I had to go. People said I was brave (translation: “crazy”) to quit my career, but I was burnt out and really was going to go crazy if I didn’t quit my job before the end of the year. And I desperately wanted to do something different and be my own boss. So, in 2020, this is what I searched for on Google: 6 month plan leave corporate job become online entrepreneur.

This is the step-by-step plan I wish I had seen, covering goals, financial preparation, business models, creating an online presence, marketing strategies and developing an entrepreneur mindset.

Key Takeaways

  • Transitioning from a corporate job to entrepreneurship requires a clear six-month roadmap, financial preparation, and goal setting to help you succeed.
  • Building a strong online presence and utilizing effective marketing strategies are crucial for attracting customers and growing your business.
  • Navigating common challenges in entrepreneurship, such as time management and imposter syndrome, is essential for motivation and maintaining progress.
A view of the sunrise from the beach at the start of a brand new day

Change Your Future in 6 Months

There are lots of advantages to starting your own business – just as there are disadvantages… particularly if you’re in a high-paying job. In a full-time job, your salary is guaranteed every month but pretty much fixed… until you get a rise – which isn’t up to you, of course. When you’re the boss, you can pay yourself whatever you want. (You just gotta get the revenue first.)

As an entrepreneur, you’ll probably never work harder because it’s your baby, and you have to make it work. But you also have the power to establish a work-life balance that aligns with your aspirations, both personal and professional.

You finally get the chance to escape the rat race for good. Even better, starting a business means you have the ability to make a positive impact on your community or industry.

However, starting your own company isn’t for everyone. You have to weigh the risks and consider your goals and financial stability. If you’re ready to pursue a personal passion or business idea, the fulfillment and control over your work environment can be incredibly rewarding. Eventually! But it takes time.

Starting a business is a great way to escape the monotony of a day job, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Those get-rich-quick schemes are just that: schemes. Becoming a successful entrepreneur requires dedication, planning, and perseverance. And lots of it!

Setting Clear Goals for Your Transition

There’s a lot to do, so without a clear vision and roadmap, it’s easy to get lost in the ton of tasks and challenges that come with starting a business. We all know how easy it is to say that it looks too hard, and you don’t really have time anyway, so it gets put on the back burner.

What you want are lots of easy targets that, when we hit them, feel good and keep the momentum going. So, we’ll explore how to define your vision as an online business owner, create a six-month roadmap, and identify key metrics to measure success.

Defining Your Vision as an Online Business Owner

You wouldn’t be the first entrepreneur to start your business purely as a way to escape an unfulfilling day job. I did. The feeling of being unchallenged and bored at work often fires the desire to start your own thing. And if your reason for starting is, “I can’t take being bossed around by some 23-year-old know-nothing for a minute longer”, that’s absolutely fine too.

You can use what Jeff Bezos called the Regret Minimization framework to help you decide. Imagine you’re 80 and looking back at your life. Do you regret not starting your own online business, not giving it a shot? But neither of these two things is a vision.

First, you have to find your why! – the reason you want to create this particular thing. Often it’s to help people or to solve a problem that people have or you had. It might be something you love or that you know you’re good at teaching other people. Just make sure there’s a market out there for what you want to offer. Conducting thorough market research to identify customer pain points and competitive strategies will help shape your vision.

Creating a Six-Month Roadmap

Establishing a detailed budget and deadlines is crucial for transitioning to self-employment. Start by preparing for the leap into entrepreneurship with a solid, vetted business idea and market fit. Dedicate as much as you can, but at least a few hours a week, to building your business while still in your your day job.

As the saying goes, if you find a gap in the market, make sure there’s a market in that gap. Focus on a proven business model to help you make a successful transition from your regular job. Hoover up as much guidance and training as you can from wherever you can to overcome fears about actually making money and finding clients.

Identifying Key Metrics for Success

Tracking specific metrics really helps you stay the course. Once you see things starting to move – even just a tiny bit – it can be enough to stop you from giving up. Obviously, what metrics you choose will depend on the specific goals of your online business. Here are some examples:

  • Customer Acquisition Cost – how much does it cost to bring in a new customer?
  • Customer Lifetime Value – that cost can be offset against how much a customer spends during your entire relationship with them
  • Impressions – how many times your ad or content is presented to people
  • Reach – the sum of all your followers, subscribers, and all those who will see your content
  • Engagement – the intersection of your Impressions and Reach. Basically, how many of the people in your Reach engage with your content (your impressions)

Monitoring these metrics on a regular basis (weekly/monthly) allows you to make informed decisions and adjustments to stay on track.

