I Wish I Would Have Started My Business Sooner - Here's Why
I have been an entrepreneur for over 5 years now and during that time I have gone all in on some business opportunities and just dabbled in others, and when I look back over the years on the opportunities I had, most of which I took, I do not regret a single one. I believe that everything that has come before where I am today has simply been a stepping stone to prepare me for this. And listen, I don’t even think that THIS is the end all be all! If I was a betting man, I would bet that while I don’t see my business going anywhere, it will change and evolve over time! Whether that be in offerings, services, structure, etc. Heck, we are coming up on our one-year anniversary and at the time you are reading this blog post, we are right in the middle of restructuring some things to better serve you, and our clients within the agency.
But there is also one thing I think about often, and it’s “what if I would have started sooner”? Back in July of 2021, I texted a friend of mine (who is now a client of mine) and told her I was thinking about becoming a virtual assistant and starting a new business doing that. For real – I have the screenshots to prove it lol. But back then, I had no idea where to start and I don’t think I had the capacity to figure it out. In fact, I was in the similar place I am today. We had just moved to a new home, one that we would be renovating, and I had an 8-month-old baby. (If you didn’t know, we just moved, yes again, and my youngest is almost 8 months now, so that is kinda crazy). Anyway, I wasn’t at a place where I felt READY to start a new business, and frankly, I was scared to fail and what other people would think, so I just … didn’t.
And again, I don’t necessarily REGRET not starting sooner because a lot of growth happened between July 2021 to April 2022 and I think I probably needed that to be where I am today – but I do wish that I did.
My faith is very important to me and I know that God’s plan is always greater than mine, but if I could tell July of 2021 Kate anything, it would be to just go for it. That she ALWAYS figures it out, and this time will be no different, and this opportunity will be one that she has been searching for
So today, I want to talk about WHY I wish I started sooner. Heck, I wish I knew this opportunity existed back when I was a teacher! (Again, no regrets, but you know – perspective lol) and while there are a million reasons I could go into it, there are five that stand out to me. Let’s dive in.
Low Cost of Entry
If you haven’t listened to the last two episodes of the podcast, definitely check those out because those episodes break down. But in Episode 11 I talk about money, and how to make an extra $1,000 a month as a VA, and then in Episode 12, I talk about what my overhead looked like when I first started my business, and spoiler alert, it was less than like $150-200 a month (not accounting for taxes). This is WILD when you compare that to other businesses or business models because typically it takes a lot of upfront investment. PLUS the things that I was paying for, aren’t even like completely necessary for your business. You truthfully could run your business for $0 if you wanted to. But those small investments can also save you time and make your life a heck of a lot easier in the long run!
The Flexibility
Being a virtual assistant offers A LOT of flexibility. You truly decide how much work you want to take on and when you actually do the work. When I first started my business my oldest son was around 16/17 months old and I was pregnant with my second. I didn’t have childcare at the time so my work time was before my son work up, during nap time, and after he went to bed. And in that season of life, it worked! Now, as my business has grown exponentially and I am the mom of two babies, I have personally had to revamp my schedule. My kids go to preschool and daycare part-time, which right now is 4 days a week so while they are there, between drop off and pick up and all the things, I am getting about 4 hours of solid uninterrupted work time. Then Fridays, I only work during naptime.
Now, I am on the tail-end of a pretty tough season, and I say tail-end because I feel like the dust is finally settling, but I am still figuring out some different things I need to do to maintain a good work-life balance and ditch the burnout I have been feeling. For the last couple of months, I have been working a lot more than 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. I have been staying up late and getting up early because there’s just been a lot going on between the move and some sickness we have been dealing with and just a lot of life things… but that has honestly been a recipe for disaster. I have fallen back into my workaholic tendencies and have been working every spare minute I get and that just isn’t sustainable. And it isn’t honoring the boundaries I have set in place for myself and my business.
Next week I am going to have a conversation around burnout with y’all because I think it’s important to know that no matter what you do as a career, how successful you are, how much experience you have, etc… burnout can still happen. And when it does, it can feel a lot like you are a failing… and not just at your business but, at everything. That being said, I do have some things that are working for me to get me out of this burnout spiral and some plans for what’s to come that I am going to share with you next week, probably not everything because I don’t have it allll figured out just yet! But a little bit so that if you are feeling this way, you can maybe try some of the tips or at least it can help you get some wheels turning on what might help you!
But here is the beautiful thing about being a virtual assistant and having your own business: you have the ability to change it. Change the way it’s structured, change your hours, change how much work you are taking on, change your rates, and increase your prices… flexibility means you are in control of what all of this looks like for you, even when it might now feel like it.
Also on the note of flexibility, I think that being a VA is one of the best side hustles you could have if you are working a 9-5! Again, you decide how many hours your work and how many clients you take on so if you want to work let’s say, 1-2 hours a day, 5 days a week, you have 5-10 hours a week or 20-40 hours a month to devote to your business. And depending on what your rates or packages are priced at, that is a pretty awesome side income to use to help with bills, groceries, savings, investments, or for fun!
Okay, this next reason is fun if you like to dream big with me:
The Opportunities to Scale
There are truly so many different ways you can scale your business and income when you are a VA. After you get going in your business and have some experience under your belt, You can raise your hourly rate, can specialize in different services, can build an agency model, start mentoring (hi, it's me)... there are just so many different ways you can increase your income AND your impact within the virtual assistant and service provider world which I think is really rad.
And here is the thing too: if you don’t want to scale, you don’t have to. If you are wanting to just do this as a side thing and make an extra $500-$1000 a month working on very part-time hours, then amazing! You don’t have to scale just because that feels like the next step according to societal standards or because it’s what other people are doing. You ALSO can choose to scale one way, and then be like mmm, yeah this isn’t what I thought it would be and isn’t in alignment with where I want my business to go and change courses pretty seamlessly because there are so many different directions you could go.
