Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Bootstrapped marketing, the right time to quit your job & how to keep going during the lows

Transcript

Bootstrapped marketing, the right time to quit your job & how to keep going during the lows · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:08
  Welcome back. Yeah. Welcome back. I'm excited about this episode. I feel like the Facebook group is just, you know,
• 0:20
  buzzing along. We've got great questions coming in. Loving all the new people joining. Absolutely. It's such a good vibe in there. Absolutely. And yeah, a big thank you to everyone who's been joining in there and chatting in there. It's really, it's super nice to see it kicking off the way that it is. And we have such good insights of exactly what people want to talk about, what people want to know about, and it really helps us create better content. So thank
• 0:48
  Thank you. And if you haven't yet joined, I highly recommend jumping in there and getting to know us. Hell yeah. Come hang out in the Facebook group.
• 1:00
  Do you want to kick us off? What question do you have? Yes, absolutely. So for today's episode, we are going to answer a couple of questions that have been buzzing around in the Facebook group from our community members and kind of answering those directly together. The first question I wanted to address is a question from Sonia Gouveia, and she's asking about that pivotal moment that we all dream about.
• 1:28
  centered around quitting your job and going all in on your business. So her question is, when is the right time to quit your job to go full time in your business? And this has come up on the show a lot. And we've spoken about this ourselves a lot. And it's come up in the community in multiple times. So I think it's an important one to address because
• 1:49
  It's difficult to know exactly when to throw in the towel. There's a lot of conflicting advice out there about, you know, you should focus just on one thing or you should keep going in your job, even though it's all sucking. Or there's also the advice of it's important to...
• 2:07
  have some income coming in still. So I just wanted to talk through all of those, break it down into a good answer for Sonia and anyone else who's listening that will allow you to make that decision for yourself.
• 2:22
  And I think the main thing that it comes down to is the self audit. It's very easy to read articles online or to read about certain situations and read certain advice. But none of these people know your personal situation. And it's important to really be real with yourself, sit down and self audit both your financial situation, your relationship with your current job and the relationship with your side hustle or the work that you're looking to make full time.
• 2:52
  And within that, you would have to ask yourself, is the job that you're currently in, is it something that's completely sucking your soul or is it enriching? I think what I would say from our point of view and what we often talk about on the show and what I've heard you say as well, Dune, is that
• 3:14
  Ultimately, I would advise someone to keep their job, especially for the first stages of starting a new business, because unless you've proven that that business idea works and you have a bit of traction there, it puts a lot of pressure on you to make that business work. And that's the last thing that you want in the early stages when you're testing, you're getting to know your consumer, your client.
• 3:36
  testing out the market in different ways. For you to have a certain time pressure and, you know, living pressure behind that, it can add other layers that the business doesn't necessarily need itself. Besides that, a business itself needs money to start, not even just for your daily life. So keeping your full-time job provides a bit of that security and stability that allows you to
• 4:06
  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. What's your take on that one? Oh, my God. I'm just so, like, don't quit your day job. Yeah, yeah. I think as someone who has, like, been through the whole, like, having to make it without the side income, or sorry, not even the side income, like, the full-time income, quitting your day job and not having stable income
• 4:33
  well, just stability in general, really, it just puts such financial stress and pressure on yourself and you end up making decisions out of like, not desperation necessarily, but you're making decisions out of a place of needing to cover your bills, cover your cost of living, all of that kind of thing out of
• 4:55
  Well, rather than making decisions that are kind of best for the business and like giving the business the time to flourish. So when people ask me personally, and of course, I'm speaking from a lens of not knowing the context and all that kind of thing, I'm like...
• 5:09
  Use your day job as your investment into your side hustle. And so, of course, think about what that looks like when the scales have tipped. So, you know, whether that's X amount of revenue or whether you're able to pay yourself a salary to cover the basics or whatever it might be.
• 5:27
  I think keeping the nine to five or maybe even switching your nine to five so it's less hectic and kind of not, you know, if you're working a job that requires you to be in the office till midnight, of course, that makes things really difficult. But maybe like switching out that to a nine to five that's a bit more flexible or gives you a day or two to kind of like work from home or not work as many hours or, you know, switch down to part time or whatever it is.