View from inside a plane taking off into the sunset

Financial Preparation for Leaving Your Day Job

Successful entrepreneurs have to find a way to keep the lights on in the early days. Jeff Bezos’s number one rule of entrepreneurship is: never run out of money. Before you quit your current job, you need to create budgets and set deadlines to make sure you’re on track financially.

Building a Cash Cushion

Having a cash cushion is critical because if you quit your job without savings may force you to return to an even worse job due to a lack of funds. This is what I did. It hurt, and it slowed me down. So, save enough to cover your living expenses for at least the first six months before you quit your job. If you can, I would save a year’s money because things always take longer than you think.

How on earth do you do that? Well, I massively shrank my monthly budget when I started doing my own thing. I didn’t go out, I didn’t buy anything for myself, I didn’t spend anything. And I made that 6-month cushion last for over a year.

Unfortunately, to create this savings pot while you’re in your paying job, you have to save like crazy… which means not going out and not buying anything for yourself… stop me if I’m repeating myself. I know – you’re going to be the most boring person on the planet for a year or two.

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.

– Anonymous

Managing Health Insurance and Other Benefits

Healthcare is something that slips most people’s minds when they start to plan their exit strategy. You definitely want to prepare for these financial obligations before handing in your letter of resignation. Here are some things to think about before you go solo:

  • Business insurance – in case you ever face legal action
  • Health insurance – it’s a little trickier and usually more expensive than with your employer. TIP: COBRA insurance plans allow you to keep the coverage you have with your employer after leaving the company
  • Disability or income insurance – accidents don’t only happen to other people
  • Retirement plans – options include a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, and a solo 401(k)

Budgeting for Your New Business

Determine fixed costs such as rent, utilities, and salaries, as well as variable costs like marketing and supplies. Factor in one-time startup costs such as equipment, inventory, and business and legal fees.

Develop a clear revenue model that includes pricing strategies, sales forecasts, and projected income streams. Establish a cash flow management plan to monitor income and expenditure, ensuring you maintain positive cash flow. Regularly review your budget to adjust for changing expenses and income projections.

Selection of different types of e-commerce websites

Choosing the Right Business Model

Choosing the right business model is obviously crucial for long-term success. You’ll need to work out how much your business needs to earn in order to support your desired lifestyle before transitioning from a full-time job. Clearly, the less you can live on at the beginning, the better.

Let’s look at some options.

Evaluating Different Types of Online Businesses

Choosing a business shouldn’t be too hard because you go where your strengths or interests are. The obvious one should stick out from the rest:

Blogging and Affiliate Marketing

There are thousands of blogging niches to choose from, but don’t just pick one that you know about – choose one that isn’t too competitive but at the same time has good search volume so you earn enough revenue from it.

There are lots of monetization options:

  • Selling other people’s products and earning a commission
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Advertising
  • Newsletters
  • Courses

These sites can take time to gain traction in search engine results. So, even if you choose one of the above, the quickest way to replace your income quickly is to sell services alongside your e-commerce offering. For instance, if you have a marketing background and want to sell courses on how to market products, you could offer your marketing services initially while your course takes time to find its audience.

E-commerce

An e-commerce business is any type of business that allows customers to purchase products or services online. You can start one with very little capital using a WordPress plugin like WooCommerce. Just create your own digital products or physical products and then learn how to sell them online.

Dropshipping

Once again, entry is very affordable as you don’t need a big warehouse or any inventory. You don’t even have to create your own product to sell online. You just need to source a pre-existing physical product from a supplier, who will also take care of packaging and delivery. You just need to drive traffic to your website.

Courses

Sell your knowledge! Create a course once and then sell it online for years to come (with a few updates from time to time, as things change). You may not think you have enough experience in your chosen subject, but if you know more than most people, you have an audience willing to learn from you.

Services

The same goes for coaching. If you have a course, you can also offer to teach it to smaller groups or one-on-one – at a premium, of course. Or, just go down the coaching road and share your expertise on a platform like Zoom

Validating Your Business Idea

Anecdotal evidence isn’t strong enough. Just because some of your friends have said that they would buy your product doesn’t mean it will find mass market appeal. So, do your research.

Jump onto Reddit and ask if people would pay for your idea. Better still, set up a very simple one-page website offering your product. When people click on “buy”, you can take them to a page that says that your product isn’t ready yet, but that you will let them know when it is. If you get 100 people trying to buy it, you know you’re onto something.

Market feedback is essential for testing a business idea before making a significant commitment. Factors to consider for a reliable business model include market size, competition replication, price increase potential, and independence.

