MBA2510 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Quit My Job & Start a Business?

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0:57Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, and today we're diving into a question asked by Grant, one of our listeners, and it's one of the most frequently asked questions I get asked. How do I quit my job and start an online business? Listen, it's a big step. It's a huge step to start a business, to quit your career. I know because I've done it. I did it 12 years ago, it's a life-changing event. So you want to make sure you do it right. I understand it's daunting. I know it could be intimidating, but with the right plan, it's totally doable. I know I'm living proof. Today, I'm going to guide you step-by-step on how to quit your job and start your full-time career as an entrepreneur and start your online business.

1:44I was where you are today, exactly where you are today, 12 years ago. So I know exactly how you feel. and that pivotal decision changed my life literally incredibly. I'm going to share with you how much it changes your life. Through that decision, I was able to later on build two multi seven figure businesses. One, I just recently sold my software company, Webinar Ninja after growing it for 10 years. And the other one is this one, the$100 MBA. And I absolutely have to say unequivocally, it's the best decision ever made in my life is that decision of leaving my job and becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

2:25So don't worry, I got your back. I'm going to give you the steps so that you can make this transition smoothly and successfully. And it all starts with why. Just like Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why, you really need to reflect on why do you want to quit your job? Are you unhappy in your current role? Are you unhappy with your career? What is it about your current situation that is making you want to take action and go out on your own? Understanding your motivations will help you stay focused and committed when things get tough. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Entrepreneurship is a challenge.

3:01You're going to go through some challenges in the next few months, next few years. That's the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that it pushes you to become something better. If it was easy, everybody would do it, as you may have heard before. But this is a good thing because you're going to have your why. You're going to have the reason why you're doing this with you to push you through those tough days. Let me share with you my why. When I was a teacher, I was a teacher and I was a chair of the department of the university I was working for. For over a decade, I was in this career. I dedicated my life.

3:36I've done degrees. I've done all these certifications. It's my bread and butter. I was great at it, but I decided to leave it because of a particular situation. I was doing a job. I was the chair of the department and I was not getting the promotion I wanted. It wasn't really official. I was doing the job as like acting chair. And when I asked my manager about it, I asked the dean at the time, she just leveled with me and said, the director of the university wants to make an outside hire for this position. And in that moment, I was so, so devastated because I realized I had no control over my future.

4:15I had no control over my success. And I say that in that moment, my frustration outgrew my fear. I decided to bet on myself and transition to full-time entrepreneurship. I was side hustling for 10 years. I had my full-time job, but I was building businesses on the side. But this moment in time forced me to level with myself, to just get honest and say, what do you want to do? Do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Or do you want to do something adventurous, new, creative? Do you want to do that thing you're doing on the side full time? And I said, I got to do it. I got to do it now.

4:50At the time I was 32 years old. So I was like, I got to make this transition, right? And it doesn't matter how old you are. If you want to make this transition, you still can do it. You can be successful as an entrepreneur. And in fact, you have a lot of advantages that I'll talk in a later episode of having experience and having that knowledge that can help you propel you and give you a leg up and have success a little faster than somebody who's younger. But it's super important for you to know your why, because the why is going to allow you to plow through those tough days. Step two, this might be a little bit uncomfortable, but you have to do a financial health check.

5:27I really recommend that you have enough savings to support yourself during this transition period, during your first six months of full-time entrepreneurship. When I transitioned to my full-time entrepreneurship life from my full-time job, I drastically lowered my expenses. I sold my car. I lived in a dungeon apartment with Nicole, my business partner and wife in New York. I didn't have any personal luxuries. I didn't buy any fancy holidays. I didn't have any fancy clothes. I barely spent on myself at all. And the reason why I did this is because I knew it was temporary. Listen, when you're making this transition, you're making a drastic change in your life.

6:10This is the sacrifice you're going to make just temporarily. And by the way, what I've learned in the last 20 years is that the difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people are willing to sacrifice for the short term to gain big for the long term. So you're going to sacrifice maybe by maybe lowering your luxuries in the short term, but you're really going to live it up. Don't worry, you're going to have bigger holidays, better cars, better clothes, better watches, better everything once you establish yourself as a successful entrepreneur. But in the short term, the first 12 to 24 months, you're going to want to buckle down to make it easier for you to let that dollar, that runway you have really last as long as possible.

6:58Step three, skills assessment. List your current skills, your strengths, your experiences. Consider how those things can be applied to your next thing, your online business, your next venture. For example, if you have experience in marketing, you can offer digital marketing services. Okay. Leverage what you already have, the contacts you have, the experiences you have. Uh, for example, I was a school teacher for over a decade and I made sure teaching was a part of my leap into business. I taught, I presented, I did webinars. And by the way, teaching is a form of communication and selling. So I had some sales experience.

