, and probably also needs someone to sell and go on field if required.

My feeling is that I should try to soft validate my business idea before quitting my job. How do you feel about that? At the same time, I've never wanted to quit my job as much as of today.
Also to note that I'm the only one bringing in money as of today in a family of wife & kid.

Any recommendations for the discovery phase?

Hi,

I understand your emotion to quit job but its not right at this moment.

I suggest start your business part time and scale slowly.

You can hire contractors to help you.

Save money from profit and invest half in business and half for future.

Good luck
 

FlyinRay

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Wow, thanks to all of you!
I'm really impressed by the good vibes, the support and thoughtful answers here. Especially considering you guys have read the books and value your time.

Hey @FlyinRay

money systems works best if done with a lot of money (as MJ mentioned). Investing a little bit won't get you that far and you should rather reinvest in your business.

I hope your "buying and selling" is not heading towards day-trading. Because a) once you stop, your income stops and b) there's a gazillion others out there doing it and intelligent AI trading millions of stocks per second - if you think you can compete (which i don't think anyone can long run)... no, just forget this. I think it's best to invest long-term in dividend paying stocks or government bonds. And it all comes down to which company you can identify with and has fundamentals that direct them towards a stable / growing future.

I think it's a good thing to have a basic understanding of the company and learn how to analyze stocks.

Here are some english youtube channels i'm watching in regards to dividend investing:

FASTgraphs

ppcian

Aswath Damodaran

There's also a free course where you can start looking into analyzing stocks at open2study (which i highly recommend) here:

Diagnosing the Financial Health of a Business (FinHlth)

If stocks aren't your thing and you'd rather invest in businesses that provide monthly income, you can do that too. There's plenty of people here doing this.

If you got any more questions (was self-improving for at least 8 months daily on analyzing stocks because i thought it's "a way out" of 9-5 before i read MJ's books), i'd be glad to help to the best of my knowledge.

Oh... and dividend stocks is hold for eternity at best. You almost never sell, unless fundamentals of the business changes dramatically or they are acquired or the value of the stocks exceeds multiple years of dividend income.

Best of luck!

Thanks for those tips and links. I think I'll postpone the learning to the moment it will make sense.

Go to forums, facebook groups, linkedin groups, trade shows, or anywhere your market gathers. You can learn a lot from reading their comments/posts.

Make sure they are buyers, not just freeloaders. For example, weight loss forums have great stories you can use in your marketing, but most of the people in there never buy anything (they're just trying to stitch together a diet and complain about how hard losing weight is)

If there are sales letters/pieces running, study them. You can discover a lot from them since the writers have already done a lot of the hard work for you.

My first step will indeed be to properly analyse my market.
I've already filled dozen pages with references, articles and nice threads. I'm pretty excited because I feel like there is a big opportunity but of course, I've just started the study properly.

Hi,

I understand your emotion to quit job but its not right at this moment.

I suggest start your business part time and scale slowly.

You can hire contractors to help you.

Save money from profit and invest half in business and half for future.

Good luck

I plan to workout my business idea, soft validate it and start working on a prototype while keeping my job.
However, I think that if I properly validate the market size, and have some customers ready to commit, I'll move forward very quickly.
However, there is a long road ahead for the development of my product, but others have done it :)

Thanks again for the help so far, very valuable already.
 
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100k

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No. Keep the job. Try to negotiate and get a piece of the action (i.e buy or earn a stake in the business / shares).

Even if you can't get shares.... keep the job, live as a cheap a$$.... save as much as possible... and invest into your own business (and of course work on the business after/before your day job) until you make $10k+ per month then you can quit and not have to worry about anything.
 

Zcott

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Quitting your job straight away would be jumping the gun a bit. Leaving a six figure salary, although still a job for someone else, is considerable money to stop flowing into your bank account all of a sudden. Work on something in your spare time and see if there is traction... then quit.
 

FlyinRay

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No. Keep the job. Try to negotiate and get a piece of the action (i.e buy or earn a stake in the business / shares).

Even if you can't get shares.... keep the job, live as a cheap a$$.... save as much as possible... and invest into your own business (and of course work on the business after/before your day job) until you make $10k+ per month then you can quit and not have to worry about anything.

Thanks for shimming in.
So my fear is that I will not be able to go fast enough if I keep a full time job.
Maybe part time could be an idea instead.

I'm usually a binary person. I either go all in or don't go at all.

Then regarding building the company while staying at my current job, I feel like I should inform my employers if I do so. Also it would limit my marketing actions somewhat. I want to quickly be able to give a human face to the company, without needing to hide myself.

You are true however that having some money to invest in my own company could be good.
Not sure I'll be able to negotiate some part time job anytime soon, however I can continue my market analysis for now.

Thanks for your reaction @100k
 
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FlyinRay

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Quitting your job straight away would be jumping the gun a bit. Leaving a six figure salary, although still a job for someone else, is considerable money to stop flowing into your bank account all of a sudden. Work on something in your spare time and see if there is traction... then quit.

Yes, that makes sense indeed. Thanks for comforting me into that position.
 

