How to quit your job and start your own business
If you’re working in a 9-5 but want to start your own business the path from where you are now to profitable business owner can feel very daunting.
Here’s the problem:
you rely on the income you earn from your job and need it for your rent, mortgage and to pay for your life (or to contribute to the family income)
you’re short of time and you already work. You’re not sure how you would fit anything else in
In this post I lay out three paths for how you can move from where you are now to starting your business and living the life you dream of.
Plus I share my own path from 9-5 full-time corporate job to seven figure business owner (as a Mum of three!)…
Path 1: You quit or get fired from your job
Risk level for this path: HIGH
In this scenario you quit your job because you’ve had enough of your over bearing boss or you get fired or let go due to unforeseen circumstances within the company you are working for.
Your options here are to either go and get another job or to take a leap of faith and start your own business.
Starting your own business under these circumstances will be quite stressful as you now have to figure out how to make your business work and get revenue in the door as fast as possible.
In some ways this could actually be a good thing as it could help you avoid procrastination or avoid doing things that scare you (which is common for new business owners!) as you will have to find a way to make your new business work and bring in revenue to pay for your life.
But this is a pretty risky way of starting a new business as you’ve not tested any of your ideas before starting and you have no idea if you can make it work or not. It’s also likely to be pretty stressful and not all that enjoyable, at least as you get going.
Path 2: You plan for it and save up
Risk level for this path: MEDIUM
The next path is to plan ahead for your new business and spend time while you’re still working and earning a stable income to plan for your future as a business owner.
So this might involve saving up some money so you’ve got a runway of income in your bank account that you can rely on while you are getting your business going (e.g. saving up 6-12 months worth of expenses as a buffer).
Lots of people think this is the way they should start their business. They think they don’t have any time while working in a job to actually start their business and that the only way to get a business going is to be doing it full time and devote all their attention to it.
But in my opinion this path isn’t really that much less stressful than the first option and each time you have to dip in to your savings to pay your rent or contribute to the family finances it will feel unnecessarily stressful.
Plus it will likely take you a long time to save up the runway of money you need for this plan, so it’s not something that will happen quickly.
Path 3: You build your business as a side gig
Risk level for this path: LOW
This is the path I recommend and the one I have followed myself in my own business journey (which I’ve outlined below for you).
In this path you start your business on the side, while still working in your 9-5 job.
Here’s how:
get up earlier than you are now and work on your new business
work on it during your lunch breaks
work on it in the evening after you get home
work on it on the weekends
work on it while you’re on vacation and holidays
I hear lots of you saying “but I’m tired after work” or “I have kids and don’t have time” or “I want to relax on my holidays” and trust me, I totally get it! When I started my own side hustle/gig business while still working in my 9-5 corporate job I also had three children under 5 years old!
But I know it can be done - because I’ve done it myself!
Here’s what it will take:
ambition and a drive to succeed - unless you really want it you are unlikely to put in the work that it will take to get there
a passion for what you’re doing - you need to be so excited about what you’re doing and want to jump out of bed each morning to keep working on it
high level time management and productivity skills - you will need the ability to prioritise the most important (revenue generating!) work first and put your head down and get it done in short bursts of time
My Mum (who was a single Mum and raised my sister and I on her own while having a high level career) had a saying while I was growing up that has stuck with me:
“If you want something done then give it to a busy mother”
And this saying works for all busy people, whether you’re a mother or not.
The busier you are the more you’ll really focus on the work that you NEED to get done and the tasks that are bringing in your revenue and the less you will procrastinate and spin your wheels doing ‘busy work’.
My path to 7 figure business owner
If you haven’t heard my own story of how I left my full time corporate job to start my own business then you may find this post interesting.
But here is a quick overview of my 10 year path from full time 9-5 corporate job to where I am today:
It was around 2013 and I was working full time as a change management consultant after having recently completed my PhD. At the time my three children were also under 5 years old (i.e. I was busy!)
I started a design blog as a hobby (for a creative outlet - not with the intention of starting a business)
I starting writing posts in the evenings, on weekends and during my lunch break at work. I also started an Instagram account to share images of my own home and other design things I liked. My design blog and Instagram started to get attention.
