From Paycheck to Entrepreneur

One of the most sought-after things for most beginning webmasters is to be able to move from a paycheck-to-paycheck job into an Entrepreneur position, working from home, with the website generating enough income to live from. Many people have done it, including myself. In my case, I began doing what I do while I was still in college. I had a college job which paid me $8.00/hour. I was majoring in MIS and as graduation approached everybody around me was looking for IT work. In my case, I was able to avoid even looking for a job, moving right into my own business straight out of college. My largest website (PC Mechanic) was generating enough revenue, coupled with my development work, so that I could concentrate on perfecting my sites, my craft, and still have enough money to live on pretty comfortably. I own my own home, have two cars and am doing just fine. I am, by no means, a model of success. I see people everyday (check out the Sitepoint forums) who do much better in this business than I do. However, things are progressing and my future looks very bright.

Being an entrepreneur is, in my opinion, the only way to really make it. Otherwise, you have to worry about climbing the corporate ladder and convincing others of your worth. I prefer to be in control of my own income, not to have to convince another to give me a raise. I also happen to believe that the internet is a prime medium for people looking to make their own way. It is a true equal opportunity medium. Yes, you have to be able to afford a computer. Aside from that, though, the only limit is your willpower, determination and imagination.

What do I consider to be the qualities of being an entrepreneur? They include:

• Initiative. An entrepreneur does not wait for things to happen; he makes them happen. If one is not comfortable taking the lead and making things go their way, they might not make it.
• Makes Decisions. An entrepreneur needs to be able to make a decision and stick to it. He/she thinks with the business in mind and makes decisions to further that effort. If one is apt to sway back and forth, way the pros and cons of every decision to the point of inactivity, they will not make it.
• Innovation. An entrepreneur needs to know their field and come up with ideas to surpass the competition.
• Organization. An entrepreneur needs to be able to keep things organized and manage their own time and resources. As business expands, the demands on time will become more, and overall randomity can increase. One has to be able to handle this, get things done, and still make time for life (family, relaxation).
• Risk-Taking. Going into your own business is a risk in and of itself. Getting a steady paycheck is a security one does not have when they are working for themselves. Do the right thing and that security will be replaced because you know your business will generate income. But, to start off, it can be nerve-racking. Aside from this, entrepreneurs take risks all the time when making business decisions.
• Confront. An entrepreneur needs to be able to comfortably look at and handle the issues of running a business. If he/she does not like dealing with people, would rather hide from a problem than solve it, or does not like to do anything potentially uncomfortable, then the ability to confront is not as high as it should be.

Some of these traits are traits of personality. However, entrepreneurs are not just born. Nobody comes out of the womb with the skills they will have or life. They are learned and anybody can learn them.

Beginning the Transition

So, you are a person who owns and runs a website. You want to make enough money with that website to quit your day job. Lets start with the bedrock of it all – you. What things should you do to create a bedrock for success?

• Love of the Field. To be successful at any line of work, you have to care about it enough to become good at it. An Entrepreneur needs to have a passion for their field. Choose a line of work that you care about and that you enjoy. In our cases, assuming we are people running a website, we are probably doing this because it is a hobby. That is perfect. Turning a hobby into your line of work is the best way to do this.
• Absorb Information. An entrepreneur wants to understand how things work and is eager to learn about new things in their field. All information that crosses the desk could be a potential opportunity. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen something on a website during casual surfing that I thought was cool and then spent hours figuring out how they did it. That’s how you learn. Even something as simple as junk mail in your mail box could hold potential ideas for you.
• Be Optimistic. You can’t be a “whoas me” type and expect to get far. If you are having problems, see them as a building block to perfecting yourself and your craft.
• Be Competitive. To make it working for yourself, you need to outshine your competition. Take the subject of your website. How can you make it outshine the competition?
• Lean Forward. Entrepreneurs lean forward. Always push for something better. Don’t get satisfied with the status quo and not seek to expand. Any business which is not always expanding will eventually succumb. Always lean toward progress. So, push yourself to do what you need to do to make your website work. Strive for something bigger.
• Place Value on Time. Begin to think of your time as money. You don’t like to waste your money, so don’t waste your time either. Also, learn to think of your time as you would return on investment. Spend your time on things which will make the most headway for you. Don’t waste time on useless activities or things which won’t get you very far. For example, you could spend hours doing price comparisons on something you want to buy in order to save $10, but in the long run, it makes more sense to just pay the extra $10 and use your time on something more valuable. Learn to think this way.
• Start right away. The most successful entrepreneurs start young. However, regardless of where you are in life, start now. If you let grass grow under your feet, you could lose out. If you have an idea for a website which is unique, go with it now. If you wait, others might do it and the market could be saturated by the time you try.
• Organize your Day. Entrepreneurs usually prefer to work unbothered, so organize your day so that you have time set aside to work on your website and your dream. If you get home and crash in front of the TV for a few hours, that isn’t going to get you anywhere. Additionally, learn to organize your to-do list so that all of your tasks align toward your common goal.
• Organize Your Workspace. If you are going to work from home, start acting like it. Without proper discipline, it is easy to take too many breaks, watch TV, grab a snack, etc. But, if you’re going to do this, you have to treat working at home with the same discipline you would in a normal job. Give yourself work hours and stick to them. If you have family or other domestic affairs, make a decision to end your workday at a certain time, after which you take the evening off.
• Maintain Control Over Your Environment. Entrepreneurs don’t wait for things to happen and don’t generally believe in luck. They believe that things happen when they are MADE to happen. Start approaching life as a game and play it as if its a game. If you have things to achieve and goals to make, actively pursue them and stop waiting for your ship to come in.