• 5:53
  But kind of keeping that stability, you know, there so that you can just invest money, basically, and be the investor into your business and give it a chance to get off the ground kind of just in its own time. Because I think the other thing is if you quit too soon.
• 6:11
  Businesses always take so much longer than you think. It takes so long to find product market fit. It can take so long if you're doing research and development for tech or consumer product-based businesses or whatever it might be. So if you jump the gun too early and then put that stress on yourself, I just think...
• 6:33
  It's not typically the advice that I would. I'm just like, keep the day job. Absolutely. And I think there's also something to be said. This just popped into my mind that it's maybe a good test to test out how much you actually want this because entrepreneurship is going to be really damn challenging. There's going to be sacrifice, discipline, a lot of hard work. Whether you keep your job or not, that journey is going to be demanding. Yeah.
• 7:01
  So in those early stages to kind of test your sacrifice and your passion for this thing, are you still going to make time besides work to work on this? If that's already not going to happen, then I think you're falling at the first hurdle, which means that maybe that particular business idea is not for you. It's a good gauge to test how much you're willing to put into it.
• 7:26
  Yes, 100%. I also think the other thing is like we can often start a business that pivots and iterates along the way. And so giving yourself the kind of freedom to exactly what you're saying, like just figure that out before going kind of all in. Because sometimes it can take, you know,
• 7:47
  four pivots to find the actual thing and then find product market fit that you really kind of enjoy. Like it's, it's not necessarily just kind of like straight away, even though there's like that desire to be like, I'm quitting, I'm going all in, this is what I'm doing now, like big moves. And I can see the desire in that. And there's definitely, it feels like sexy to make those kind of big, bold changes. But then I think like,
• 8:15
  Having said that, the only thing that I would say is like if you've got an idea and, you know, it's in the tech industry and you're going to raise and you do raise, then of course, you're going to quit your job and go all in on that business. And the other thing I will say is that, you know, if you have a really supportive partner that's able to be like, yep,
• 8:41
  go all in, I can see it, I know that you've done your, like, research, I believe in you, and I'm going to support the two of us, then hell yeah. Like, there are obviously times and situations where that kind of stuff happens, but generally speaking, I would say, like,
• 9:01
  wait it out. Absolutely. Yeah, there's it's a nuanced decision, right? There's no clear cuts, right or wrong. But exactly like you said, assess your personal situation, your business progress, your financial standing where you are at the time and make a decision based on that.
• 9:19
  Yeah, and also the last thing I'll say is if you hate your job, don't use that as the deciding factor to like quit and go all in on your business if it's like not kind of proven out and, you know, doing that kind of thing. I just find a new job and focus on like making my like self stable and happy in a new job and then kind of like focus on building the business on the side. Absolutely. Loved that one. Okay, I have three questions but they're all in the same space
• 9:48
  category of budget and bootstrapping. So Katie, Jasmine and Princess had these questions. The first was, Katie Baines has asked, my biggest struggle to date has been deciding where to allocate a limited budget. Should it go to social media management or to ads or to influencers? Yeah.
• 10:09
  Jasmine Nivellis asked, what activities should you be prioritizing when you're bootstrapping? And then Princess asked how to be scrappy when bootstrapping. So I was kind of thinking...
• 10:24
  Well, I mean, I was like, these all fall into the same kind of vibe and it's the vibe that I love to talk about. Yes. Yes, exactly. Your expertise. I think that when you're in the early stages of building your business and you're working with a limited budget, you want to be focused on organic boots to the ground activities that require time instead of money.
• 10:54
  you spend zero dollars. And I'm not saying like actually zero dollars, but you operate from a place of, well, I've got to figure this out basically for free or a scrappy way kind of thing. And the initial kind of, I guess, things that I would be focusing on if it was me and I was just getting started today, which is
• 11:17
  2024 would be a TikTok, B lead magnets to build your email list, three, or was I saying A and B, A, B, C gifting micro influencers. And four, if you're going to go down the pathway of retail, starting with local retail, and I'm going to like quickly break them all down.
