MBA1016 Should You Start a 2nd Business on the Side?

Hey O. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show. Because it's more than just finding out why others were successful. It's finding out how you will be successful. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net and in today's lesson, you will should you start a second business on the side? As entrepreneurs, we get great ideas all the time. We come up with ways to solve all kinds of problems. But does that mean you should turn that solution into a business when you're already running one? I'm sure that many of you have thought about starting a second business, a third business, even a fourth business while you're running your current business or businesses. I certainly have and have done it. So in today's lesson, I'll be sharing with you when is a good time? When is it right to start a second business or an additional business, let's say, and when is it a bad idea? Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the 100 RBA show is brought to you by Long Tail Pro, a step by step system to help you quickly discover thousands of profitable, easy to rank keywords for almost any niche. Visit longtailpro.commba and use coupon code MBA for a free trial and 30% off your subscription forever. Again, that's longtailpro.commba use code MBA in today's lesson, we're gonna be discussing should you start a second business or let's say an additional business to the existing business or businesses you have. Let's begin with when you shouldn't start an additional business. Now, some might say you shouldn't start a second business or an additional business when your existing business is not doing well. Now I'm here to tell you that's not necessarily true. That might be the best time to start another business or experiment with another business. Because hey, the current one is not doing so well. You might need to pivot. You might need to hop onto a different lily pad, right? But what I will say is you shouldn't start a second or additional business if you don't have the funding, if you don't have the money for it, if you do have the funding, if you do have the money, especially if starting this business is not going to cost you much. Costs are low, then the risks are low. So you could Be all right. But many people start second businesses that are costly and not only are they spending money to do it, but they also will be spending time. And that's something a lot of people talk about. As soon as you start thinking about starting a second business, you're going to start spending time on it and that's going to be time away from your current business. Now, spending less time on your current business is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing if you don't have a plan to to spend less time, meaning that you need somebody to do the things that you spend time on. You need to replace yourself or replace some of yourself or some of your duties with a hire. Because building and launching a new business takes a lot of time and it's a long road. So if you have a current business and you're thinking about starting another one, think about how you can free yourself up in terms of time. Because it's not just money you're going to be spending. You need to free yourself of time. What things can you take off your plate and give it to somebody else that you can hire? And that leads me to the second point of when not to start a second business is that when you don't have the time, if you can't outsource your duties, if your time is already spread too thin, meaning that you might have other commitments in life, whether it's your family or health commitments, like you really need to go to the gym three times a week. And cutting that out is not going to be a good idea for your health. Like I mentioned in yesterday's episode, time is limited. So if you don't have the time for it and you can't make the time, then you may want to put this idea on the back burner. Now, the next thing I want to discuss is you have to answer the question why? Why do you want to start this second business or this next business? It's a great opportunity. Is not a good enough reason. I want to make more money. Also not a good enough reason. Why? Because businesses, again, are a long term thing. What does this business look like in five years? In 10 years, do you still want to do it? Are you going to be able to build it to a successful point? Are you able to hang in there long enough for you to be able to even have the option to sell it? It's a responsibility. It's sort of a burden that you're going to take on as soon as you decide to build this business. So keep this in mind. Now, I Want to give you some examples of what it's a really a good fit, a good idea to consider this second business or third business or whatever. And that's when you can utilize shared resources. Let me give you an example. Let's say you run a very successful cafe. Everybody loves your coffee, you got great customer service and you got a great manager that runs that cafe for you. You want to open a second cafe, that's a second business. Now you have a ton of shared resources that you can use to help build that second business. You have a great manager that can manage and also train new hires. You know what it takes to make a great coffee. You have a menu that works, that you can implement in your next cafe. When it comes to ordering supplies, you can just double your orders and save some money when you order in bulk. You get the point. It makes sense when you can share resources. This is why it's very common to see a lot of software companies come out with one product. They nail it, people love it and they come up with another software product. Atlassian is a great example of that. Atlassian is a very, very successful software company in Australia and they make great software like Jira, BitBucket, Hipchat. These are tried and true and very popular software apps. They started with one and they started building others. Now obviously they had plenty of places to share resources, whether it was developer talent, whether it was marketing managers. The point is, is that Atlassian didn't start a software company, launch a software product and then went into high end fashion, right? So having shared resources to help your second business or third business or whatever really, really helps. It really allows you to have some sort of competitive advantage. And don't forget, part of the resources is again your experience. You know what it takes to have a successful product or cafe or software. In Atlassian's example, they