Make the Decision

The first step is to make a decision to work on your own. This is not an idle hope or a “gee, wouldn’t it be nice” moment. It is a decision, one that you KNOW is going to happen. Now, I’m not saying to quit your job now and just do it. You don’t want to be flippant. But, realize that once the decision is made, its going to take some hard work to make this happen.

Its going to take a certain level of disagreement with the society around you. This society tends to placate the 9-5 worker who collects his check, retires at 55 for a white picket fence life with 2.5 kids and a dog. When you’re an Entrepreneur, you need to march to your own drummer. Some might say you are stupid for trying, or that its a dream. Anybody who says this is not evil or bad, but in my opinion just brainwashed into that middle class lifestyle to which this society is comfortable. You are going to need to decide and then disagree with any counter-intention.

Set up the Space

Working from home can be a bad idea for those without a proper workspace and the self-discipline to use it. Your home is probably full of distractions. A regular job means you actually get in the car and go to an office or workplace. When you’re there, you don’t have much else to do besides work. That isn’t the case at home. So, the first thing is to get serious and set up a workspace for your business. Set up your desk and get the PC set up in a fashion suitable to work. Definitely use a high-speed internet connection if you don’t already have one. There is nothing more grueling than trying to develop online over dial-up. Make sure you have all the office supplies you will need. Have a fax machine on hand. Many times you will be exchanging contracts or other similar data via fax and you will need this as a webmaster. If you don’t have a fax machine, you could look into an internet-based service such as eFax. Have some backup devices and media on hand to back up your work outside of your PC. Set up a bookshelf in the room for you to store all of your materials. As a webmaster, you are likely to accumulate a series of tech books on various programming languages and website design, or maybe even the area on which you site is focused.

As time goes on and money becomes more plentiful, it is good to upgrade your office and make it look the part. Having nice furniture and good equipment does help with morale. Also, if you ever meet with clients, it helps portray a professional image.

One thing to consider, too, is whether to work from the home or to rent or buy an office. Getting an office is certainly more of an investment. You are looking at rent or a mortgage payment, utilities for the office, etc. I would not recommend making this a condition of doing business unless you are going to be meeting with clients or having employees in the office. Working from home has its advantages. The space is paid for. If you are a sole proprietor, you can even write your office space use off on your taxes. If forming an LLC or corporation, you will need to likely pay yourself rent for the space in your house. From the business perspective, this isn’t much different than renting an outside office. However, it would still be a net gain because while paying yourself the money, your business can write off the expense. You may not want to have employees coming to your home because this presents a security problem unless you know them very well. In this case, you can either get an office or try to have employees work from their own home. In this case, make their pay based on traceable production rather than time at work. As for clients, you could probably meet them out in the field. Starting out in the home is usually the best move if you can make it work for your particular business. As you expand, you are probably going to outgrow the home, though, and look to get an outside office.

Planning

Many successful businesses have begun out of sheer luck and coping as you go. I did it this way. Its not really the best way to go but it can work. The cleanest way to do it is to develop a business plan ahead of time. Now, in my opinion, some people spend so much time trying to create pretty business plans that they never get off the ground with the actual business. Be careful not to fall into this trap. You have to look at it from your intention and where you aim to take it. If your venture is going to require financing from outside, then a formal business plan is probably more necessary because you’re in a position of trying to convince others of your idea. However, assuming you have an idea and are going to run with it on your own (you have a website and wish to make money with it full-time), then you may not need outside financing (an area that I won’t even get into here). In this case, do some planning, but don’t spin your wheels trying to outline every single detail.

Your best bet is to start off by determining your business’s value final product, the actual commodity which you will produce that is then exchangeable with the public in exchange for money and other things which you want. Take, for example, my website PC Mechanic. The VFP there, aside from the newsletters and for-sale products, is working computers and people knowledgeable about their own PCs. I know, right there, what I am trying to produce and I know that people will return to me things like money, goodwill, cooperation and the like for my efforts. Once you have determined your VFP(s), work backwards from there to determine those things which you need to be, need to do and need to have in order to attain the VFP. This is a sub-product list, a list of products which have to be made in order to achieve the final product. As you create this list, you will begin to get a feel for the different jobs that need to be done in your business to make it work, how many people you may need to do it, those things you need to set up in order to do it, etc. From this you can begin to plan things out based on real reality and based on what is actually going to produce something for you.

Let us take an example. Let’s say you run a website which reviews computer hardware. You want to take this to the point where you can support yourself off the site. The main ways you could do this are to gain advertisers and/or to sell information/subscriptions on your website. Your valuable final product is probably something like “educated consumers who buy computer hardware/software”. See, this is valuable. You provide readers with what they need to know to make smart buying decisions, but it is valuable and exchangeable because these people are willing to spend money. They are shopping, usually. Companies would be very willing to pay you to place their ads in front of these potential buyers. So, your product is valuable. Alright, let’s create a list of sub-products (this is only a sample):

• BE. You need to be a trained webmaster. You need to be an informed consumer of computer goods yourself. You need to be a writer. Be well-known
• DO. You need to write. You need to review hardware. You need to promote to get people to your site. You need to contact manufacturers for equipment. You need to sign on advertisers or join an ad network.
• HAVE. You need to have a server. A PC. A collection of test hardware. Operating systems and benchmarking software. An ad system. A mailing list. A contact list of company contacts.

Get the idea? You work backwards from here and then you know what you need to do to make this all work. If your site has a product or service on its own, then it is even easier because you know right off the bat what you are selling.