Understanding Your Market and Competition

Conducting thorough market research helps entrepreneurs choose a viable online business model that aligns with market demand. Understanding your target audience and their needs is key when selecting an online business model.

Know your competition. Competitive analysis not only helps identify potential competitors but also reveals gaps in the market that can be exploited – both in terms of products or level of service. If they’re not doing something well, how could you do it better?

Want even more money-making ideas?

Building Your Online Presence

Establishing an online presence is important for attracting customers and enhancing your business’s visibility. Sounds good. The downside is that it takes time because you need to consistemtly be putting content out there. But get it right, and it can help establish credibility and brand recognition.

We’ll cover developing a professional website, leveraging social media for business growth, and building an email list. These steps will help you create a solid online foundation for your business.

Developing a Professional Website

Your website is your primary online location – the North Star of your online business. This is because it’s an asset that you own. Facebook could kick you off its platform for accidentally infringing a rule, and then your business is lost.

If you’re building a website from scratch, it should clearly communicate your brand’s identity and be easy to navigate to encourage visitor engagement. For that reason, try and limit header menu items to five main categories. Mobile browsing accounts for 50% of online traffic and growing, so building a mobile-responsive website is increasingly important.

Your domain name should closely reflect your business name or describe its purpose to enhance visibility and SEO. If you’re going for a blog, I recommend that you brand yourself! That is, use your own name as your domain name and create your brand around you because then you can pivot if it doesn’t work. If you’ve pigeon-holed yourself as The Leather Expert, you can’t move into another niche later.

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Leveraging Social Media for Business Growth

Social media platforms can really help in expanding your audience and driving engagement with customers. And it’s free unless you choose to pay for ads. Identify the platforms your target audience uses and then create engaging content tailored for each platform. You only need one or two. (The others can come later, if at all.)

You’ll create connections with your audience and help drive business growth. Engaging with customers through social media platforms can significantly grow brand loyalty.

Building an Email List

Just like your website, an email list is an asset that you own. It’s built from subscribers who have opted in from your website in exchange for something of value. You just need to create something your audience would find useful.

Once you have their email address, you can deepen your relationship by regularly sending them valuable information and, from time to time, offering them something of benefit (perhaps an online tool or a course) that you can make money from.

Marketing Strategies for New Entrepreneurs

It’s great creating something to sell, but you need customers to sell to. Marketing is the lifeblood of any new business. And email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to nurture leads and keep customers informed and engaged. Let’s look at some other cost-effective ways of marketing.

Content Marketing

Content marketing helps establish authority and drive traffic by providing valuable information to potential customers. A blog can attract organic traffic by educating prospects and positioning you or your business as a thought leader.

Effective content marketing builds trust and authority, fostering long-term customer relationships. Creating high-quality content helps improve brand recognition, drive organic traffic, and can lead to better customer retention.

Paid Advertising

You can also pay to advertise with Google Ads and on social media (e.g. Instagram ads), which let you target very specific audiences, to push traffic to a website. Pay-per-click advertising can offer immediate visibility on search engines and drive immediate traffic.

I’ve used Facebook ads to target customers who live in a specific town and who have liked a post from a specific competitor. It was less than 100 people and cost less than 10 bucks, but brought in hundreds of extra dollars in revenue and the opportunity to convert those competitor’s customers into being my customers.

Networking and Partnerships

Networking can increase your reach, awareness and credibility, providing opportunities for collaboration and sharing knowledge and resources. Networking events provide valuable opportunities for small business owners to connect and share insights with others in their community.

Partnerships with other businesses can lead to mutual benefits, such as shared marketing efforts and access to new customer bases. Partnerships allow businesses to leverage each other’s strengths and audiences.

Time displayed on a big 
clock

Overcoming Common Challenges

Switching from a corporate job to entrepreneurship will alternately give you a huge buzz and a massive headache. It’s tough. You’ll fail at things. But this is where you grow and learn and become a more interesting person. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But the rewards can be huge.

You just need to allow yourself to make some mistakes and give it some time. Things won’t happen overnight, so beware of anyone offering shortcuts or get-rich-quick schemes.

Time Management Tips

Your calendar is your friend. Starting out on your business journey involves a lot of work in that first year. Remember, you’re beginning from a standing start, so you need to push hard to get things moving. If you don’t make time in your calendar, you won’t do it. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Schedule activities for evenings and weekends and stick to them. It’s just like creating an exercise habit. Once you get a chain going, you won’t want to break it.