Zcott

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Yes, that makes sense indeed. Thanks for comforting me into that position.

Last thing you want is to find out your idea has no traction or is not worth it and then have to find another job / ask for your old one back. This is why many people wake up early, at like 3/4am, and start working on their idea before they go to work. :)
 

tiagosoares17.22

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DON'T QUIT YOUR JOB YET.

If you haven't yet validated your idea, and have customers willing to pay you for the product, you'll get better by having income getting in.

I'll use myself as example.

I decided to start my own wine production close to two years now. At the time I was making a living with my Online Fitness Coaching business, but since I wanted to do something new, I decided to stop doing the online coaching in order to FOCUS 110% in the wine business.

That sounds great, but focusing 100% on one business that doesn't have yet traction, can turn out to be a bad idea. Why?

Because there are many things that can happen that you have no idea.
In my case, it turned out that what should have taken 10 months to start, took 17. Also, there were many hidden expenses that I wasn't expecting.

To put things in perspective: sales started later, I spend more money to start the business than what I was expecting, and I had to live for a longer period of time with savings.

What I ended up doing, was to get back to the Online Fitness Coaching. Not like I was doing before, but I got back to it, and I still do it.

Now, only when I reach a certain point in the business, will be when I decide to completely stop the Online Fitness Coaching.

So, my recommendation to you is, if you are not seating in a lot of cash, don't quit your job yet.
When things start to get traction, and you feel you can scale your business, then it's time to quit, and go ALL IN.
 
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FlyinRay

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DON'T QUIT YOUR JOB YET.

If you haven't yet validated your idea, and have customers willing to pay you for the product, you'll get better by having income getting in.

I'll use myself as example.

I decided to start my own wine production close to two years now. At the time I was making a living with my Online Fitness Coaching business, but since I wanted to do something new, I decided to stop doing the online coaching in order to FOCUS 110% in the wine business.

That sounds great, but focusing 100% on one business that doesn't have yet traction, can turn out to be a bad idea. Why?

Because there are many things that can happen that you have no idea.
In my case, it turned out that what should have taken 10 months to start, took 17. Also, there were many hidden expenses that I wasn't expecting.

To put things in perspective: sales started later, I spend more money to start the business than what I was expecting, and I had to live for a longer period of time with savings.

What I ended up doing, was to get back to the Online Fitness Coaching. Not like I was doing before, but I got back to it, and I still do it.

Now, only when I reach a certain point in the business, will be when I decide to completely stop the Online Fitness Coaching.

So, my recommendation to you is, if you are not seating in a lot of cash, don't quit your job yet.
When things start to get traction, and you feel you can scale your business, then it's time to quit, and go ALL IN.

Thanks for sharing your personal experience. It is really valuable.
In my case, I don't really think I'll be able to keep my job and start a new business.
The best I could do is get a few orally accepted offers of customers I know, and develop most of the product while still having my job by working early in the morning and late at night.

Maybe I'll be able to negotiate a part time at some point and explain the fact that I'm launching a business, but I feel like it sends some wrong signals. As an entrepreneur, would you keep an employee that you know will go away in less than 6 months? Myself, I probably would if the person is valuable, but only until I find a full time replacement. Maybe it actually is a good transition out of a company :)
 

Bhanu

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Hi FlyinRay,

If you can get 3 hours free time after the job I dont think you should quit it at all .
3 hours of focused work for 1-2 year should be sufficient to launch a company and get customers(or test multiple ideas). As you have said you are only earning member in your family I would not recommend you to quit( quitting job will be a selfish thing to do IMO). With job I agree things will slow down but it wont matter in the long run . 3 years or 6 years a successful company is treated as a successful company no matter how long it took. You have also told about you nature of going all in or not go at all ..why not take it as a challenge and see if you can do two things successfully ?
 

FlyinRay

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Hi FlyinRay,

If you can get 3 hours free time after the job I dont think you should quit it at all .
3 hours of focused work for 1-2 year should be sufficient to launch a company and get customers(or test multiple ideas). As you have said you are only earning member in your family I would not recommend you to quit( quitting job will be a selfish thing to do IMO). With job I agree things will slow down but it wont matter in the long run . 3 years or 6 years a successful company is treated as a successful company no matter how long it took. You have also told about you nature of going all in or not go at all ..why not take it as a challenge and see if you can do two things successfully ?

Thanks for your comment.
I really like the way you see things.
I'm today convinced indeed that I shouldn't quit. I'll work before and after the job.

7 years ago, I bootstrapped a lot of idea projects, and today when I see the market, all of them have been done. I don't wanna fall into the trap of "ah shit this has been done, next!", but still, sometimes you have to face evidence. It is emotionally hard though to realize that if I eventually left everything I was doing 7years ago and believed in my idea, it could be successful today.
On the bright side, it means I'm capable of coming up with good ideas. Know as MJ states, the execution is king.

I've got a few potential ideas already but don't want to rush things too much.

I really like the idea of trying to build my business while keeping my job when seen as a challenge. I'll definitely think of it that way now!

Again thank you so much for your time!
 
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