• 11:38
  So TikTok, what does that look like? It looks like spending your time, getting really great learning, creating and testing content on TikTok and Reels. The way that TikTok works and the way that that algorithm works in general means that you can get to a point where you're creating high value content that's resonating with your target audience and you can start generating organic sales
• 12:01
  just through content and time as your investment, which is so crazy. I feel like we're just often thinking that as soon as we start a business, we need to put it into ads or whatever it might be. When you have this platform at your fingertips that can create mass brand awareness, mass top of funnel traffic to drive to your website and
• 12:26
  Once you've then found market fit with messaging, so finding the things that are resonating with your audience or your target audience, then it's just about doubling down on that. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat every single day and repurposing that content on Reels.
• 12:43
  I personally wouldn't spend a cent on ads until you've tested and found success organically. Otherwise, you literally just light money on fire because you're going to be figuring out your messaging and what's resonating with ad spend instead of being able to do it organically. So organic content first, then spend. Video content is absolutely here to stay. I feel like we talk about it all the time on the show.
• 13:11
  You haven't missed the boat and it's something that you do really need to invest time into figuring out, especially if you're a bootstrap founder and you're on a limited budget.
• 13:22
  The second one is lead magnets to build your list. So what do I mean? That could be something like a really cool quiz that you set up to gamify an experience for your target customer and build your database kind of at scale. It could be a digital download that shares your secrets to fixing your skin or a bunch of recipes that have...
• 13:45
  you know, 30 grams of protein, but designed for the lazy girl to cook. I mean, there's so many different ideas across different niches that you can come up with, but developing high value lead magnets that your target audience wants, using that to build your email list. And then from that list, setting up like automated nurture sequences to guide your audience through a kind of journey and storytelling about what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's,
• 14:10
  Who you are and the story about the brand and what you're doing and the problems that you're solving to capture sales that way. And then, of course, your ongoing weekly or fortnightly interesting content that's more just your kind of marketing newsletters and things like that that is relevant to your niche.
• 14:30
  The next thing that I would do is I would focus on gifting micro-influencers. Obviously, this does require a budget because you do have the cost of your product and you've got to pay for shipping, but it's a very different cost to hiring an agency on a retainer, which you can
• 14:49
  you know, drain cash just so, so quickly. And we hear that all the time on the show, but I would be finding very specific creators. Well, first actually I would determine, okay, do I want to give away 10 products a month or do I want to give away a thousand products a month? Like whatever it is, whatever you've got the budget for, you know, to allocate that product and shipping, figuring out what that number is. And then looking for creators who, you
• 15:15
  are specific, they really kind of blend into your niche and they're a great person to create content about you and spread the word, especially on TikTok. And start building a relationship with those people, start testing and not doing paid partnerships, just doing gift for post if they love the product. And yeah,
• 15:36
  really remembering that the ROI on working with micro-influencers isn't really just about sales. It's also about having great content that you can share on your own page.
• 15:48
  create new touch points for someone to see your brand, like another social proof point, things like that. And then again, once you kind of start hitting on UGC content that goes viral and is performing because the messaging is hitting the audience, then you could only look at starting to boost and driving content.
• 16:10
  additional kind of eyeballs to that content, especially if you see that it's driving sales. So it's all about kind of testing, testing at scale. And then if you want to double down because you've seen that something is working, then absolutely double down. Then like, you know, start working on a longer term partnership, whatever it might be. And then last one, local retail. If you're kind of wanting to go down the retail wholesale pathway, you know,
• 16:39
  This is, again, just it's just time. It's an investment in time. It's a matter of building out a list of retailers in your local community that could stock your product and then literally just getting out there, hitting the pavement or picking up the phone and cold calling to meet with store owners and buyers, sending them samples, building those relationships and scaling it from there. Yeah.
• 17:03
  All of those things require time. And besides kind of the micro influences with product and shipping, they're free. So I would allocate my time on things that are free, kind of get them to a point where they're working and then move on to the next one.
• 17:21
  And then I guess like final kind of advice when you are bootstrapped and you're working with a limited budget, just spend a lot of time trawling YouTube, learning on YouTube, find relevant courses from people who have the skills and have the framework that you need. Ask other business owners and create kind of a network. Ask them what they're doing to test and to learn.
