Most of all, however, I needed to create a business model that would require a minimum amount of input from me in the months and years that followed its creation, because of my existing business commitments.
I wanted to find a way for the business to be outsourced, streamlined and automated. After a customer placed an order, I wanted the whole process to be handled without any input on my part. The order would be placed online, sent to a third-party warehouse for packing, and then delivered to the customer by courier.
Rather than using expensive design agencies, I found inexpensive freelancers online who were willing to create my branding and advertising for a fraction of the cost. Using highly measurable forms of marketing, such as Google AdWords, I was able to promote my start-up on a tiny budget, knowing that for every pound I spent on marketing, a new customer would click ‘buy’.
Using this ‘virtual’ business model, where the company has no premises or staff of its own and only uses forms of marketing that can be measured and automated, the business could be extremely scalable – it wouldn’t be limited by the amount of time that I could invest in it.
Very often, people feel their idea has to be perfect right from the start. Actually, I am a huge believer in making a simple version of your concept that is ‘good enough’ and just getting going, making changes and improvements on the fly.
Rather than spending weeks trying to come up with the perfect name, you’ll pick one that does the trick in a matter of minutes. Instead of creating a brand that is a work of art, spending tens of thousands of dollars along the way, you will be happy to pay someone a few hundred dollars to create something that helps you bring in your first few customers, maybe investing in improvements in the future when you can more easily afford to.
A NEW ERA
What’s really cool is that we are at the advent of a new dawn of entrepreneurship. While it used to cost huge amounts of money and take months to start a new business, the internet and the new tools that it brings have increasingly made it possible for anyone to start a business in their bedroom that competes with the biggest companies of the day, for almost no money.
You need little more than an idea and a willingness to give it a shot. This is such a revolution that thousands of people are starting businesses from the comfort of their own homes every week. They’re fortunate enough to be making a living out of doing what they love – something that just wasn’t possible even a few years ago.
The cost of starting a business has been driven through the floor by online tools and marketplaces that help first-time entrepreneurs find freelancers, products and customers in a matter of clicks.
Services like Shopify allow you to get a professional website online in hours, for no upfront cost and just a low monthly fee. Upwork (formerly oDesk) and various skills marketplaces put you in touch with freelance designers, writers, marketers and developers, bypassing expensive agencies with their flashy city-centre offices. Moo allows you to design your own printed materials online and turn around hard copies in a day.
All of these tools, and more, make it possible for anyone to get an idea out of their head and into the world in a matter of days. Now you have no excuse for not at least giving it a shot – what have you got to lose?
START FOR YOUR OWN REASONS
Starting a business can be whatever you want it to be. Some people start one as a way to get rich – and that’s fine. But, for me, what’s more exciting is the idea that you can start with a blank page and go on to create something wonderful; something that makes the world a different place. You may even create a product that ultimately will give enjoyment to hundreds of thousands of people.
It is also possible to use your business to further causes that you feel strongly about. You can use your packaging and advertising to protest about issues – in the way that The Body Shop protested about animal rights, for example. You can also use it as a way to raise funds for charities that matter to you, and hopefully the product you are selling can be sourced in an ethical way.
For me, starting a business has completely changed my life. Not only has it brought me the financial freedom to live my life however I want, it has also taken me on wonderful adventures to over 50 countries – I’m extremely grateful that, unlike many of my friends, I don’t have to work every day in a job that I hate.
As well as being financially rewarding and a lot of fun, seeing my business grow from the first few jars I made in my grandmother’s kitchen to thousands of them adorning the shelves of supermarkets has been massively satisfying. It still puts a smile on my face when I walk into a massive supermarket store and see some jars of my jam there – especially in a foreign country!
Whatever reason you decide to start a business, the most amazing feeling is the one that comes from knowing that a whole adventure, a career and an impact on the world can all develop from just one simple idea written down on a piece of paper.
FOCUS
Our lives are so noisy. Noisier than they’ve ever been before. The average person checks Facebook more than 20 times a day. We take in information all day long from the TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, tweets, posts, YouTube videos, memes, FourSquare, text messages, phone calls, Skype, instant messenger, email and regular old-fashioned mail, and then somehow we even have some time left over for real-life conversations with the people we live with, the people we work with and the people we love.
We seem to have lost the ability to stop and think deeply about one thing at a time. We take in hundreds of ideas from all over the place and, instead of questioning each of them, we just take in the ones that fit and ignore those that don’t. We’re swamped with so much information that our brains are overloaded – we can barely think for ourselves any more.
And it doesn’t appear that anyone wants to live in the present moment either; the here and the now. Nobody picks up the phone and says, ‘Hey, what are you doing, fancy a coffee right now?’ That would seem weird in the always-busy society that we have created. Collectively, we suffer from the illusion of having a plan. It is assumed that we’re all busy right now. The moment is already taken. Today is already booked. Tomorrow is already booked too, so the here and now better just wait until next week.
We’re constantly scanning hundreds of different information outlets, waiting for something to happen, waiting for our lives to happen, waiting for some stroke of luck that will make all of our dreams come true.
In our work, we often tend to get to the end of the day not really knowing what we have achieved – have you ever experienced that sinking feeling when you leave the office after sitting at your computer for ten hours and ask yourself, ‘What the hell did I actually do today?’
We’ve completely lost the ability to focus all of our energy on doing one thing at a time. On doing a good job of one thing each day. Instead, we skim the surface of hundreds of ideas, hundreds of different tasks, not really doing the best we can at any of them and not fully achieving what we can with our lives.
What’s worse is that, by not committing ourselves to any one thing, we don’t really live, we just wait. People go to dinner parties and check their phone every five minutes. They go to parties and are always busy finding out what’s happening someplace else. If they could just live in the moment a bit more, enjoy what they’re doing at that exact second, life could be a lot more fulfilling and a lot more fun.
Something amazing happens when you start giving all of your attention to one thing at a time. Whether