10 Top Tips for a Career Change Fuelled by Crowdfunding

Posted on by Clive Reffell
Image source: simplybusiness.co.uk

Covid-19 vaccinations have started and perhaps provide a route back to some normality within a few months. Though many businesses haven’t had the luxury of being able to simply batten down the hatches and wait that long, and many people who used to work for them face a turbulent 2021 full of change.

The ranks of the self-employed and small businesses are going to grow. Crowdfunding provides solo entrepreneurs and startup businesses with many benefits, including product testing and raising awareness alongside raising finance without melting down credit cards, re-mortgaging the family home or taking on other forms of a loan guaranteed against personal assets.

Business experience is valuable

Those who had reached the autumn of their career may feel particularly uncomfortable about going it alone in a fast changing world where digital natives appear to be increasingly calling the shots. Yet as The  Blockheads’ band leader Ian Dury might have said, there are reasons to be cheerful.

A study conducted by the US Census Bureau and two MIT professors found:

  • A 50-year-old tech startup founder is 2.2 times more likely to be successful than a 30-year-old.
  • A 50-year-old startup founder is 2.8 times more likely to be successful than a 25-year-old.
  • A 60-year-old tech startup founder is 3 times more likely to be successful than a 30-year-old.  

Not everyone works in tech, though I find it reassuring to know that founding a successful startup isn’t the exclusive preserve of the young, and that the younger business founders aren’t always the best. In my role as an independent crowdfunding adviser I have met many startup founders of all ages. It is always dangerous to make sweeping generalisations, though the high value of transferrable skills and just general understanding of how businesses run is much stronger among older founders. They appreciate far better how solidly things have to done, how robustly claims and plans have to be validated, and that hope isn’t a strategy.

10 top tips for a career change

I’ve been made redundant twice, and worked for a company that folded and left us all high and dry. I know how former salaried employees in their 50s feel, and I offer my ten top tips on setting out in business alone.

  1. Doing new things, outside of a comfort zone previously full of support, is scary. You’ll get through it.
  2. Most of your previous contacts have become useless because they were part of that former comfort zone, your former life.
  3. Reconsider the people who you know, and build connections among a new group of people who are going to be able to help you.
  4. Think equally about how you can help them, relationships will not be built just on how they could help you.
  5. It’s difficult to achieve a target daily pay rate, so do what comes up that looks like it would be good to be involved with.
  6. But don’t forget that time is your most precious asset, particularly when starting a new enterprise later in life.
  7. What you knew before is not going to be enough. You should remain curious and love learning. This is now easier than it ever was with the range of material available online.
  8. Add practice to your knowledge, by simply getting out there to start providing others with the benefits of your knowledge and skills. Even work free for a local charity or community group rather than keep them to yourself. This will help teach you how to best present that knowledge in a way that builds confidence.
  9. Confidence is what your new customers, and maybe later on partners or investors, will recognise and buy in to.
  10. Work with people you like, who respect you, and pay you on time. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

Considering crowdfunding?

If you want to know more about crowdfunding, either as a means to check consumer demand for a new product, or to raise finance for a business to grow, you could start by following me on Twitter. I also regularly write articles about crowdfunding for Crowdsourcing Week. When you’re ready for a conversation, please first email me at [email protected]. I am an independent crowdfunding adviser, providing objective and impartial advice with no ties to any particular crowdfunding platforms.

10 tips for anyone changing their career path

Posted on by Clive Reffell

Last year’s Office of National Statistics figures revealed that just 53% of the UK’s working population are fulltime employees with a regular pay cheque. More and more of us are choosing, or being forced by circumstances, to adopt alternative ways of funding our existence by changing career. The outcome can range from worries over simply paying basic bills to affording an enviable, comfortable lifestyle.

I’ve learned that whether starting up in business as a small-scale entrepreneur of any age, or as a local provider of professional services, downscaling from a dazzling corporate career, or on the verge of what could be a great money-making venture, many of us all share the same feelings.

Much of my networking in the first few months of Comanche Communications & Marketing was at a local SME level. I met many people who are or have been in similar circumstances to myself, setting out in business as a sole trader and trying to carve out a modest niche among the opportunities available within the accessible business community.

Then I found myself networking among different company when I spent a day at the third annual Great British Workforce Revolution conference. These events are tailored around opportunities for former company directors who are changing career to ‘go it alone’. This can mean starting a new business, investing in other people’s new businesses, or taking interim roles to guide companies unable to afford their experience and knowledge on an fulltime basis.

A forum of former ‘captains of industry’ made some useful comments about the attitudinal re-think needed when making a career transition that are worth sharing with anyone who takes responsibility for their own destiny. Many people using crowdfunding hope it’s going to make a significant impact on their lives, but are they really ready for some of the consequences?

The key ten points the panel made were these.

  1. It’s scary to be in a new place. Doing new things, outside of a comfort zone that may have previously been full of support, is scary.
  2. Most of your previous contacts become useless after changing career because they were part of that former comfort zone, that former life.
  3. It’s difficult to achieve a target daily pay rate, so do what comes up that looks like it would be good to be involved with.
  4. Don’t forget that time is your most precious asset, particularly if starting a new enterprise later in life.
  5. Reconsider the people who you know. Build connections among a new group of people who are going to be able to help you.
  6. Think about how to help them, not only how they could help you.
  7. Remain curious and love learning, which is now easier than it ever was.
  8. Add practice to your knowledge, by simply getting out there to start providing others with the benefits of your knowledge and skills. Even do it free for a local charity rather than keep them to yourself. This will help teach you how to best present that knowledge in a way that builds confidence.
  9. Confidence is what your new customers or investors will recognise and buy in to.
  10. Work with people you like, who respect you and pay you on time. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

The Panel, left to right below: Steve Gilroy, Chief Exec at Vistage International (UK), the world’s leading Chief Executive organisation and main sponsors of the conference; Stuart Lucas, a former global finance high-flyer and Founder and Co-CEO of Asset Match which allows shareholders in unlisted companies to freely offer their shares for sale; Peter Collier, Executive Director and Founder of TCWM Ltd, held senior positions in the financial services sector until 2012 when after voluntary redundancy he started a business by taking small consultancy assignments; Robin Hill, Founder and CEO at Ruffena Capital Ltd, previously had senior positions in technology and media businesses. “It’s better to be more in control in a smaller company than lost in a big one,” he said.

P1020034

If you’d like to explore crowdfunding as a way to help you change your career path and want some objective advice and support then please get in touch. Drop a line to me at [email protected].