5 Necessities to Quit Your Job and Open a Company

Want to live the American dream of entrepreneurship? Well, eventually you’re going to have to quit your job. Though, there are right and wrong ways to make that initial stride and ensure success following resignation, here are just 5 necessities you need to quit your job and effectively open a company:

1. Gaining the entrepreneurial mentality. You must have a true desire to become a successful entrepreneur or you won’t make it. Don’t kid yourself, by all means entrepreneurship is tougher than being an employee and, thus you must become tougher both mentally and, to an extent physically as long hours can hurt your health and stress can be a killer.

Owing a management recruiting agency in New York is very difficult and to be successful is much more difficult than people perceive it to be. If you’re quitting your job to become an entrepreneur, your mentality must be stubborn. Once you become an entrepreneur, looking back on the good ‘ol days when you had a paycheck becomes counterproductive as whatever is in the past must be left in the past and you now have control over your future success or….failure.

An entrepreneur must have the mentality that they will do what it takes to succeed whether it be grueling hours or eating pasta for months on end to save money. You have to learn to become self-reliant and need to be fully prepared to do so.

Leadership comes from within and leadership is only spawned from an entrepreneurial mentality.

2. You must open the right business. Owning an executive search firm, I can tell you that if you’re looking around for people to tell you which business to open, then you should remain an employee as you are not ready yet. Entrepreneurs don’t crave direction from others, rather they rely on their instincts and take calculated risks.

Sometimes, entrepreneurs wish they had a boss as being told what to do is a lot easier than figuring it out yourself. When choosing a business be realistic about your competition. Don’t compete with the best and brightest in the world; that’s not logical thinking. Rather pick a field that pays well, has competition, but not in the overwhelming sense and make sure that you enjoy the field and find if personally fulfilling.

Upon quitting a job, when choosing a business take some time to think about it, but don’t take forever, it’s half gut, half intellect. Rely too heavily on one or the other and you won’t do well.

3. Try to save expenses at every corner. For many aspiring entrepreneurs, the thought of having to learn all aspects of business prompts them to run to expensive vendors that produce little and charge a lot. As I stressed above, your self-reliance will prove to be your best friend or your worst enemy.

Saving money means having to learn things that you never wanted to learn nor never thought you would have to. For instance, when I started my recruiting firm, I thought that I would never have to learn how to program and never thought I could.

Ken Sundheim

Also, know how much money you want to make prior to quitting your job. The best companies have fiscal goals that are clear-cut. Your approach should be no different. Once you have that number, relentlessly pursue it.

4. Start building the business for success while you’re working. Many entrepreneurs just quit their job only to learn that their predictions about the business they were going to open were wrong and they find themselves unemployed and often depressed as to their failure which often is not their fault.

Going from 0 to 60 is not recommended. Before you go pro, try it out by spending your free time opening the company. Not only should this tell you whether or not you would like to be an entrepreneur, it will also tell you if the business you’re opening has potential or whether you should look into other options.

Quitting your job to open a business is a big thing and big decisions should not be made on the fly.

5. A positive attitude. Upon becoming an entrepreneur, you must have a positive attitude about you being successful. When we are overly negative, it hurts our performance and pessimistic behavior also drains energy.

If we don’t think we can do something, we are not going to work as hard as we could on the task, thus making the anticipation of failure the main reason something doesn’t work out rather than natural talent or intelligence.

Being an entrepreneur is competitive. There are other firms that will not like you doing business in their space once you become successful. People will always want to take your head out of the game, therefore keeping a healthy attitude means a much better chance for survival.