• 17:45
  so that you can kind of gather up as much information and knowledge as possible before you even think about ads, social media management, agencies, paid influencers. I think like I just see so many small business owners launch a company and then just turn straight to hiring an agency for ads. And when you don't have an unlimited budget,
• 18:15
  to burn and you don't put in the hard work to build that organic foundation first, you are going to burn through cash really quick because a retainer just for an ad agency alone is, you know, circa...
• 18:30
  $1,500, $2,000 and, you know, well above. And then you've got to have a budget. And so if you're already spending that on a retainer, you need to be spending circa like at the very least like $4,000 to $6,000. And so if you're going through that and not getting results because you haven't tested, you haven't found messaging market fit, you haven't found product market fit,
• 18:55
  you're going to burn out of cash real quickly. So I would be focusing on all those kind of things that you have in your control, really. Absolutely. I love that. I think there's no shortcut to that really, right? It's like any good relationship or any good connection, the relationship that you build with your customers and
• 19:17
  the time that you spend getting to know your business and what works, it's invaluable. And there's no shortcut to that. And exactly what you're saying, you can just end up throwing money at a problem. But first, you can play in that bootstrap playground and have so much fun figuring all these things out before you get to that point. 100%. And it is a really fun place to be. It's fun to be in that place of just being like, oh, well, I've got to like figure something else out and turn this into a content opportunity. And
• 19:48
  just get out there and enjoy. Yeah, I love that. Which brings us nicely onto our last question. This is a question from Samantha within our community. And quite to the opposite of this having fun, she was wondering, how do you keep going on the lows? And I think this is something that
• 20:09
  every entrepreneur out there probably struggles with at some point, that you have these intense high moments, but you also have these intense low moments and it can feel very lonely. It's not an easy path. And whether there are some kind of tools or tricks or things that you can do to help you going through those tough times. And I'm,
• 20:33
  Something that popped into my mind, which I think is relevant, which is not to let that particular low kind of cloud your reality of what's really going on and to remember that feelings aren't fact. So it's very easy when you're in a low moment to catastrophize and to see the big picture as everything going wrong. So, for example, I.
• 20:58
  a customer is unhappy with something, they leave a negative review. Maybe there's been a delay in their delivery or something like this. And it can so easily start to feel like the sky's falling down. No one wants my services. My business is failing. No one will buy from me again. I won't be able to pay my bills. I have to go back to my nine to five and to kind of get into this negative spiral and feel like it's the end of the world when what happens in reality is that there's a
• 21:27
  And there is a way that you can kind of separate that from the big picture in which you can just let that event be itself and not let it influence or cloud your idea of reality. And I think everyone has experience with this when you wake up
• 21:43
  on the right side of bed, something can, the whole day can look entirely different than when you wake up on the wrong side of bed. And so much of this is just our perspective of reality. And if we can kind of stop ourselves or kind of check ourselves when these moments come and maybe even keep a list somewhere of all the things that are great in your business and all the things that are great in your
• 22:09
  You just can't dispute. So when a moment like that arises, you get reminded of all the things that are actually going well and that this is just one small thing and it's not a catastrophe. And I think secondly, the answer is actually in the question itself. So how do you keep going in the lows? You keep going. I read something this week, which I think it was something along the lines of why would you stop in the low?
• 22:36
  Because we're on this journey, you're constantly evolving, it's constantly changing, every day's new. Why would you get stuck in the low instead of just keeping walking and keeping going until you get to a high point again? And I think it's something, again, that we've heard on the show a lot. And one of your favorite phrases, which is stop stopping, and that they can't stop you if you don't stop. And it's a powerful reminder that despite setbacks, there is still work to do. And
• 23:04
  You shouldn't kind of let that moment make you stop in your tracks and kind of waiting around isn't the strategy, but just go out and knock on doors and do the next thing on your list that has some action attached to it. And before no time, you'll find yourself in a whole different phase again. Just keep going. Stop stopping. Oh, I love that. I would just add
• 23:30
  Without knowing the context, I would say this is when it's really important to have a strong North Star and to be building a business and having kind of a problem that you're solving that you're really passionate about. Because I think if you're not deeply connected to the problem, it makes it harder to keep going through the lows. Because...
