How much money do you need to start a creative business?
Do you want to leave your day job? Start your own creative business and just go for it full-time, but are worried about how to survive financially? Do you worry about the money part of it all and are afraid to leave your steady monthly pay-check? Then read on for my tips on the financial parts of starting a creative business.
My guess is that most creatives who started a business of their own had some serious doubts about if they would get enough income to pay the bills and put food on the table. The worries are a part of the leap that you need to take to be able to work full-time with your business. It takes courage to leave something you know for the unknown and sometimes you just need to take a chance and go for it.
With that said, at the same time as you eventually need to take the leap and just go for it you can save yourself a whole lot of stress if you plan out the start of your business financially. There are some who favours that you should keep your day job until you fully can support yourself from your creative business and there are some that favours that you need to put in all of your energy and effort full-time in your business to be able to get somewhere with it.
I think that there’s a lot to it that makes your situation unique and therefor no one can say what YOU should do. So even if I have some tips on how to survive financially when starting your own business, you need to look at your situation and what would suit you.
With that said, here are a few tips for how to worry less about the money when starting your creative business.
Plan out your start
Ok so let’s get real. Starting your own creative business is hard work. You need to bring in your own income, make sales, market yourself, create artwork or products, stay focused and motivated… The list goes on. To start a business spontaneous without having any plan to start with is probably a bad decision. It’s easy to want to jump start it all and just get going with working what you love to do. But the best thing you actually can do is to plan out your start. When will you start your business? What do you need to start? Where will you work, from home? How will you get an income?… Make a plan to start with.
Save money
For me it’s really important to being able to support myself. I’ve never had any opportunity to be supported by anyone and I’ve actually never even borrowed money from anyone. I support myself! And that’s just something that is important for me. So when I planned out to start my own business I made sure that I had savings that would make me last financially for 12 months. Some say that you only need 3-6 months, but I would actually suggest 12 months, if possible. It takes time to get the ball rolling and it will be much easier to work against your goals if you’re not stressed out about money all of the time. So to save up for the start of my business I worked at 3 jobs for a couple of months and I lived with really low expenses.
Cut your expenses
You can’t expect to live exactly as you did when you had a full-time pay-check coming in each month. Prioritise and cut your expenses so that you can get by with low income. This might sound hard, but I actually think that it’s just a matter of what you get used to. You don’t need to buy that coffee out on town everyday or go out to restaurants to have dinner a couple of times a week. And if you feel that you need to, then you might want to rethink your priorities. If it’s important to you to start your own creative business, you most likely need to make some sacrifices for a while while you start it up (1-3 years in the beginning is my guess).
Have a part-time job
There’s no shame in having a part-time job at the side of your creative business. In fact it’s a great way of starting out. If you can get an income from the part-time job that covers your bills then you’ll be much less stressed out about earning an income in your business in those early days. I didn’t have a part-time job when I started out, as a moved to a different city and decided to just go for it full-time with my business straight away. And for me that was a great choice, to just focus on my business made me really productive and motivated right from start.
Already have clients
So when I started my business I already had freelanced as a graphic designer for 4 years, on the side of my day job. I already had a few graphic design clients and I just continued to work with them when I started out - and I still have those clients. So if it’s an opportunity for you to have some clients from before when you start out, that’s a great way of getting some income.
Learn your crafts
Last but not least it’s a good idea to get good at your creative field before you take the leap and quit your day job. Why? Because when you start a business there are so many other things to work with and think about and if you have sellable artwork or products when you start out you’re more likely to get an income faster from your artwork then if you start your business when you haven’t honed in on your skill set yet.
Get good at surface design
If you’re interested in honing in on surface pattern design I offer 10 course on Skillshare within this topic. Check out all of my courses, click on this link.
And if you’re not a member on Skillshare yet you’ll get 2 months of free premium membership via this link.