7:37I had to sell my students on doing their homework all the time. But the point here is use what you have. You want to, again, use everything at your disposal to increase your likelihood of success in the beginning. Now, with a clear understanding of your motivations, a financial check, and a plan to make sure your runway lasts as long as possible, and an inventory of your skills and experiences, it's time to identify your business idea. I click it. Want to take a time out. If you want to get serious about the step-by-step plan, you can download it. We have a incredible guide for you over at 100mba.net slash escape, your escape plan, and you can download it.

8:20And inside it has all the checklist items you need to do for each step so that you know that you're on track. And the guide is paced for 90 days. So you can quit your job and start your full-time career as an entrepreneur in 90 days. Step four is identify your business idea. You want to choose a business idea that aligns with your curiosity, your values, and of course your experience. Now don't be so married, so committed to this idea because the idea is going to change. It's going to pivot. It's going to move with the market because the market doesn't care how passionate you are about something.

8:54This is just the truth. They care about how good your products are. So you want to make sure your product suits your target market. So don't be so committed to this idea or picture you have in your head right now. Think about what problems you can solve. Validate your idea by researching the market demand, the competition, the potential of how many customers you can get every day, every month. Don't spend more than eight hours on this. But remember, research never ends. This is just to get you started more in the guide. But this is important because this gives you an understanding of who you are going after with what solution to what problem they have.

9:37As an entrepreneur, you are in the problem solving business. This is what you do. Okay. You solve problems for a living. And that's why people pay you for your products and services. So get used to getting very acquainted with the problem you're solving. The better you understand the problem, the better you're going to be able to come up with a great solution, the better you're going to be able to communicate that solution and sell it to your audience. When I left my job as a teacher, I started a full-time agency creating websites for independent creators and bloggers. I had seven years experience at the time dabbling with WordPress, building websites with WordPress, and I knew there was a growing need in the market because all my friends and family would ask me, Hey, Omar, how do I start a website?

10:19How do I build an e-commerce store? I know that you know how to do that. So I just started to start charging for that. Once you've identified your business idea, it's time to create a business plan. Let's make sure that you have a solid business plan. And in the guide, I'm going to guide you through exactly how to do that. But the point here is that you want to keep it simple. It doesn't need to be a 78 page document. This is a rough plan on how you approach your business model, your target audience, your revenue streams, how you're going to make money, your marketing strategy, your financial plan, how you're going to fund this business.

10:51My first business plan for the$100 MBA was only one page. Okay. Remember, this is just the starting point of this journey because your plan's going to have to shift and change. Don't worry about making it too detailed. You want to make sure that you have a rough idea of those things I mentioned. Next, let's talk about financing your business. I recommend bootstrapping your business with your personal savings. This is my personal journey. This is what worked for me. I chose this to avoid financial stress. I didn't want to start my business out in debt or be influenced by an investor or somebody else.

11:29I wanted to be able to build this on my own merits, on the value of the product or the service or the thing that solves the problem for my audience. I bootstrapped all my businesses over the last 20 years and it allowed me to maintain full control, not only over the concept of the idea or the business or what I'm doing, but over the shares of the business. When I sold our software company just recently, after growing it for 10 years, we had total control over the shares. We had 100 % ownership so that we reaped all the benefit from the financial gain of that sale. So it has a huge advantage. It's a little bit tougher, but at the same time, if you get through that initial step of getting traction and making sales with your bootstrap business, you have validated that business.

12:17And now you know that you have something that people actually are willing to give you money for. So there's a lot of advantages to it. More about that in a future episode. Step seven is to set up your online presence. You're going to choose a domain name that reflects your brand. You're going to build a professional website. You might use a platform like WordPress or Shopify to make it easy. There's more information about that in the guide, but develop a strong brand identity. That's really what's important here. You want to create that pre-launch buzz and marketing for your business with your website.

12:49So start with a soft launch with your website to just make sure that everything works and you work out the kinks and then get some feedback from that initial soft launch from your audience. And then you can do an official launch later on. Just remember that business is done on a website, right? When people transact, It happens on a website. It doesn't happen on Facebook. It doesn't happen on Instagram. Where does money actually exchange? Think about it as a consumer. When you buy something online, buy a product or service or whatever, it's not on a website, right? So you want to make sure that you spend the time to build a proper home base, a proper storefront for your business, instead of trying to build on quicksand because you don't own Instagram, you don't own Facebook, and that page can be taken away from you at any time.

