Should You Start a Business Now? 3 Key Factors to Know

It’s not a good idea to start a business when only half your heart is in it. You need to be able to commit to your business, put the time and resources it needs into it, and help it grow from a small seedling of an idea into something profitable in the long term.

All in all, it’s a lot like deciding to expand your family, especially when it comes to the personal factors you’ll need to consider. What are you currently dealing with? How’s it going to change your life? And of course, that essential question: what’s it going to cost you?

There’s a lot to consider here, so let’s make it a bit easier. We’ve come up with 3 of the most important personal questions you should ask yourself at this point in time.

They’ll help you to evaluate the best use of your time, energy, and budget when it comes to business planning – with the goal of helping you decide where and when your business should come into life.

What Skills Can You Use?

The business idea you’re looking to pursue needs to align with the skills you have. Or at least, it needs to align with the skills you’re willing to train for.

When the two complement each other, you’re far more likely to be able to turn your company into a success. You can be hands-on, you won’t need to wait to hire a core, competent employee to take charge, and you’ll know the problem points that could slow things down.

Skill often translates into experience, even if you don’t have any real working experience. It’s the best thing to build off when you want to spend your career working for yourself.

So, what skills have you got? What skills do you think are profitable and/or marketable? And if you were honest with yourself, what gaps do you have that will need to be filled along the way?

And these gaps might not be obvious to you right now. You’ll only know about them if you analyse the current demands of the industry you want to enter.

For example, someone who knows they’re a good writer isn’t necessarily going to become an expert content marketer immediately. You need valuable supplementary skills to go with it, such as SEO.

It’s best to find this out now. Identifying these missing elements early on gives you time to train, practice, and gain some expertise.

Do You Have the Time to Establish and Grow a Business?

Businesses take a good while to put together. Even though you hear about people starting a new website in a matter of hours, and getting their business name registered and filed in minutes, that’s not the bulk of the work out of the way.

These are the baby steps you take to begin with, and they have to be built on slowly and steadily.

Of course, there are some wildcards out there that attracted significant investor and market attention from the get go. Some business owners really do strike it lucky, but this isn’t something to bank on. It might happen, and you might become a success overnight, but you probably won’t.

You’re going to need at least 6 months of hard graft to share, with most people taking upwards of 2 to 3 years before they see significant profit from the business they dreamed of.

All in all, you’re going to need time. At least a few hours every day, in the same way that a lot of people get to work on their side hustles after they get home from their day jobs.

Whether you’re willing to work on weekends, or if you even have space in your schedule for it, most new business owners dedicate 10 to 20 hours every single week.

It’s why you may want to consider buying a business instead. When the business is already making money, it takes less time to get into the swing of ownership – and there’s less prep work needed before you can scale.

You can still take the business in your own direction, but those 6 months of getting set up can be wiped off of the slate.

How is Your Personal Budget Looking?

When you start your own business, you start working for yourself. That often means making money through the business and then using it to pay yourself a salary.

And if your spare time right now isn’t enough to set up the business, you’re going to need to make space for it elsewhere in your schedule. For a lot of people, this means quitting their job and focusing full time on their own business.

But as we said earlier, there are very few businesses out there that are immediately profitable! You won’t get that income or regular salary wage for a good while yet.

That means you need a strong personal budget behind you. You need to feel secure in your savings, and your ability to keep paying the bills for the foreseeable.

If you quit your job tomorrow, what kind of safety net would you have in place? How would your emergency fund hold up? Would you still have insurance there to handle big medical bills?

These are the financial worries to fortify before you sink your time and energy into a business idea.

So, Should You Start a Business Right Now?

Now we’ve got all the important personal factors lined up, it’s time to evaluate. The question is whether or not you should start a business right now – the answer? It’s up to the factors above!

There’s 3 to get through, and 3 to be 100% sure of before you make any big decisions. Your skills, your time, and your budget; the 3 things that could make or break your business plans right now.

And we’re not saying this to discourage you from following them! Just to keep them in mind at all times while you make your career dreams come true.