So you want to launch your own business
I was chatting to my wife last night about birthdays (it's her birthday coming up and I have no present ideas whatsoever) and it suddenly struck me that my parents are 30 years older than me.
OK this shouldn't be news. They always have been.
But 30 years is a long time. It's longer than my entire working career.
So it got me thinking. Am I too old to start a new career? To launch a new business?
I meet so many people who hate their job. Maybe you do too. You could be in your 20s or your 50s but you want to do something different with your life.
What if you could earn money doing something you love? From anywhere in the world?
Well if you own your own business, selling products or services that you create, then that dream could become a reality.
The problem is you feel stuck and you don't know where to start.
Inertia
Even if you hate what you're doing right now, it's hard to make a change. I know, because I've been there.
In my thirties, I quit a well paid job to launch my own business.
It ended up being a success and I tell the story here. But I went through the whole range of emotions. From excitement to anxiety to blind panic as well as the occasional moments of calm and happiness.
If you want to start something new, you'll go on that rollercoaster too.
The Challenges
The problem with starting a new business is there are so many things to think about. So many new skills to learn.
Even if you're an expert in your field, if you launch something new, you'll need to:
- Get some attention
- Build a website
- Learn how to write well
- Engage on social media
- Get some customers
- Create a product
- Advertise your product
- Sell that product
- Get more attention
- Get more customers
- Create more products
- etc etc
The list could go on and on.
You'll also need to know how to use Squarespace, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, TikTok and many other services.
If you're my age, you might never have used any of these before. And there are whole industries dedicated to learning each one.
But if it was easy, then everyone would do it.
And you're not everyone.
A New Business Idea
I’ve been making music for 5 years now. It’s been a hobby. And I love it. But recently I’ve started to take it a bit more seriously.
Now, I’ve always thought I’m too old to become a full-time music producer, but I’ve got 30 years to give it a shot.
So, am I really too old?
Now I know most of you won’t be interested in the nuts and bolts of actual music production. And that’s fine. I won't be going into that.
But I also know that a lot of you are interested in starting your own business.
So I’m going to start trying to earn money from my passion/hobby and I'm going to write about the process. Not every week, don't worry. There’ll still be random life event shit as my children test my parenting / psychology / patience skillset.
A Guide not an Expert
Some of the topics and skills that you'll need for your new venture will take too long to explore in this weekly newsletter. For those topics, I'm going to be launching some in-depth courses tackling each core skillset in detail.
I'm an expert in some areas of business and most definitely not in others. So I view myself as a guide, rather than an expert.
I have the time and resources to dive deep into the topics you will need to succeed. Then I'll share my learnings with you.
First Step
The first step in any new business is coming up with a product idea and getting your first paying customer. And that's exactly what we'll be doing in my first course (released in January).
Help me out. Sign up here to get on the waitlist for this course otherwise my wife will be getting chocolates for her birthday (again).
Yours,
Jon "Business Builder" Kaye
P.S. If you want to start your own business, you need help. Not only have I done it before (see my story here), but I can take you through the process step by step. And to show you that I believe in this process, I'm going to go through it with you. I'm going to take my own course and set up my own new business venture in the music production business.
I'll share my successes and failures along the way and refine the process as I go. So you get to benefit of the costs (money and time) that I put into my own new venture.
Of course, the first step in any new business is coming up with a product idea and getting your first paying customer. And that's exactly what we'll be doing in my first course (released in January).
If that sounds interesting to you, then sign up here to get on the waitlist.