• 23:55
  You need to really care about what you're doing so that the lows, yeah, I mean, they're shit, they happen, whatever, but you're like, you know what, I'm thinking big picture here. I'm thinking about my North Star and the difference that I'm going to make in X, Y, and Z kind of area. So I think that having a strong why is very important.
• 24:20
  100% and to share that as well to share that with your network and the people around you that rally around you what is it they say a problem shared is a problem halved and it's really true if you open up and you share these moments it kind of allows a support network to form around you and it allows you to also be there for a friend when they're going through something similar
• 24:45
  Love that. Keep those questions coming in the Facebook group. Yeah, please do. We'll aim to do one of these episodes every once in a while. So if you have any burning questions or anything that you'd love discussed on the show, please do ask that in the Facebook group. We appreciate it.
• 25:04
  Yay. Now to end on some six quick questions for you, Dune. Are you ready? I'm ready. I feel like I should look at these in advance because I'm unprepared. I know. This is part of the magic. So question number one, if you could only wear one color for the rest of your life, which one would you choose? Oh, my God. Hot pink. 100%. Yeah. Question number two, when are you at your happiest?
• 25:33
  Definitely in nature. Every morning I go for a swim down at the beach and it was just bliss. Or in my cold shower. Also, if I'm not at the beach, I'll have a cold shower and I love that too. Question number three, what was your favourite subject in school? Ooh. Oh, I don't know if I really had a favourite subject in school. I guess probably...
• 26:04
  art or drama, but I don't really remember. Maybe art. Yeah, maybe art. I don't know if I really had like a – I didn't love school. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. So question number four, are you more of a fiction or a nonfiction reader? Oh, that's tricky. I love to read books.
• 26:31
  I don't mind if it's fiction or true stories. At the moment, I've been reading a lot of fiction. As long as it's not a business book or some kind of personal development book, I am in. I just love stories. Love getting lost in a story. Do you have a recommendation from something you're reading at the moment? Oh, absolutely. Hang on. Let's open up my Kindle.
• 27:01
  Let's see. I love a little Christmas rom-com kind of book, and I've been reading these ones just, I don't know why, but they all seem to be centred around Ireland, which has been great. One woman that I'm reading at the moment, her name's Emily Bell, and her first book is called Baby It's Cold Outside, but I'm going to get you a very specific book. Oh, I just read Britney Spears, The Woman and Me. Absolutely loved it.
• 27:31
  Um, what else have I got here? Oh, I loved this one. It's actually a true story. It's called The Spy and the Traitor. And it's a story about espionage and like MI6. And it's really cool. The Spy and the Traitor. Loved that. It was very, very interesting. Amazing. Linking that in the show notes.
• 27:58
  Love it. Question number five. Do you have a favorite memory growing up from your childhood? Oh, man. On the spot. I'm sorry. My mom and I were talking recently about her dad, my grandpa. Yeah.
• 28:21
  And it reminded me of this. We were talking about something to do with Christmas and we were talking about these stories when he was alive. At Christmas time, we would all get together and he just loved to sing at Christmas. So he would sing all these songs and play the harmonica and sing
• 28:42
  It was so beautiful and my mum was telling me, we were talking about that and then my mum was telling me about when she was growing up, singing songs with him and these like beautiful memories. Oh, that's lovely. And it was such a nice trip down memory lane. It's not like a favourite moment but it's just like the first thing that comes to my mind. Yeah, and a feeling that you remember. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 29:08
  And the last question, question number six, what's a place that you would love to be able to call home for a while? Not Sydney. Not Sydney. Ooh. I mean, I really loved living in Bali. I would love to call that home again. Or just somewhere really like...
• 29:32
  different somewhere different to you know cities like Sydney or the London or wherever somewhere I don't necessarily know where off the top of my head but like you know Mexico City or not that I've been so I don't really have any any direct insight there but Mexico City or yeah back to Bali or something like that.
• 29:56
  I can see that. Absolutely. Amazing. Thank you so much. Love this. That's the pod. Yeah. See you next week. See you next week.
• 30:09
  Hey, it's Dune here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 30:34
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• 30:56
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.