Dealing with Self-Doubt

Imposter syndrome. Know that anyone who says they have never had it is lying. It’s with me every single week. You’ve got to fake it until you make it. You’ve got to find a way to believe in yourself. Mindset and beliefs often outweigh strategies in terms of business success.

Common fears when starting an online business include the fear of failure, lack of time, and feeling overwhelmed. Break everything down into small actionable steps, and watch your confidence grow as you complete each one and start heading towards your goal.

If you can create a little network of friends or people you know (or friends of people you know) who run their own business, you’ll have people you can turn to when the going gets tough. A business coach is a more expensive option, but can be worth their weight in gold.

And remember: without failure there is no success.

Handling Financial Uncertainty

Let’s talk money worries. In my experience, these are the most corrosive concerns because they can eat into your relationships at home. As they say, hope for the best and plan for the worst. Every business I’ve started has eaten more money than I had and taken longer to work than I could possibly have imagined.

So, save as much as you can to give yourself as much runway as possible to take off from. I have failed each time. But, to be fair, I think most people do. We’ve all heard those stories of people moving back in with Mom in the basement for six months. Let’s try and avoid that, though.

Pad of paper highlighting resignation notes

Making the Leap: How to Quit Your Job Gracefully

I know you’ve dreamt of this moment for years. However, as tempting as it is, it’s important not to rush into quitting your job and to make sure you have a proven business model before leaving. Your goal is to avoid having to get a job again, even if it’s a part-time job.

Don’t do what I did and quit your job too early. I didn’t save enough money. That meant a job search, having to consider any new job, and it all felt pretty demoralizing. And the job market was worse, so I got less money.

Anyway, let’s assume you’re ready so we can get to the fun bit.

Giving Your Notice

Despite longing for this moment for so long, most people get really nervous when the day comes and often put it off. When you summon the courage, you definitely want to do this face-to-face. Apart from seeing the look on their face, people really appreciate being able to look you in the eye. So, don’t be tempted to send an email.

Make sure your boss is the first to know, and don’t tell anyone else about your resignation. This will help maintain good relationships before your last day – don’t forget, you haven’t left yet!

Your letter should clearly state your intention to leave, your last working day or the length of your notice period, and also express gratitude for the opportunities provided. Your employer can make it difficult for you if they want to, so you want to make this as smooth as possible.

An old mentor of mine said that people always remember your first 30 days and your last 30 days. If you do it with dignity and professionalism, the door will always be open to you. One day you might want to reach out and ask for advice.

Communicating with Your Manager and Team

The first question your manager is going to ask is, “Where are you going?”

The second will be, “Why are you leaving?”

You may not want to tell people that you hate your boss or that you’re risking it all to start your own business because you don’t want the additional pressure. Perhaps you don’t want your employer to know that you’ve been moonlighting at home, building your own business at night. Many employment contracts won’t allow you to earn supplementary income without prior permission.

So, prepare and rehearse your reason for leaving and what you’re doing next. You’re going to be asked by someone every single day in your last few weeks at work.

The Bottom Line

Transitioning from a full-time job to becoming an online entrepreneur is a challenging but rewarding journey. By setting clear goals, preparing financially, choosing the right business model, building your online presence, and overcoming common challenges, you can successfully make the leap.

Entrepreneurship is not just about making money but taking back some control of your life so you have a better work-life balance.

FAQs

How much money should I save before I quit my job?

You should aim to save enough to cover at least six months of living expenses before you quit your job – ideally 12. This gives you a solid financial cushion while you transition.

What should I include in my notice letter?

Be sure to clearly state your intention to resign, specify your last working day, and express gratitude for the opportunities you’ve been given. You want to leave with the door wide open, just in case.

How do I choose the right business model?

To choose the right business model, start by evaluating various online business types and validating your idea through market feedback. Understanding your market and competitors will help you make the best choice.

What are some effective marketing strategies for new entrepreneurs?

For new entrepreneurs, focusing on content marketing, utilizing paid advertising, and building networks through partnerships can really set you up for success and create a solid marketing foundation.

How can I overcome self-doubt as a new entrepreneur?

To overcome self-doubt as a new entrepreneur, believe in yourself and your vision, and don’t hesitate to lean on emotional support from others. Remember, it takes time to grow and succeed, so be patient with yourself!

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Image of the author Richard Riviere

Richard Riviere

Richard Riviere is a former wage slave who decided there must be more to life. Turning 50, he quit his job to try earning an income online and get his life back. From knowing zero about e-commerce, he managed to replace his 9-5 income within a year. He now teaches other midlifers how to start living life on their own terms.