Taking on a lifestyle business sounds exciting to tell yourself you have escaped the 9-5, the rat race 90% of people are in, right? Sadly, being free from a job means achieving some sort of financial freedom, which to many – is impossible. To liberate yourself from the 9 to 5, proper planning needs to be done in order to escape the rat race.
Thankfully, these days there are multiple ways for you to get started earning more money to get you to financial independence early. While most financial advisors or fund managers would talk about investing early. It is a lot easier to reach financial independence if you have more to invest in.
Making the Income
Having a side hustle is a great way to earn an extra income on top of your main source of income. Unlike working a 9 to 5 job, you can take on as many side hustles as you like. Well, that’s how I achieve a networth of over $100,000 by 24, it is by having multiple side hustle incomes. Having a side hustle is the first step to liberating yourself from the 9 to 5. From there, you will find that a side hustle may motivate you to pursue something greater, a lifestyle business!
What’s a Lifestyle Business?
A lifestyle business is one that is driven by a person’s passion and makes enough money to enable the owner to work remotely and live comfortably.
For example, I love writing content and sharing about my finance and investing with people around me. So I created a blog where I am able to reach a larger audience who may be interested in what I may be able to provide.
So think of what you are passionate about and would like to share with the world. If you got it, hey! You have found yourself a lifestyle business.
Lifestyle Business Idea!
If you aren’t sure what to take up or venture into a lifestyle business. Don’t worry, here are some examples of a lifestyle business people have taken:
- F&B Business
- Photographer/ Videography
- Housekeeping Company
- Online Entrepreneur
- Investment Trader
- Pet servicing
- Business Coaching
Well, there are plenty more business ideas one can imagine. Most lifestyle businesses have learned to switch to remote working due to the covid lockdown. And while remote working does have its added perks – it is great to have a face-to-face meeting business.
Lifestyle Business advantages and disadvantages
As a lifestyle entrepreneur myself a content writer, pet sitter, and investment trader. I can truthfully say that starting a lifestyle business is not as easy as it seems. 95% of bloggers quit in the first 1 year, 5 – 10% of first-time traders can become successful and 90% of businesses fail within the first 5 years. But if you are willing to go through the valley of disappointment, grind through tough times, and sacrifice some time for your business. Then, starting a lifestyle business means starting as an entrepreneur may be for you. Here are the Pros and Cons to look at:
Advantages of having a Lifestyle Business
- Doing it remotely
- Your passion drives you to influence others
- You control your paycheck
- It can be automated if you find the right tools and employees to do the job
- Be your own boss, work whenever you want
- You will meet like-minded people who will motivate you
Drawbacks and Problems of a Lifestyle Business
- Having no accountability for day-to-day actions
- Taxes can be a real pain
- Health insurance is strictly on your shoulders (unless your partner has a 9 to 5).
- Not having proper time management and planning can overwork and create chaos in your work environment
- Passion dies down, and becoming less motivated
- The loneliness of having to work on your passion alone (relates to some people)
- Hard to maintain a work-life balance when every second invested in your business could mean making money
- Making regular money can take a long time (more than 6 months or even a year). For some, it doesn’t.
How to choose a Niche to start a Business?
Apart from knowing what you are passionate about, having a focused niche is important for you to stand above the crowd. A niche allows your business to be easily identified by either a product or brand.
A niche needs to have 2 important factors, uniqueness and providing value. Uniqueness helps your business cover a void that is lacking in a certain business. Value-adding is created when the business is able to elevate a user’s experience with your product. A good example of a company that has great uniqueness and value-adding service is Uber. The business is a ride-hailing company that helps create more opportunities for passengers to find a driver through a smartphone device.
Well, the example might be too large for a lifestyle business given that Uber is a $40billion company but you get the idea. A great niche is something that fixes a person’s demand. Finding that niche certainly isn’t easy! But finding that one idea is certainly going to be life-changing.
13 Steps to starting a Business
It will be a lot easier to create a business if you have proper step-by-step stages to grow your business. Let’s look at the following steps:
- Do you have a service or product that you can offer?
- How useful and beneficial is your product or service?
- Is my niche profitable, how much would I be able to make, and for how long?
- Meet people from the field and listen to their opinion and make a fair decision for yourself
- If you found a skill or expertise you might not know of and will need. It is time to upskill yourself
- Create a business plan that has a detailed roadmap that shows the timeline and required funding for the business.
- Ask yourself how many hours can you commit to your business in a day and how long will you stay in the business
- Align your business roadmap to your future goal
- Register your business name and get the required license to start the business
- Create a platform for you to showcase your product or service. Be it a website, social media page, or a physical stall.
- Build an audience or client. The best is with word-of-mouth marketing (having close friends and family to share)
- Being patient while consistently providing value to the customer
- Create tools or hire employees to make the business able to run smoothly
Surviving the Valley of Disappointment and Going Above and Beyond
Opening a business doesn’t bring you, customers, overnight. Most business startups fail during the stages in the valley of disappointment because they assume there would be a high demand for their services. The quote for all business startups to remember is “ Rome wasn’t built in a day.” This quote is an adage attesting to the need for time to create great things.
One of James Clears important lessons to take back is to improve 1% at a time. Creating positive habits that improve the business by even just 1% is able to compound into significant results. While making small bad habits can slowly destroy what you have worked for.
The success story of making positive 1% changes that made an athlete win a championship was British cyclist coach Brailsford. Back in the 2000s, top bike manufacturers were afraid to sell their bikes to the British because they were afraid their losses would affect their business. In order to win the Olympics and Tour de France, Brailford constantly made minor changes to increase the performance of his cyclist. From testing various fabrics in a wind tunnel to create light more dynamic clothing to painting the inside of their van white to make sure there was not any dust that may affect the performance of the bikes. In just 5 years, the British cyclist team was able to dominate the 2008 Olympic games and win the Tour de France a few years later.
The key takeaway from this success story was that the Brailford cyclist team did not win overnight, it was the consistent minor changes to improve themselves that overall made an impact on them clinching the medals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some questions you might ask yourself when starting a lifestyle business.
Q1: How to know whether my lifestyle business will be successful in the long run?
Who knows? Running a business is inherently risky. To track whether your business is on track, a good way to look at is the monthly revenue generated and free cash flow. If the free cash flow is growing exponentially, then your business is probably doing pretty well.
Q2: What is a Lifestyle Business Model?
Think of how you would sell your skill in your hobby, that’s how lifestyle business work.
- Find clients.
- Pitch them work.
- Do the work.
- Charge them either by the hour or by the project.
For example, a blogger is able to charge for the content writing on a niche he/she is good at. Depending on the difficulty of the project, the blogger may be able to charge a higher price if the client request to have more words written.
Q3: Should I create a Lifestyle Business Blog?
Well whenever someone starts their own lifestyle business, be it a photographer or a cook. Most of them would like to be able to document their journey and sharing to the world. Having a lifestyle business blog on top of your own lifestyle business is a great way to create additional income.
Q4: How do I find a highly profitable Niche?
Finding a highly profitable niche is quite simple. Simply do keyword research on the niche you are planning to do, and look up whether there is a high search volume for the topic and whether there is a business that is tackling this issue. If not, you have found a highly profitable niche!
Another way is solving demand. Demand for pet boarding services skyrocketed when foreign residents had to travel back to their home country during the pandemic lockdown. This created a high business opportunity for pet boarders and are able to charge a higher premium for that demand.
