Whether you’re going from corporate life, another sign shop where you are employed, or straight from school to start your own sign shop, there are things about ownership that you need to know.
Here, for starters, are six things followed by a bit of commentary on each: (1) Being an entrepreneur is lonely; (2) Talent doesn’t queue up; (3) Even in a buoyant market, investors are hard to find; (4) Convincing customers to buy your product is hard; (5) Cash is king; and (6) There’s a big personal toll.
The basic message is that when you make the jump from where you are to starting a sign shop, there are certain things you took for granted that you will no longer have. You will not have peers off whom you can bounce ideas. Nor will you have an HR department to do your hiring, no accounts department, and no admin team to whom you can delegate those time-consuming, paper-pushing tasks.
Employees are hard to find, investors are even harder to find and selling your product is no cake walk. All the time you have to watch the cash flow like a hawk because customers are far less diligent about paying than suppliers are about demanding payment.
Then there is the balancing of your business life demands with your personal life demands. Starting a business demands a lot of time and you’ll be challenged to balance your work life with your personal life, if you are to avoid a risk to both.
These are very real issues encountered in running a business, particularly a start-up. Further research on the six topics would be a good idea.