Image by Flickr user jakerust
Some folks say you need to start a company to earn the title ‘entrepreneur’. But jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down isn’t the only way. After all, entrepreneurship is simply the pursuit of resources that are outside of your control.
So if you don’t aspire to start your own company or just can’t afford to take the plunge, don’t give up on the idea that you can be an entrepreneur. Work to create an entrepreneurial career path by gaining experiences and adopting practices like these:
1. You Have a Side Hustle
About seven million people in the US are balancing a 9-to-5 with a side gig. Aside from the cash that a side gig brings, it also gives you an outlet to build new skills. And maybe find a better career path, too.
For example:
- Kimberly Palmer started out making financial planning guides for Etsy sellers on a part-time basis. Then she became an author, writing a highly-praised book about balancing a full time job with a side hustle.
- Author and entrepreneur James Altucher started multiple businesses while he was working at HBO. That experience (along with his ‘Choose Yourself’ mentality) helped him build the skills he needed to launch and invest in other companies.
If you’ve been thinking about getting a side hustle rolling in 2016, here are a couple of resources to check out from the folks at AppSumo.
2. You Test Before Building
Let’s say you want to get going on a side hustle, or maybe just a side project.
Before you burn a lot of time and effort on something people might not actually want you can test your idea with lean startup techniques. Here’s a personal example…
A few years ago I kept seeing that it was really hard to get a startup job if you weren’t a software engineer or you hadn’t worked at a startup before. That just didn’t seem fair to me, and it gave me the idea to create a site (startupcareeradvice.com) to help that group of motivated yet non-technical folks.
Intuitively I thought this was a needed resource for startup job seekers. But I didn’t want to sink a lot of time in building a site until I could test the demand. And that’s exactly what I did, using Fiverr, MadMimi, and Amazon S3 to put up a simple landing page to gather email addresses from people who were interested in getting this type of career advice.
After hundreds of people signed up fairly quickly, I had the confidence that people would show up once I built the site. And it only cost me $10 plus a few hours of my own time to figure that out.
This kind of testing doesn’t only apply to things you’re doing on the side. You can also use these techniques and tools to help you get ahead in your day job. Using them in the right way will give you the data you need to convince your team or boss that the idea you’ve come up with is worth pursuing.
3. You Give First
If you build your network based on ‘give first’ principles, in time you’ll open up a world of potential co-conspirators.
That’s a world you’ll need to frequently access as you move through your entrepreneurial career — one that will likely span different roles, job types (e.g. part time, full time, or gig based), companies, and industries.
4. You Help Others Who Are Starting
If you discover someone working on a new project that gets you fired up or find a startup solving a painful problem you’ve experienced–reach out to them and see how you can get involved.
For example:
- Ask them if they need introductions to people you know who could buy their product/service.
- Give them feedback on their product/service.
- Point them at resources that could help them build their business.
You’re not going to see immediate dividends from going down this road but over time things like this may start to happen.
5. You Develop a Powerful Personal Brand
Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin, says that having a powerful personal brand is critical in the ‘Startup of You’ era.
That brand is built by showing your work and building influence in your target niche — through blogging, answering questions on Quora, posting slides and videos from your talks, and the like.
If you show your work consistently month after month, you’ll help yourself AND your company in the process because you’ll:
- Experience deeper relationships with your customers and prospects
- Grow your network with influencers in your industry
And what if you happen to be thinking about your next career move, or even have one foot out the door?
Well, let’s just say that you won’t end up as another resume in the pile…
