As though it isn’t already difficult to find a balance between mom life and work life, you’ve decided to throw another spinning plate onto the pile. Why not? You’ve made it this far, might as well keep marching on. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been mulling over the decision to take the leap into entrepreneurship for a while. There are many factors to take into account:

  1. Have I created a business plan/ business model canvas? (There is a blank business model canvas below)
  2. Do I have the necessary funding for my business?
  3. Can I afford to live without an income for a while?
  4. Is my idea good enough?
  5. Should I quit my current job?
  6. Will I be able to recover if I fail?
  7. AM I READY TO TAKE THE LEAP?
Business Model Canvas BLANKDownload

I had to take a good hard look in the mirror in order to answer the questions above and I had to be honest with myself. Answers one through three are easy! There is no thought involved in answering them, either the answer is yes or no. As for the other questions on the list, they get a bit tough.

Can I afford to live without an income?

This decision should be made by creating a personal budget and seeing how much money you have in your savings account. (I’ve pasted the budget that I use below). You should anticipate that you will not have a salary for whatever time frame you are planning for. Of course, you may make enough money to pay yourself, but this is just a precautionary measure. If you will be self-funding, don’t forget to deduct the amount that you will be investing from your savings.

After balancing my budget, I decided that I can live for a year and a half without a full-time. If I need to make money here and there, I have the ability to do that and I also have to drill with the Navy reserves at least once a month.

Blank BudgetDownload

Is my idea good enough?

Unfortunately, there is no way to be 100% sure about the answer to this question. Perhaps you are a baker who’s friends and family always tell you how amazing your products are? Do you rally know if anyone else would be willing to pay for them?

Fortunately, you can form a strongly supported guess (hypothesis) about the answer. If you’ve already been able to generate some income and if you’ve found investors willing to bet on your plan then it’s a no brainer. If you still haven’t reached that stage yet there are some other ways for you to get a feel of your ideas potential:

  1. Create a Facebook ad advertising your potential product and see how much buzz you get. Be careful, there’s always a chance that someone may steal your idea, but if you’re all ready to launch, this shouldn’t be a problem.
  2. Create a Kickstarter campaign to see if there is a real desire for your product. The plus side is that you can generate funding with few strings attached at the same time.
  3. Start off small and see if you are able to generate the buzz that you need.
  4. If your a food entrepreneur: Use RangeMe to advertise your product directly to grocery stores or a food incubator to help you to grow.

Should I quit my current job?

There is A LOT of advice out there about this question. The answer is that it’s completely dependent upon your situation and only you can make the best decision for yourself. I’m a single mom with no financial assistance from the father of my child. Will my child have healthcare if I don’t have a full time job? Yes. Would I be able to dedicate the amount of time needed to both my child and business if I was also working full time? Potentially. Of course there were more questions that I asked myself, but these were the two most important in my mind since I already decided that I could afford to live without an income for a while (1 1/2 years).

Many others have decided to continue working full-time. This makes sense if you can’t afford to stop working, if you can afford to stop working but don’t want to take such a large risk, if you like your job but want to expand your portfolio, or if you simply want to be an investor/silent partner and not the CEO.

Will I be able to recover if I fail?

This is a controversial questions. Many people will tell you that if you have a plan B, you are setting yourself up for failure because you’re not mentally all in. I don’t believe that, but I understand where they are coming from. If there is a back-up plan, then somewhere in your mind you’ve decided that there is a chance that you will fail. This small idea may grow as you realize that this small business stuff isn’t as smooth as you thought it would be. And as it grows, it will be obvious to your potential investors, your partners, and everyone else that you need to support you.

I always have a plan B, not because I don’t believe my ideas are gold, but because I can’t predict the future. The government may shutdown and take away all of my customers for a month. I don’t know if a storm will come and cause disposable income to dissipate. A lot of factors are out of my control which, to me, makes a plan B necessary. The difference between me and many other plan Ber’s is that, there is no idea in my mind that my idea will flourish.

Am I ready to take the leap?

Well, are you?

Written by

Momma T

I am a single mom, a Naval Officer, and an attorney. I had my daughter during my second year of law school. With a baby on my hip, I pushed through the last year of school, passed the bar, and decided to run for Congress. One day my phone rang and I was told that I would be deploying for a year and I would have to leave my daughter behind.

So, after three deployments, one and half years of living overseas, and four and half years of driving both an aircraft carrier and an amphibious helicopter carrier, I would say good-bye to my little one, drop out of my Congressional race, and once again put on my marching boots.