Getting the plane in the air

An entrepreneur I like to read and listen to a lot is Nick Huber. I find his thoughts really grounding, as they are much more common-sense and back-to-basics than lots of startup/business advice that you will hear out there. One analogy he uses that I like is that a business is like a plane. As a business owner, once that plane has taken off, everyone in it is your responsibility and you need to fly that plane even if you have doubts sometimes.

I like this analogy, because I think it also fits well for when you are just starting something new. To me, the most important thing that I did at the beginning was I did whatever was necessary to continue working on my business rather than being sucked back into another job. This involved cutting personal expenses, keeping business expenses to the bare minimum and making freelance work an early cornerstone of my business. At the beginning, every day that you are able to keep things going you are winning, because you learn so much more about doing business when you are actually doing it, rather than working for someone else.

This is where the plane analogy comes into play. If you are not able to work full-time on your own business, the most important thing is getting that plane in the air. How can you get enough money coming in to move your main focus to your business? Once you do that, the next thing is keeping that plane in the air. How can you keep things going well enough that you are not tempted to give up and go back to a salaried job? Again, this might involve some short-term decisions that are not fully aligned with your long-term vision, like taking on freelance jobs or focusing on products that you're not passionate about but pay the bills, but the number one priority at this point is keeping the plane in the air.

Finally, once you start to grow and gain some safe altitude, you have a lot more room to maneuver and can focus on bigger things that are more central to your longer-term vision.