This month, we’re featuring a guest post by the co-founder of Buymie, Devan Hughes.
How to leave your cushy 9 to 5 and start your own business (without risking everything!)
I’ll start this article by making two simple assumptions:
- You have thought about starting your own business at some point.
- You didn’t do it because you haven’t a clue where to begin.
If the above is accurate, I’m happy to tell you that starting a business is not nearly as intimidating as you might think, and you are certainly not the only one with this problem.
Starting a business is however a process that requires practice, and becomes much easier the more times you do it.
As an introduction, my name is Devan and I’m the co-founder of Buymie, an on-demand grocery e-commerce platform. We allow consumers to order grocery and household items from a variety of local stores and have them delivered store to door, in as little as one hour by a crowd sourced personal shopper.
To give you some context, Buymie is my fifth venture. My first entrepreneurial dalliance began when I started out after college importing electric golf trolleys from China and selling them into pro shops around Ireland.
I then moved into renewable energy, working on wind farm development and smart LED tech, followed by app development, a biometric payment technology and finally my current endeavor. Among these, I also worked as an employee for medium-sized businesses and large multinationals, so I like to think I have a reasonable sense of both worlds.
With the above out of the way, I’m going to aim to show you, in the three steps below, how you can adequately prepare to make the transition from your comfy employee role, and take a shot at being your own boss and building a business for yourself.
Step 1: Talk to people about it
It is unfortunately all too common that most people lack the confidence to talk openly about their business ideas. Most worry that they’ll put themselves out there, only to fail and be somehow looked down on by their peers/family/friends. Failure is a part of the process, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can begin to use failure as the tool that it is – because the more you fail, the more you learn. If anyone close to you is going to look down on you for that, then you should probably consider surrounding yourself with different kinds of people.
The other part to this is that you might be afraid to tell people about your idea, for fear that they might steal it. The fact of the matter is that if you tell someone your idea and they are able to execute it better than you, than they deserve it. However, given that 99.9% of people don’t take the step to start their own businesses, let alone ones they have heard from someone in passing, you’re probably pretty safe. So get out and talk to people!
Step 2: Validate, validate and validate some more
Nobody should ever quit their job with just an idea; it’s irresponsible and very naive. The art of making a smooth transition from a well-paid corporate job to a low-paying, high-potential startup is by putting in the extra hours and taking the time to validate the idea beforehand.
When I was working on Buymie, I would round up friends and family at the weekends, and get them to come out with me to shopping centers and busy streets to do customer surveys. I was able to collect real consumer data and develop the insights needed to tell me if the idea actually had any legs. Only when I knew that the idea had real potential, did I move on to step three.
Step 3: Raise some capital
This step is very much dependent on the specific idea, but allow me to share how we went about it.
Once we felt that the proposition was valid and that we would be able to find customers, we bootstrapped. The three co-founders all chipped in some cash and we started prototyping. We estimated that we would need approximately €100k to run a tightly budgeted, 12-month pilot. That number would mean that we would be able to pay ourselves a base salary for the year and have some funds for marketing and development, etc.
We presented the prototype first to our friends and family and raised €25,000 from them. This is something I would encourage all founders to do, because if you believe in your idea enough that you are willing to have an awkward Christmas, then that is a clear indication to other potential investors that you are truly confident and committed and will work as hard as you can to make it a success.
We then applied to Enterprise Ireland’s Competitve Start Fund (CSF) and were awarded an investment of €50,000 for a 10% stake in the company. This programme is really fantastic, and has been put in place to provide funding to high-potential, innovative businesses that don’t necessarily have any revenue yet, but are looking to develop their proposition and get it to market.
Finally, with all of the above in place, we were able to bring in an angel investor who, seeing that we had already raised €75,000, was willing to put in another €25,000 to bring us to the round €100k figure that we needed.
That’s it. The best part about the above process is that each step acts as the bridge to the next. If you speak to people about it, you will find out how many of them think it’s a good idea. Then when you validate it, you’ll find out if the broader market shares that opinion, and when you have the data collected you will be able to use that as proof to sell the idea to investors who will give you the resources to go out and make it happen.
So no more excuses, get to it, and feel free to let me know how you get on! 😉
Guest post by Devan Hughes – Co-Founder of Buymie
– Linkedin:linkedin.com/in/devanhughes– Twitter:@DevanHughes– Instagram:@DevanHughes
