Intro
So you all know how I started my first business in 2018. That was the calligraphy business where I started to sell greeting cards and then I taught workshops. But did you know that I actually wanted to start a business way before I actually started? And that’s because I had no idea how to start. I was thinking about it and trying to research and plan for a year before actually doing it. But then one day I decided I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to pick one thing and get started.
In this video, I want to share how you can actually get started on your first business. I know a lot of you love the side hustle videos I’ve made in the past where I share ideas. This video is more the steps and how to actually do things, and I’m going to go into detail about what you should pay attention to.
The feeling of stuck/lost never goes away
The first thing I want you to know is that it’s been 7 years of being self-employed full-time, but I still feel lost sometimes, like lost or stuck or doubtful or not sure about what I’m doing. I’m telling you this because at the beginning, I definitely felt this way, but seven years later, I’m still feeling like this sometimes. Just know that most of the time, you’re not going to be sure about what you’re doing, but that shouldn’t hinder you from actually getting started and actually working on your business. Even right now, sometimes I still feel stuck.
That’s why I make videos like this one where I’m sharing that I feel stuck. I had the mindset to just try it and see. It’s not like, okay, I’m doing this for sure and it’s going to be successful. The mindset was more like let’s just see. Maybe it’ll work out. Maybe.
Research the legal part
The next thing I want you to do is to do a little bit of research into the legal part of starting a business.
How exactly do you open a business
Starting a business is really exciting, thinking of ideas and researching and doing all the things, but then something really important, and maybe a little bit boring, is getting the legal stuff done. I am in Canada and I started off as a sole proprietor and it was really easy to get set up. If you’re just using your legal name to do business, you don’t really need to register anything. But if you do want to have a business name and you want to be a sole proprietor in Canada, then you need to do a name registration. Three years after starting my sole proprietorship, I opened up a corporation through Ownr.
Ownr is something you can use if you are located in Canada and you want to start a sole proprietorship or a corporation. I have a link below if you want to use Ownr. In the US, people usually start off as a sole proprietor or an LLC. If you are somewhere else in the world, unfortunately, I have no idea. Also, as you listen to this, just know that I’m not an accountant or a lawyer. That’s my disclaimer.
Usually business setup is straightforward because governments and countries want people to start businesses and they’re always encouraging people to start businesses. The other thing to think about when starting a business is your bank accounts.
The easy thing to do is to just start using a separate credit card for all your business transactions. But when I started the business, I had a feeling I was going to do it for a while, so I opened up a separate bank account. It depends on if you are a sole proprietor or a corporation. You need to talk to your bank about it if you are feeling not sure about the whole accounting thing and how to organize your finances. Next, depending on what kind of business you’re starting, you might want to reserve all your social media handles at the same time, even if you aren’t ready to post yet.
A 10 min task to save you headaches later
That is because if you already have a name for your business, you should reserve it ASAP. This is one task that takes maybe 10 minutes where it feels like you’ve actually accomplished something, and from there it’s all these little accomplishments and these little wins that keep you motivated. There are a lot of websites where you can check if the name has been taken. You can use one of those websites, or you can just open up Instagram and try to search if that name has been taken.
Should you reserve your domain/website
The other thing is to definitely reserve the domain name. Even if you aren’t ready to make a website yet, domain names are quite cheap. So if you are already reserving the social media handles, you might as well get the domain name. I’m getting bigger online and I wanted to protect myself better. I recently just bought three more domain names related to my business, which are dinyloo.ca, dnacreative.ca, and dinacalligraphy.ca. I have two main websites, doullcreative.com, and dinacalligraphy.com. But since I’m Canadian, I also wanted to get the Canadian .ca versions. I bought these on Porkbun, who I am honored to say is sponsoring today’s video. Porkbun is a domain registrar where you can buy domain names. Since I am a proud Canadian and I know many of you want to start businesses here in Canada, I wanted to talk a little bit about that.
About .ca domains
Reportedly, a large majority of Canadians prefer .ca over .com websites when supporting a Canadian business, and are said to be several times more likely to click a .ca website than a .com website when searching online. .ca is the official domain that represents Canada. So for anyone doing business in Canada, you should really consider a .ca domain. It signals that you are local. It helps build authority and trust and it can help improve visibility for your website in local search results. While some registrars might have first year sales on .ca domains and then higher priced renewals, Porkbun keeps pricing low and transparent with no surprises. Every domain at Porkbun comes with free features like SSL certificates, Cloudflare powered DNS management, URL forwarding, and email forwarding.
If you decide to build a website later, they also offer WordPress hosting, an AI website builder, and professional email hosting. Go to the link in my description to get your .ca domain today from Porkbun. Now I want to address what side hustle to actually pick.
