The Best Advice I’ve Heard For Launching a Small Business

It’s been exactly one month and a day since I soft-launched (aka, messaged the link to the website to a few friends and colleagues to click around) my business website. (I meant to launch this blog yesterday at the “exactly one month” mark, and then ended up running down to the farm with the trailer to load the horses and go help some friends/neighbors with a loose calf — you do what you gotta do in the country!)

What an amazing month: the response from friends, family and the local community has been nothing but warm and encouraging, and I’m grateful for the support that’s come in the form of shared excitement, social comments and shares, visits to my first appearance at a local market, and of course purchases from the online store. I’ve learned a lot in the past month too: shipping to Canada involves customs forms (how exciting!); woolen hats and scarves are in fact a tough sell at an outdoor summer market when it’s 80 degrees out; and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to shipping (I’ve tweaked my shipping charges and processes about four times in the past month).

None of this is particularly surprising or unexpected: I knew there would be plenty of small bumps in the road and learning experiences along the way. I also knew that there would be more I wanted to do before launching: all the little details that I appreciate from other small businesses (and my day job work as a communications manager), like branded packaging, customized stationery for a little “thank you” message in the box when I ship a knit or a basket, a more cohesive logo and printed signage for the table at craft markets…

But I kept in mind single best piece of advice that ensured I actually ever got to the point of launching at all: just start.

This advice comes from Tori Dunlap’s Financial Feminist podcast, one of my favorite shows to listen to when I want a little inspiration or encouragement to keep working hard to create the kind of life I want. (Note that if you click that link, you’ll see Dunlap’s slogan “fight the patriarchy; get rich” which I can assure I’m not doing in a dollars and cents kind of way here… but then, there’s more than one way to measure wealth.)

She describes in multiple episodes how the way girls are raised to be perfect (whether that’s intentional, or accidental due to… gestures to everything) can be a limiting factor in many female entrepreneurs ever getting launched. There’s a tendency to wait until every box is checked and everything is just right before we dare to press the “go” button.

And so, I launched. And it wasn’t perfect, and it still isn’t. And maybe it never will be — I’ll always be striving to improve something, get one more piece of the puzzle nailed down to make things “just right,” let alone continue to improve my actual craft. But if I wait for perfection, I’ll never take the first step. It’s a lot like my day job: I’ve learned the value in getting a first draft down on paper, even if you end up having to go and essentially rewrite the whole thing later. If you have a draft, you have a place to begin — you have a start.

So if you’re thinking about taking a similar step — whether it’s to launch your own small business, or dip a toe into a new hobby — just start. You’re more ready than you think you are.