, but many people who gain the courage to start one are often missing the basic business skills needed to scale quickly.
I teach new entrepreneurs how to get on a faster path to profitability thanks to my experiences from three side hustles. Before leaving my corporate job, here are the skills I learned that helped me become a full-time business owner.On average, 4.4 million businesses are launched each year in the United States
. The Covid-19 pandemic inspired many people to look for more flexible working hours. But dictating your own schedule includes the responsibility of assigning business tasks to yourself and to others with whom you work. In coaching people on how to leave their corporate jobs, I’ve learned new entrepreneurs are often surprised at their own inability to manage their time efficiently. They don’t realize how reliant they were on a manager dictating their workload, even the highly paid executives who considered themselves autonomous before jumping into entrepreneurship.
Before I launched my own fashion retail business, I worked part-time jobs for $15/hour at two local clothing boutiques. I learned how to manage a broader range of customer challenges when there wasn’t an exact protocol to follow. More importantly, I was able to shadow the business owners to see how they delegated tasks to me and other employees.I also watched them manage everything from bookkeeping to vendor management to maintenance of the physical products and space.