Four years ago, Amy Abrams and Adelaide Lancaster launched In Good Company, a business learning center and community for women entrepreneurs. They leveraged their new expertise into a book, The Big Enough Company, which hits shelves in September.
“When we first started with In Good Company we were responding to overarching themes,” says Abrams. “A sense of isolation from women who had started their own businesses and were struggling to find things like an affordable place to work. We were hearing from women desperate to learn best business practices from how to run their businesses better to how to focus on the areas of business that weren’t their strengths. Many of these women had worked in the corporate world and didn’t anticipate that they’d really feel a sense of isolation from their peers when they struck out on their own.”
So they wrote a book about it. We spoke with Abrams, who offers up some advice on striking out on your own:
1. You're never finished with your homework
“Keep doing research for your company after you’ve already started it,” says Abrams. “You always want to make sure there is a need for what you’re doing. You want to be well-capitalized and think through what you really want.
“That includes finding other businesses like yours. Study them and understand what they are all about and what differentiates them. You don’t want to just know your competition; consider befriending your competition."
2. Really ask yourself what you want out of your business
What is your personal motivation for the business? Why did you start it in the first place? You’ve got to figure, if you’re going to work that hard on something, you should make sure you’re capitalizing on the opportunity.
“There are so many opportunities in business,” says Abrams. “For some it’s about having autonomy over time. It’s picking your clients, the projects you want to work on. That is where we found it’s not about being as big as possible. You can make a bigger company without being too big. You have to build your business around what you want it to be.”
3. Focus on what is meaningful to you vs. what you are passionate about
“Passion is a pretty loaded word,” says Abrams. “It’s more that my business is meaningful to me, and the work I do is meaningful. Passion isn’t at the forefront of my business. I’m more interested when people say I am really good at what I do, and getting to do what I do on my terms.”
4. Figure out your business goals
“People often overlook this one,” says Abrams. “Or they go off track and forget what their goals were in the first place. People start a business around skills they love and then they grow their business, and find they are spending very little time doing what they love as it grows.”
And then update these goals when needed. “It’s OK if things have changed from when you first started out,” says Abrams. “But ask yourself, does your current business reflect those changes? You always want to make sure you and your business are clear to the public. This is where you really get to capitalize on the opportunity to be your own boss.”
5. Determine what to outsource
“Look at the role you want to play and the roles you don’t want to play,” says Abrams. “Figure out how to outsource the ones you don’t want to do. Do you want to be the CEO or are you a better fit for COO or the head of sales? What is your overall bigger picture? Are you growing something you want to sell soon, or sell in 20 years? The answers to these questions make for very different outcomes for your company. If you have 30 employees and you’re managing everything, but then you want to travel, that’s a difficult situation to be in. You want to be in control but you don’t want to be miserable working for yourself.”
6. Find access to capital
Money is always the biggest challenge. Many of the businesses she consults don’t need the large amount of money that requires institutional money. Rather, this oft-overlooked category simply needs a chunk of cash in the $10K to $30K ranges. Without the dough, she sees business owners forced to self-finance, which stunts growth. Having enough capital for one year is a good marker.
“That small amount is often hardest to access," says Abrams. “The loans that are accessible usually require a high sales history. Businesses that are three to five years in and expanding in size or with a new product need that kind of money and it’s nearly impossible to get. There needs to be institution for that kind of money to really fuel that group of entrepreneurs and benefit those businesses in a timelier manner. Some kind of micro-financing institution would really help push them to the next level.”
7. Specialization is key
You don't have to act on all of your ideas at once. “Instead of baking 50 types of cupcakes, you might want to start with the two you do really, really well,” says Abrams. “You don’t have to try really quickly to figure it all out. You don’t have to come out of the gate with everything polished.”
Source: InGoodCompany via YouTube
