How to Start a Business with No Skills Down (Except One!)

I've been absorbing a lot of wisdom of late. If I had to name drop, and let's face it, in this day and age it's the only way to prove your paying attention, here are a few voices that have been filling me with inspiration of late - Dane Maxwell, Sean Ogle, Tim Ferris, David Risley, Sam Ovens, Rosalind Gardner...

I could go on.

What's become apparent is that there are two approaches to building (starting) a business : stick to what you know and follow your passion/hobby, and forget what your passions are and find a market with problems to service.

Pro-bloggers, for example, tend to fall into the former camp. Dane Maxwell and The Foundation fall clearly into the latter, and then take it one step further by pointing out that the real money is in just finding people to consume services (i.e. lead generation.)

I'm sitting on the fence, and boy is it uncomfortable.

I understand that people want to follow their passion, but I also understand from watching Shark Tank, Dragon's Den, and The Apprentice, as well as listening to the wisdom of those who have gone before me, that not everyone will share that passion. It's also possible (even likely) that not enough people share your passion to make a business out of it.

So, what do you do when you find that the market wants something that falls outside your skill set?

Easy - outsource! Tim Ferris started me off thinking about this, and Dane Maxwell backed up my initial hunch that the most successful businesses are going to be those where the entrepreneur isn't doing everything themselves, and uses skills of others to help them achieve true greatness.

Plus, by outsourcing everything, you remove yourself from the business, meaning that it will happily run along without you, needing only a firm hand on the tiller from time to time.

For most of us, this is great, because we have the attention span of butterflies, and often find it tough to concentrate on the same thing for any length of time. If all we have to do is manage a bunch of outsourced processes, we're happy as can be.

The main message this - don't worry about not knowing (for example) how to write good copy, or how to create an app, or produce a membership based web site and software as a service (SaaS) offering. There are people who can do all of these things.

All you have to worry about is finding the right partners, at the right price, and then managing them. As an entrepreneur you've likely got the skills to be able to do these things, all you need to do is unlock them!

Think About Your Exit Strategy

I know that it feels a bit odd to think about your business as something with an end before you even get it off the ground, but the exit strategy is one of the more frequently overlooked parts of a fledgling business plan.

It's important in that investors who want to see a return, will want you to think about where that money is going to come from. Not to put too fine a point on it - it's unlikely that it will come from direct profits in the timescale or quantity that will satisfy all but the most 'angel' of investors.

In fact, many investors will force your hand, and sell out (or go public) at the drop of a hat, if the going looks good, just to turn around their initial capital investment.

You can preempt all of this by taking a few hours to consider, if you had to, how you would get out. Here are some options:

• Retire - in other words, you leave the business when you've had enough, and either keep an interest so that the income can support you, or just never look back;
• Sell Out Early - find someone willing to take on the company as a going concern, or sell to a competitor;
• Float on the Stock Market (IPO) - this is interesting in that it can raise a lot of money an increase your personal wealth, but you may well find yourself deposed or sidelined as shareholder interest takes priority;
• Wind it up - just cease trading, sell the assets (if there are any), and do something else.

There are other options, but these are the most common. There are also businesses that are created purely with the end goal to sell out to a bigger company, and which don't make any money in the interim.

For these kinds of business, the Exit Strategy is the business plan, and it can be a hard trick to pull off!

By thinking about your exit strategy, you may even show investors that you are also emotionally disconnected from (but passionate about) the business, and are likely to make good decisions. You will also be prepared mentally for the end, and it will help you to formulate a worst-case scenario, if it all goes horribly wrong.

To end on a more positive note - a successful business that is sold to a competitor, or complementary business, will make you rich, and free you up so you can launch the next big thing!