13:36Not that that's likely, but you wanna make sure that you build an asset that you own. So later on, like when you wanna sell your business, you have that asset. Step eight is running a profit and loss sheet. So you've launched your business, you're starting to make some sales. A P &L is incredibly important. I actually encourage you to even start a profit and loss statement or spreadsheet even before you launch with your costs because you're going to have some costs involved in the beginning. A profit and loss sheet is very simple. It's not rocket science. You don't need to be an account or a CPA to do this.

14:11In fact, I have a template that you can just download. Just go to 100mba.net slash templates, and you can go ahead and download it. And basically, it's a spreadsheet that shows all the expenses and all your revenue. And this ensures that you look at this sheet. I look at my sheet every day, even after 20 years of building businesses on the side in full time than my last decade. It's so important to look at the sheet because you want to make sure that you're always profitable, that you're always making more than you're spending. And then you play this game of how profitable I am this month. Am I more profitable than last month?

14:44And this really makes it clear that this is the health check of my business. This is the dashboard to see if my business is surviving, thriving, healthy, super healthy, an Olympic athlete. It's really important for you to have a P &L sheet. I talk about it all the time and you don't want to delegate this. This is the lifeline, the lifeblood of your business. Make sure the money is going in the right direction. Step nine, grow your business. Get customer feedback. Improve your products and services. Explore how you can scale your business, how you can expand new product lines, how you can enter new markets, how you can automate some processes, how you can offer different products at different price points.

15:25This is where you start to say, hey, what can I do to make this work even better? Keep track of your finances, like we've mentioned, and reinvest your profits to ensure long-term success. Finally, let's plan the transition from your current job to full-time entrepreneurship. Choose a realistic quit date based on your business's progress and financial situation. Plan a smooth transition by notifying your employer and leave Live on good terms. Okay, we don't want to burn any bridges here because some of the people you work with might be able to connect you with people. It's a small world out there and you want to maybe tap into them.

16:02And by the way, there's nothing wrong with being just a professional, making sure that you do things right. You're going to be fully committed to your online business. You're going to stay motivated. You're going to celebrate your wins, your achievements. You're going to focus on your why because you know that things are going to get tough sometimes. You need to tap into that. When I quit my job, I gave six months notice and it gave me enough time to really understand what I'm getting into and what my new life is going to look like. And before I close off, I want to mention that this is a huge moment in your life.

16:30You're leaving your job and now you got to be fully reliant on your efforts in growing your business. The hardest part that's about to happen right now that you're going to experience is not the work of growing your business. It's not you missing your old job and your colleagues. It's not even the long hours and the hard work you have to put into this new business. It's actually the fact that you're going to have to change. Entrepreneurship is about change. You have to become somebody new. If you were already an entrepreneur, you would already have a business, right? But you're not an entrepreneur yet.

17:03You have to actually change who you are. Right now, you're a salaried employee. That's what you're doing, right? That's the results you're getting. So you're going to start changing your habits. You're going to start changing who you hang out with. You're going to start changing what you read and what you do and how you consume your time and how you see the world. and that change is going to be difficult because change is hard. But I want to give you a heads up because it's exciting. Change is actually quite fun because you're starting to see things like a kid again. Everything's new. Everything is like a new experience and a new perspective on the world.

17:33So I really celebrate this time with you, but also I want to give you a heads up that there's going to be some bumpy road ahead because change ruffles some feathers. It makes people feel a little uncomfortable sometimes, but it's okay. You're changing for the better. I want to congratulate you. You're taking control of your career and you're about to enjoy the rewards of running your own business. This is a journey that's, like I mentioned, challenging, but the freedom, the satisfaction of being your own boss is worth it. The financial freedom, the ability to be able to have a business that allows you to generate wealth.

18:09The business itself is generating the wealth, not you. You're not exchanging time for money anymore. That wealth generation doesn't have a ceiling. You just scale it to infinity if you want. I mean, that's why people become business owners. So why people become entrepreneurs is what's so exciting about this. I'm actually a little envious of you because if I can go back and enjoy the journey one more time, I would really savor every moment because it's incredible, incredible ride. Enjoy every minute. Don't forget, if you want to access the guide that goes with this lesson today, go ahead and go to 100mba.net slash escape and download your escape plan with all the checklist items you need to complete to go through each of the steps.

18:51Thanks for tuning into the$100 MBA show. I'm Omar Zenhom. And if you found this episode useful, go ahead and subscribe so you can get more practical business lessons from me. We're on Apple. We're on Spotify. We're on YouTube. Go ahead and hit subscribe. Until next time, keep moving forward. Keep taking one step after another. and you'll be surprised how much you can achieve in just a short period of time. Let's make it happen. I got your back. I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.