AMA: How To Figure Out The Next Steps With My New Business Idea

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Q. The last month or so I have come up with a business idea that I'm really excited about. I’m planning to hold regular in person workshops say 1-3 times per month where I will be teaching to a small group of people. I’ve been coming up with lots of ideas, I want to deliver these in person, but I also have friends living in other states who are interested in teaching my ideas and method where they live as well. I have several ideas about all the different ways I can offer all these workshops including offering private classes or one on ones. With all these ideas, I'm really excited to get started, I'm just not sure where to begin. I also work full-time (in something non related) so at the moment this is really just a side hustle. Because this is a side hustle, I’d like to keep costs as low as possible and only have a small amount of money to invest. I’ve started writing down my business plan and forecasting for the next few years but I start feeling overwhelmed and unsure on the best place to start? Any ideas or advice would be amazing, thank you!

— Elise

A. Hi Elise,

First of all, congratulations on taking the leap to starting a business, it isn't an easy path but it is definitely incredibly rewarding so I'm really excited for you.

My initial advice, and one that I give almost all my clients is to start small. It can be really exciting in that initial ideation phase, the stage where you’re coming up with lots of ideas and constantly brainstorming new additions to the business, but there is practicality side as well.

I’m guessing you are a first time business owner, or at the very least this is an entirely new venture for you, so it can be difficult to forecast so far in advance when you’re not sure how the business will evolve and take shape.

Not everyone is going to agree with this, but I would actually scrap the five year plan.

As someone who has a degree in business, has run multiple businesses and worked with many female entrepreneurs over the years, there is definitely a time and place for the traditional business plan, but I wouldn’t say this is one of them.

Given what you’ve shared, the nature of the business and it being a side hustle with limited cash investment to begin with, I recommend a more nimble approach.

Spending a large chunk of time outlining a plan that could easily pivot, to me, is very counterintuitive. While you do need some sort of plan to reference back to, to ensure you’re meeting targets, a lengthy several year plan isn’t necessary just yet.

Some important metrics you’ll want to be sure to include, is the amount of workshops per year, how many people you need to sign up to make the profit you desire, as well as your marketing objectives. I would keep it pretty simple at this stage, until you’ve gained enough data to validate that this idea merits further investing as well as a more detailed business plan.

I recommend you view this as the experimental phase. Essentially focusing on getting the core foundations right, the phase where you are really refining and evolving the workshops. It is normal to have several iterations in business, and it’s best to go through this in the earlier stages.

You may realise after holding a few workshops that there are gaps that need to be fine tuned. This can look like people not understanding parts of what you to teach in class that require more material being added in, or there’s an element in your payment processing that doesn’t work smoothly. It makes more sense to refine this and get it to a point where the framework is really dialled in, before you hand it over to be replicated by others. The last thing you want to do is have to unnecessarily spend any additional time and financial investment, by identifying opportunities and issues earlier on in the game.

One of the other things you’ll want to consider for your one year plan is an ascension framework. You want to ensure you have a service that captures people at each stage of their purchasing journey as well as turning first time customers into repeat customers.

This could look something like:

1. Group classes - low entry point option

2. One hour consultations - following level, high touch but a one-off session

3. 6 month one-on-one - highest tier, direct, high level access to you for a several month commitment, best results, highest investment for the buyer

This essentially is building a low investment opportunity aka a low risk entry point to work with you, which ascends in value in service as well as price. So someone can either work with you directly in you highest tier, or start with a group class and move their way up through each tier as and when they’re ready.

I really wanted to highlight how important it is to start simple and on a lean budget until you have things more figured out. In terms of other next steps and recommendations for investments, they would be:

My recommended next steps would be:

• Do your research and get all the business admin and taxes checked off

• Create your one year plan

• Get branding done - since you mentioned you have some budget, this is where I would allocate resources

• A website with payment gateway

Content - we are in a content driven world so having content is imperative. This can look like a photoshoot with mock scenarios of what you’re teaching in workshops and also headshots. Or this can be graphics content that shares what you teach. Having on brand content that you can readily drip over the next several months is really important in building awareness

And thats it. I hope that this was super helpful for you!

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Until next time, Aylen