Pull the pin or keep hustling?
Considering I have had probably 12,969 entrepreneurial brainwave ideas in my 30 years of life – it’s pretty good that I’ve only acted on 7 of them.
Here are some wacky + wonderful biz ventures that I have tried my hand at:
- Lemon stall – C’mon who hasn’t done that! My bestie and I used to pick the lemons off her tree and sell them out on the street – pulled the pin on that one pretty quick 😉
- Networking for women who are new to Perth – Fusion Life Perth, my first real biz venture and one I still hold close to my heart. A membership for women wanting to make new friends – then meetup.com came along…
- Mind/body/soul motivational events – linked to Fusion Life Perth, hosting events with three speakers – one for mind, one for body, one for soul. A cool idea but hard to nail the target market for this type of thing, at least I couldn’t do it.
- Isagenix – I stopped using the product, and can’t sell something I don’t believe in
- Juice Plus – Great product which I still believe in the health benefits to this day, but I decided to focus on other business ideas (see 6 & 7)
- Gourmet Nuts + Chocolates – The Wild Nut – my Uncle owns an uber-successful nut business in Adelaide (Charlesworth Nuts) and I wanted to bring it to Perth because the product is the best you’ll ever try. Spending my Sunday’s at markets wasn’t doing it for me – and it gets kinda old hearing “I could get that at Woolies for half the price.”
- Connecting + Educating Women in Business – Fusion Biz Babes – stole my heart and run away with it. I honestly believe I have found “the one” because it lights me up every single day.
Yep you name it, I’ve tried it (or at least thought about it.)
I suppose that’s what you call the entrepreneurial spirit… always looking for ways to do things better.
Always thinking of new projects to start up on the side of a day job, which might just one day let you leave that pesky day job and become a fulltime Biz Babe. Allowing you to say goodbye to working for the man.
So how do you know if you’re running a business, or a hobby business? One makes money, one doesn’t. Simple as that.
My Accountant was blunt as a spoon when he saw my first year business’ profit + loss. Whoops!
But how do you actually know when an idea has the potential to take off?
How do you know if you should keep hustling to see if the idea can get some traction?
Or more importantly, how do you know when it’s time to pull the pin, pick yourself up, and move on to see if your next business idea has legs?
I want to share with you a few green light indicators that I’ve learned over my time in biz:
- People are ready to pay you:
You’re getting out there chatting with your target market and you have at least 5 enthusiastic YES I would buy that! Not from family or friends, not just an off the cuff yeahhhhh mayyybeee. I’m talkin’ “F YES I NEED THIS, SHOOSH AND TAKE MY MONEY!?”
- People are signing up to your email list:
Slowly but surely you are accumulating avid subscribers who want to hear more about your product or service, and that respond to your emails.
- You would work on this for free:
You are going to need to f*cking love your work. Because let me tell you, when the going gets tough you will want to give up. And the only thing stopping you from throwing in the towel and sitting in front of Netflix, will be that guiding passion.
Have you had any businesses you’ve decided to say bye-bye to? Share in the comments!
Ash x