Evan Carmichael advises someone juggling a full-time job and debt on starting a business. Pick something you're passionate about that solves a real problem, start with services instead of products to avoid cash drain, and talk directly to potential customers to understand what they need. Land your first paying clients while still employed, then scale from there.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's video, I'm going to answer a question from one of my readers, Jackie, who had a full-time job but had to take a big pay cut and now has to pay off credit card payments and a bunch of other debt and wanted to start a business to make a little bit more money. And wanted my advice on how to get started and, you know, what to do next. So, Jackie, sorry about your situation. Could be an opportunity though if you're creating this new business. What I would do in terms of thinking about what type of business to run, I would look at what you're really passionate about, what you really love doing, and combine that with where you think you can add a lot of value to people. So if you can, you know, intersect those two things of what you really love and where you can add a lot of value to people's lives, That's the making of a great start for a business. Next thing I would do is think about starting a service-based business. So don't get into the product side, especially if you're already, you know, cash-crunched and you're trying to make extra money. You don't want your business to be a drain on your cash and be bleeding you instead of giving you money. So start a service-based business. And I would also think about building around the customer. So whatever business you're starting, you know, again, we're thinking about what we're really passionate about and where we can add a lot of value. Go out and start talking to customers and see where you could potentially help them out, see what challenges they have, and offer your services as a way to help them solve those problems. And when you have customers paying you, it's a lot easier to go after the next customer and go after the next customer and keep growing your business. So you're starting small, you're starting part-time, you still have your job, and slowly you build up customer after customer after customer, building around the problems that they have and following what you're really passionate about. So Jackie, I hope that helps. I know it's some general advice, but if you have more specific questions, you know, feel free to leave a comment below the video. Everybody else, I'd love to hear your comments too, and also if you want to give the video a thumbs up, I always appreciate those. So thank you for watching and stay tuned for the next episode.