How to pick WHICH side business
You might have seen a lot of my side hustle videos and you have some ideas, but you’re not sure about what to do. I knew that I always wanted to be a digital nomad. I knew that calligraphy wasn’t going to be the forever thing that I was going to do. It was more like a stepping stone. My thinking was, okay, I’m just going to start off with this
Because it seems kind of straightforward and easier than the other side hustles I was thinking about, and then maybe I can pivot later, or I can just add more income streams later. You can start with one thing and then you can add more things later and pivot. It’s not set in stone. One thing that I was doing when I was still working in my job and I was starting this side hustle was on the SkyTrain to work.
PRO time management
I would be working on my business for about 30 minutes on the SkyTrain, doing stuff like posting on Instagram and replying to emails and editing photos on my phone. Then at home, I might work a little bit more, maybe 30 minutes to an hour or maybe even 10 minutes, depending on the day. It wasn’t like I was working on my side business for 5 hours every day. That is why I believe you can just be working on your side hustle for 1 hour a day or even half an hour a day and still make money.
It’s just you need the consistency and the motivation. Outside of this active work time, I was doing passive learning, reading business books because I have a reading habit where I read before bed. I was also listening to podcasts and listening to YouTube videos, and that’s kind of like education and also helps me keep being motivated.
Sharing my realistic timeline for $1k/month
To give you a realistic timeline of how I started this first side hustle and then when I started to make money: I started to learn calligraphy in August 2018. November is when I started to prepare for selling greeting cards, designing the greeting cards, making the website, taking photos and stuff like that. I got the cards printed and around end of November, that is when I launched the greeting cards and I mainly just sold it to friends. I also did a little bit of cold outreach, mainly to realtors because I thought realtors sometimes needed to send a lot of greeting cards. So I did a little bit of outreach and in December 2018, I made $500 that month from selling greeting cards.
After December, the Christmas season was over, so I couldn’t really sell greeting cards anymore. So I started to teach workshops, and I charged around $15 per person for the first workshop, but then after about one to two months I was charging maybe $30 or $40 per person for one ticket. Around the 3 month mark of starting to teach workshops, I was making about $1,000 from teaching workshops in revenue every month, teaching about four workshops per month. This would be after my 9 to 5 job and then it would still be downtown but I would host the workshop at a cafe. That’s how I taught four workshops every single month. The next piece of advice I have for you is to make a plan or don’t make a plan.
Should you make a PLAN??
Depends on the person. I like making plans. I did make several plans over the months of starting my calligraphy business. This is one of the business plans I wrote. I felt a lot less stressed and organized when I wrote it all out and had a plan. But I know for some people planning kind of stresses them out, especially when you see that you have so many to-do lists and stuff. Depending on who you are, either make a plan or don’t make a plan. I’m telling you this
because I want you to know that when you start a business there are no rules. You don’t have a boss telling you to make a plan, you are the boss. I think the best thing when you are starting a business is to get to know yourself, and in this journey of starting a business you also learn a lot about yourself. I learned that I like planning.
Actually I already knew that because I was always into journaling and making goals and New Year’s resolutions. I knew I liked to plan, but I know for some people you don’t plan and you just do it. Maybe you have a daily habit like every single day work 30 minutes on the business and you don’t really have a plan, you just keep working on it because a plan might make you feel more stressed.
Don’t lose THIS when working on your business
Having no boss is a blessing, but it’s also very difficult at times because you really do need that internal motivation. If you are starting a business and you’re running a business right now, something to prioritize is that internal drive that you have, and to really have a vision of what you’re going for. It was that digital nomad dream that was my ultimate vision and that kept me feeling motivated. The next thing I think would be really useful for you to do at the beginning of starting a business is to find other people who are also starting a business, people who are also at the same stage as you, or they could already be running their businesses, but it’s good to have a community.
A solution to many problems
When I started, I had a couple of friends who were also starting businesses at the same time, so we could help each other and keep each other accountable, and we were commenting on each other’s Instagram posts. That was really nice. I also was volunteering for League of Innovators, which is a Canadian charity that helps people under 30 years old start businesses. Because I was in that community and I knew people and I saw people starting businesses, that really helped me to see that it is possible for someone to actually start a business and succeed. Another thing that they really helped me with was that at the beginning I had a lot of imposter syndrome because I literally learned calligraphy in three months and then I started to sell greeting cards.
A lot of my thinking was like my calligraphy is just so bad, or who am I to be a calligrapher and sell greeting cards after 3 months of learning calligraphy. But then I would show my friends and the people I was volunteering with, and they would tell me that my calligraphy is so good, and I know they’re not lying. So find a community. It can just be a couple of friends or you can be part of an organization or even just join Facebook groups. Have other people who are doing the same thing as you and you can all help each other out.
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