The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker

I officially started my own business six months ago.  While I've had my own professional practice employment for nearly ten years, it was always couched inside a larger firm, and in fact I was technically an employee of that firm.  But now I'm on my own.

Until a full year has gone by, I won't have a clear view of what start-up decisions I made that I could've and should've done differently.  Like anything else in life, I know that with the experience I've had, I'd be better at it if I had another chance.

Having said that, I can make a few conclusions about starting a new venture.

It takes more time than you think.  There are so many unforeseen tasks, things like vendor contracting, record keeping, compliance, accounting, etc.  These things must be taken care of at the same time you're trying to work on activities that actually generate revenue.  So plan on plenty of extra hours.  (The fact I haven't been spending as much time on this blog is directly correlated to this time-suck.)

It costs more than you planned on.  There are a lot of one-time, initial start-up costs for any business.  Sometimes it's expenses on which you didn't plan.  Other times it's expenses that you planned for, but which cost much more than you thought.  Regardless, there's a good chance you've under-budgeted for these costs, so I might include a sub-heading to this section that says, "...so make sure you have a good banking relationship."

It takes a lot of self-motivation.  When you start your own operation, you aren't going to be motivated to work by other people, whether it be management or peers.  Nobody and nothing are going to be pushing you to accomplish anything.  You have to get up every day with a plan and ready to work, all without any guarantee of success.  You aren't going to accomplish the above-mentioned items without being self-motivated.

In summary, it isn't easy being the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.  I hope the next six months don't offer too many more lessons about starting a new business.

Old Business / New Business

I’ve taken the last month off of blogging because I’ve been a little busy with something else.  Over the past month I've started my own financial planning firm.

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but I didn't until now thanks to a need for medical insurance.  In this case, Necessity was truly the Mother of Invention.  (That's a long story, and maybe one good enough for a separate blog entry another time.)

Thanks to a lot of planning, I only had about 10 different things that needed to be done in the last month, down from a list of more than 20 when I began.  While I probably had a few more things to do than other start-up businesses thanks to state and federal securities regulations, I have new respect for anyone who starts their own organization.

In my case, I'd compare starting your own business as similar to building a new house rather than moving into a nice existing house.  It doesn’t take anywhere near as much time to buy an existing home, and frankly, you get more bang for your buck with fewer problems. The house has settled, the landscaping is done, the window treatments are in place, etc.  It’s just a much simpler process.

But that existing house isn’t going to be exactly what you want.  Maybe it isn’t quite in the right location, or maybe the layout isn’t exactly the best, or maybe it could use new appliances.  In the end, if you really want to customize your lifestyle, you have build your own house, and that comes with a lot of extra time and expense and contracting headaches.  For all that work, however, you’re going to have things the way you want them, or at least very, very close to it.

When I joined another financial planning firm in the past, it was analogous to moving into an existing home. The branding was completed, the accounting was set up, the compliance work was done, and so forth.  It could have used a few updates (people), but it was really only a matter of moving in the furniture in getting started.

Starting my own firm, though, I had to build or re-build all of those things from scratch, and it takes a lot of time and effort.  I fully expect it will be worth it.

In the future, I’ll probably write more specifically about a few of the decisions I made -- some that worked, and some that now only seemed like a good idea at the time.