Supports Being Multi-Passionate and My Love for Learning
Okay we know I am no stranger to a pivot, and a lot of this has to do with the fact I am multi-passionate. I am interested in a lot of different things! I probably have 5 new business ideas every week that sometimes make sense…. But other times, are completely out of left field. We have a joke in our house that my husband's least favorite sentence is “I have an idea” because he knows it’s probably not just an idea, but something I have already completely built out and I am ready to launch….. Tomorrow.
But in all seriousness, freelancing and being in the virtual assistant and service provider space have been so good for my multi-passionate heart. Not only can I do a variety of things in my own business and it just makes sense, but I get to work with a variety of clients who own a variety of businesses! It keeps things interesting – I definitely don’t get bored and when I take on clients where I not only like them as a person but I am inspired by their business and the work they are doing, even if it’s not something I DO have an expertise in.
Take for example a couple of different clients I have worked with: I have one client who is a kitchen coach. I had no idea was even a thing but you guys, her business is unbelievable. She does a lot of things within her business, but simply put, she encourages and empowers her audience to cook more at home. She shares all about the benefits of cooking at home, how to do it when you have limited time, hacks to get your kids to eat more nutritious meals, how to save money at the grocery store, and even how to set up and stock your kitchen in a way that supports your family and your goals! And then you take one of my other clients who owns a planner and productivity company! She teaches women how to live a more peacefully productive life through her courses and her podcast, but she also has a product-based side of her business which includes selling planners, notepads, journals, and more. And then you look at another client I’ve worked with who is an interior designer. She is local and she does a lot of work mostly helping people design and renovate their homes, but she helps design new builds and commercial offices as well! All three businesses are wildly different, but all three are very inspiring, they are industries I find interesting, and I have learned so much from them!
One of the cool parts about working with clients is how much you can learn from them. My client who is a kitchen coach inspired me to stop getting take out so much when I am tired and the kids are wild and I have decision fatigue, and instead, come up with a handful of meals that are easy go-to's that I can just whip up in 20 min or less. Or the client who owns the productivity company: a lot of how I structure my days and weeks and schedules and routines is because of the things she teaches within her business. And the client who is an interior designer: when we bought our new home, I have been much more intentional about furnishings because of the things I have learned from her regarding textures and colors, and functionality.
None of these things were things that these clients taught ME exclusively, they were things that I learned just through working with them on their content, or with their clients and customers. You can learn a lot from people if you just get around them more and pay attention to what they love doing.
Okay, the 5th and final reason why I wish I would have started my business sooner:
THE REWARD
Building my business from the ground up has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, second of course, to becoming a mom. If you didn’t know, I was in network marketing for a while and was successful, so I get a lot of questions like “what was that transition like” or I guess the pros and cons to each, and truthfully there are so many but one of the biggest things is that this business is mine and I am in complete control of it. With that being said, it’s been really hard! It’s been a lot more work because I was starting with nothing vs in my network marketing business, I at least had an upline and pieces of training and recourses telling me what I should do to see success. It was a business in a box: here is what you do, here is what you sell, here is how to do it, now go do the work.
But building Your Behind the Scenes BFF…. I haven’t had that. And unless you invest in a course or a mentor or something, you don’t. I started my business piecing a bunch of information together that I found on Google, and Youtube, and what I was seeing other people using in terms of systems and then coming up with my own systems and ways of doing things and then over time, refining it all. Which is actually why I created The VA Roadmap. It’s been hard, and I’ve spent a lot of time figuring things out and making mistakes, and second-guessing myself.! But it’s also been very rewarding.
Is one business model better than the other? I think that just depends on who you talk to. There are obviously some very hot takes out there but for me, while I am very grateful for my time of my life because it was a stepping stone to get to where I am today and I don’t know if I would be where I am today without the growth that had to occur over that time period… I am much happier doing this and having something that is truly my own.
Aside from that, I have met the coolest people while in this space. Not just my clients but other service providers and the students in our university have just been fun to connect with and become friends with. Not only have I learned so much like what I talked about early, but I have also just found community and common ground with people I probably would have never met before!
And lastly, it’s been a very rewarding experience to build this business for my family. When I was getting ready to start Your Behind the Scenes BFF, I was looking for something that aligned more with where my life was at the time and what I wanted my life to look like moving forward, and the beautiful thing about something like this is that I can design and structure it however I would like. Now that has taken a lot of trial and error, and figuring out okay, what’s most important to me, and how can my work support my LIFE, and not the other way around, and then adjusting accordingly. And I think this is a good exercise for everyone to do! Maybe write down, okay what are the most important things in my life, and what do I want my days to look like, and then figure out, how can what I do for work support that life? Or DOES the work I do, support that life I want to create?
I just did this recently because of that feeling of burn out and when I wrote down everything I am doing now and looked at okay how is this supporting the life I want to create, some of it wasn’t. This means some of those things, are having to go to make room for things that DO! So over the next few months, I am doing a lot of revamping of our services and offerings to align them better with how I want to feel about work, and how work is supporting the life I want to live, especially as a mom.
And listen, if you didn’t know, The VA Roadmap is still open for enrollment until the end of the day Friday, or March 31st if you aren’t reading this in real-time, and if you are wanting to start your business as a VA but you don’t know where to start and you do what that support to help you take the guesswork out of it all and have someone to come alongside you to answer questions and help you build the business you crave, then we would love to have you. I will link the details in the description below and the show notes so you can check it out!
Alright well, I hope this blog post inspired you to take action. Start NOW, even before you are ready because there is really no better time. I’m cheering you on.
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