learn some hard lessons and they can apply it in the next business they launch. Now we talked about shared resources, but another big, big asset that could really help you when you start a second business is, is a shared audience. So when Atlassian started their software company, they built software for businesses. So naturally their customers and their interested leads were business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, whatever it is. So when they launch their next business or their next product line you might want to call it, but they are kind of separate businesses. They can tap into the same audience, the audience they've cultivated already. People that are already happy with their products and services, people that are already interested in their products and services. This is really gold because it Allows you to have some sort of head start really when you launch that second, third, fourth business because you have an audience to talk to, you have an audience to sell to. You have somebody to say, hey, I have something new here, a new business, a new offering you might like, versus again, Atlassian saying, we're going into high end fashion. They don't have an audience in that, you know, in that marketplace, they have to still build that audience and build credibility and build trust with people that are interested in that product. So if you can tap into your existing audience with your new business, it might be a good idea to start it now. If you have that going for you have a shared resource, shared audience. The topper, I believe, is if you have those two already and your new business, your new offering, your new product doesn't really exist in your marketplace. It's a big opportunity that means you could be first to market. Now, it's going to have its challenges because you're going to have to explain to people what this thing is. They've never seen it before, right? But the whole marketplace for that solution is going to be yours. Now, even if your product is not completely first to market, but the way you present your solution to or the way you offer your solution is different or easier or user friendly or better than the competition in a different way, you can really hit a home run with this new business. Now, the title of today's episode is should you start a second business on the side? And that's very important because when you're running your current business, you want to make sure that the second business has some viability that your audience actually wants what, what you want to buy, that your audience actually wants what you're building or about to build. Now, you may kind of know from your existing product line or your existing business, but you want to make sure this is where a minimal viable product is so important and where you want to invest the least amount of time and money to validate your product, to validate your business. More about that in a moment. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Here's an Interesting stat. 25% of all Americans say they'd start their own business in the next year if they could. But only a fraction actually do. Why? Because taking that leap can be scary. Luckily, there's Weebly. Weebly is the easiest way to create an incredible looking website. I know firsthand because I'm building my own personal website with Weebly. So if you're starting that business, it's important to understand that Weebly Weebly is not just a website. It's a whole E commerce platform packed with tools to help you sell your products, process payment, manage inventory, create marketing campaigns, and a lot more. Weebly's mission is to help turn people's great ideas into successful online businesses, which is why they also provide top notch customer service. I know this first hand. If I have a question, I just pick up the phone and talk to an expert. Many of them have started their own businesses themselves and Weebly knows their success comes from the success of their customers. So if you got a product or idea that you want to share with the world, check out Weebly. You can have a beautiful, powerful online store up and running in just hours. And because you listen to this podcast $100 MBA show, you'll get 15% off your first purchase. Just visit weebly.com mba that's a w E-E-B-L-Y.com MBA don't just build a beautiful website, build a successful online business with Weebly. So we've talked about minimal viable products plenty of times here on the show and it applies when you build a second, third, fourth business. When you're doing this on the side, this is a good chance for you to test, market and find out what people actually want and how do you build the right product. You can do this easily with a landing page or with the tool that Product Hunt has called ship. The way for you to put your product idea out there and get feedback and to get leads really from people that would be interested. You get access to Product Hunt's vast audience of people that are really interested in new products. So it's definitely worth checking out. You want to nail that idea. You want to make sure that you come up with the best, minimal viable product for your audience before you launch, before you actually put it out there in the world. Now you're running your current business or businesses right now so you can take a little bit of extra time to make sure you nail this. There's nothing wrong with pursuing a second, third, fourth business while you're running your current business or businesses. But I wanted to do today's episode to show you when you have the best chance for success and how important it is to ask yourself the right question. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss anything an episode when you hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Overcast this tells the app to download our episodes automatically every day so you don't miss a single beat. But it also gives you access to our archives. That's over a thousand episodes on everything business. So hit subscribe right now to get access. Alright, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Building a second business, third business can be overwhelming. So pace yourself, take your time, and make sure you don't neglect your current business. Because, hey, it pays the bills, right? It makes sure that you're actually able to open that second business. So don't neglect. Take your time and try as much as possible to have some sort of crossover in audience and resources. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode, Free Ride Friday. I'll see you then. Take care of Sam.