Seven Steps to Take Before You Leave Corporate America to Become an Entrepreneur

Women, especially black women, represent the fastest-growing group of new entrepreneurs (PRNewswire, 2019). Despite the high startup launch rate, 90 percent of all startups fail to stay in business for more than five years. If you are considering leaving corporate America to become an entrepreneur, consider these seven steps.

Listen to "Ep 16 - 7 Steps to Take Before You Leave Corporate America to Become an Entrepreneur" on Spreaker.

1. Write A Business Plan And Improve Your Odds Of Success By 70 Percent.

According to the SBA, if you just have a plan and a group of advisers, you can improve your chances of success by 70 percent. A business plan includes a real serious look at the market, an in-depth examination of your competitors, and has an actual financial forecast. Shop your business plan around to experts in the industry before you leave your job. Before I left my Fortune 500 job, I had my business plan reviewed by 20 different experts. I re-wrote my business plan at least a dozen times before I felt I was ready to launch the business. I want you to prepare that kind of business plan because it will be your roadmap to helping you navigate the treacherous entrepreneurship road.

2. Develop A Resources List That Goes Along With Your Business Plan. Why do you need a resource plan? Because many entrepreneurs overlook everyday expenses needed to sustain your startup. For example, air travel and hotel expenses. If your startup is selling to corporate buyers, you will spend a large percent of your startup budget traveling to meetings. Before I left corporate America, I made a resource list, and travel was at the top of the list. As a result, I signed up for every rewards program available, and by the time left to launch my business, I had a million miles with Delta a million points with Marriott and a million points with Hyatt. I could fly anywhere that I needed to go and get a free room as well without having to come out of pocket. I extended the runway for my startup by at least two years because I had the foresight to start building rewards points eight years earlier.

3. Keep Your Corporate Job While You Build Your Resources And Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Launching your business is challenging. Generating revenue and scaling is even harder. While you are building your Resources (See above) and your Minimum Viable Product, you should keep your corporate job. The reason is simple. You will need income and a means to access the resources on your Resource List. Once you know that you are ready to be an entrepreneur, that is the perfect time to have a corporate job – because your job can become a training guide on how best to building a company and a culture. Become extremely observant of everything around you. Watch how vendors are managed. Review your company’s Non-Disclosure agreements. Integrate what works into your business plan and resource list.

4. Soft Launch Your MVP Soft-launching your business means you're not rolling out your product or service to the entire target market. Instead, you are testing the market (and your business plan assumptions) before you invest a lot of money. For example, if you want to launch a restaurant, an appropriate soft launch would be a pop-up shop on weekends.

5. Get A Part-Time Job With Health Benefits. In my book Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategy For Davids Wanting To Defeat Goliaths, I dedicate an entire chapter on the types of jobs with health benefits that you can work while you are running your startup. For example, working as a barista at Starbucks will not only offer your health benefits but also access to terrific coffee while you are re-writing your business plan. Being an entrepreneur stressful, you don't need to make it any more stressful by not having a safety net in case you get sick or hurt.

6. Sign-Up For Credit Cards That Pay You Back. There are lots of credit cards and programs out there that can give you money back. These programs will help your transition to entrepreneur a lot easier. I didn't want my kids' education to suffer while I pursued my dreams, so I signed up for Upromise.com. When you register your credit cards on Upromise.com, you can get back 3 to 5% of everything you spend through this website, and here's what else is cool. They can invest the savings in a 529 education account. You can have your relatives sign up for this site, and every time they spend money through the website, the savings will go towards your kids’ education. I registered my Discover card on the Upromise.com website, and not only did I get the 3% to 5% for shopping at places that I like to buy, I also got back an additional 5% from Discover. Upromise.com extends your runway so that you can succeed in your new business without worrying about life’s requirements.

7. Make Sure You Have Enough Money To Launch Your Business. Experts say that it takes three years to establish a brand, so at a minimum, you need enough cash to stick around for three years. After three years, your brand should start to resonate with your target market (assuming you have built a product or service people want and/or need). If you're launching a business that requires a minimal amount of capital (hard assets) such a service-oriented business like being a barber, I suggest that you have six times the amount of money required to launch the business on hand before you launch. What about those high capital businesses, those that require a lot of infrastructure (i.e., car manufacture like Tesla)? I suggest you have ten times the amount of capital needed to launch the business on hand before you launch. High capital businesses tend to have fewer transactions per customer than low transaction businesses.

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I launched my last startup by the year 2012, we had a $20 million run rate, and on our way to selling that company to a Fortune 500 business because I took the seven steps. Want to learn more? Please consider reading my book Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategy For Davids Wanting To Defeat Goliaths.

If you found this blog post to be helpful, please subscribe to our podcasts, Career Coaching Xs and Os (https://www.spreaker.com/show/careercoaching-xs-and-os), Guerrillapreneur: The Art of Waging Small Business Warfare ( https://www.spreaker.com/show/guerrillapreneur-podcast), and Gigging: Everything and the Sharing Economy (https://www.spreaker.com/show/gigging-everything-sharing-economy). Please find us on the web at www.ceyero.com. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Ceyero Consulting.

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Mark Peterson is an entrepreneur, lecturer, freelance writer, author of Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategies for Davids Wanting To Defeat Goliaths and host of the podcast Guerrillapreneur: The Art of Waging Small Business Warfare. Peterson is also the Managing Executive of Ceyero Consulting Follow him @guerillapreneur or @ceyeroconsltg.