[By the way this was back when blogging was more of a thing than it is now - I don’t recommend blogging as a strong lead generation tool these days but that’s another story! Even though I write daily blog posts myself this is really more for fun for me and as a way to help others, rather than as a lead generation strategy]
I also started to tell friends and family about the blog I had started and they started to ask me for help with different projects in their homes
I did some work for free for some of those friends as well as for other family members (e.g. I helped my Mum and Step-Dad restyle their house for sale)
I then started to charge (extremely low!) fees to help other friends who were recommended to me by the first group who I had helped for free
I now had some images and a portfolio of small projects I could put up on my website as examples of previous work, plus had some testimonials to use as well
[Side note: all of these free and low paid projects were being done in evenings and on weekends while I was still working in my corporate job]
I was loving what I was doing and people started saying I should do this as a real business. So I started doing more active lead generation activities to try and find ‘real’ clients (i.e. people I didn’t already know!).
[Side note: There’s also a story in here about working for a real estate agent as a property stylist - but that’s another blog post as well!]
For that initial lead generation I used Houzz and a few clients started reaching out to me to help with small styling projects.
[Another side note: I don’t recommend Houzz as a good lead generation tool these days but it worked better back around 10 years ago when I was getting going - if you want to know lead generation strategies that actually work these days then take this training].
I couldn’t believe people were paying me to help with work I would happily be doing for free - I was loving every second of it!
From word of mouth plus leads from Houzz, Instagram and my blog I started getting a steady stream of clients.
But I was still working full time and had three young children, so this is how I managed everything:
I would get up early before work and exercise to stay on top of my health
Once the boys were at daycare/kindy I would go to work for the day
I wouldn’t waste any time - lunch times were spent calling clients back or doing emails or client work. I would listen to business podcasts on the bus on the way to work.
In the evenings after the boys were fed and on their way to bed I would go and have client meetings - many clients preferred evening meetings anyway as they also worked full time (they didn’t know I was working in another job by the way!). I did this a few nights a week.
I would also meet clients on weekends and I would also do my client work on weekends as well. My husband would take the boys to the park or on an outing for a few hours so I could get this work done. I am extremely productive so put my head down for these quiet hours and got most of my work done.
Eventually after living this somewhat crazy life for about a year I had got close to replacing my 6-figure corporate salary with my design business side hustle.
At this point my husband and I discussed it and we agreed that if I had more time to spend on growing my business and finding more clients that I would likely have more success with it, plus it would obviously be less stressful on the family that way as well.
So I quit my job and went all in on my business around 12 months or so after starting my hobby blog.
That was around 8-9 years ago.
Here’s what happened since then:
I worked as a designer and grew my design business for the next 6-7 years or so
But I realised I wanted to stop trading time for money so much so I could be more flexible in my schedule
I also wanted to scale my business but didn’t want staff
So I looked at what digital products I could create to help my growing online community
Lots of people were asking me about the SketchUp projects that I was posting on my Instagram account - including what program I was using etc.
I asked them if they would find a SketchUp course helpful (before I created any of it!)
They said yes!
So I put up a sales page (still not having created any of the course yet) and got pre-payments for my soon-to-be-launched online course
People started paying for the pre-payment so I then had to get the course made! I will never forget that first course sale that I got for $297 - I still have the screen shot of it I was so excited!
I launched my first SketchUp course in August 2019 and started my online courses business that I have today.
Since that time I’ve made more than $3 million in sales from the different online courses I’ve created over the last few years
About 18 months ago my husband also left his corporate job and has been working with me in the business ever since.
So that’s my path to where I am today in a nutshell!
These days our family lives the dream - my husband and I both work from home but not for many hours each day. We have lunch out whenever want to, my husband does Jiu Jitsu most days, we spend our time however we want and we are both home for our boys every afternoon after school.
But it’s taken a HUGE amount of hard work to get to this point and it hasn’t been something that’s happened by accident over night.
So if you’re keen to start your own business then my strongest recommendation for you is to not make excuses of doing it ‘when the kids go to school’ or ‘when you’ve saved up and left your job’.
Instead I recommend you take Path 3, like I did, and just get started.
Build it up as a side gig while you’re still working so you don’t have any financial pressure from it. You can also see if you like running a business and if you actually have a service or product that people want to buy from you that way as well.
Once you’ve got your side gig to the point of making enough money that you feel confident you can go all in - this is the time to quit your job and throw yourself in to it full time.
Good luck and I’m here to fully support you! ⭐️🥳🥳⭐️
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
DO YOU WANT TO….
Improve your professionalism?
Find more clients?
Bring in more revenue?
Create better systems and processes?
Then check out my business courses and templates for designers and architects.
These courses and templates leave you with work done - not just a long list of things you need to do next. We have a really strong focus on taking action and getting things created that improve your business.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
