How To Quit Your Job and Start a Business That Lasts

You’ll need to avoid some common mistakes to survive

If you’re going to ditch your day job and step out on your own, you’re going to want you to make sure that what you’re stepping into evolves into a sustainable, profitable, and growing company.

Look, I get it. It’s every employee’s dream — You can do what you do better on your own, with higher quality, lower overhead, and you can do it for more people and for people who need it more. Plus you’ll enjoy a greater return for your efforts.

That may be true — for a while. But if you want to build a lasting business, not just starting a side gig, not just transitioning from comfortable employee to scratch-and-claw contractor, but growing a business that turns into a startup that turns into a company, you’re going to have to serve two markets, probably more.

Here’s what those markets are and how to build and grow them.

First: Take In All You Can From the Existing Market

The top mistake most solos make is leaving their day job too soon. Going solo takes months, even years of preparation. I’m not just talking about the experience you’ll need to deliver an expert product or service in your field, but the situational knowledge required to build a sustainable company around delivering that product or service.

There are reasons why your former company is leaking efficiency, quality, affordability, customer satisfaction — all those reasons why you left. Yeah, your former employer might have gotten lazy, but it’s more likely they got bloated when they built a bunch of infrastructure to allow them to grow large enough to hire smart, talented people like you. You don’t want to make the same mistakes.

So while you’re still at your day job, take in everything you can before you leave. I’m not talking about contacts or customers. I’m talking about that situational knowledge and the infrastructure that developed out of it.

Look around and understand what your employer is doing around every aspect of your job that doesn’t directly involve you delivering the product or service itself. What makes your job easier? What will you miss the…