What are the Positives and Challenges of Starting a Business Solo
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[00:00:00] What are the positives and negatives of starting your business solo? Well, I'm going to share that with you today. My name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist started my therapy clinic over 11 years ago. And then because I wasn't busy enough. started hand therapy secrets about four years ago, and I started solo.
So I'm going to share with you some of the positives and negatives of what I've seen over the last over 10 years. So I. I started solo because I, I, someone who needs a certain amount of control, right? So I, the, the positives are that I was a hundred percent the person who made decisions. I'm 100 percent decision maker here.
I have a hundred percent creative control [00:01:00] over everything that I do. And I have 100 percent financial control over everything I've earned, everything I've done with the revenue, the profits. So those are really the, the biggest things when it comes to, starting on your own. So those are all positives because at the end of the day, you can go faster.
And when I started my business, I was like, I need a space. I need to buy X, Y, and Z. I have, you know, this much money. What am I going to do with it? So I didn't waste time going back and forth with like a partner. Now, granted, I am married. So I spoke with my husband, you know, what was, you know, what did support look like, from a financial standpoint, from a family standpoint, things like that.
So I had those types of discussions, but really when it came to opening my [00:02:00] business, how much I charge. With the hours I was going to be working, those were all 100 percent me and I really liked it. And, even looking back, even when I started Hand Therapy Secrets, I did think, do I want a partner for this?
Do I want to make it more than hand therapy? By the time I started my second business, I could have. I guess I could have sought out a partner and shared in the responsibility, but, I do value being able to go fast. I do value being able to have, the full, you know, the full decision making power and all that.
Those are positives for they're also the negatives, right? So, You have full decision making control. So if you can't make a decision, it's your fault, right? If I can't [00:03:00] make a decision, if I made the wrong decision, it's my fault. There's no one to blame, and those are good things as well as bad things, right?
Because when you have control, you can make changes. When you don't have control, like, because of the other person, you, you don't have, you know, yeah, you can blame them, but how is that going to change anything? So you, everything that's positive are also the challenges. You have full creative control.
So when you have full creative control, if you get stuck, you can't, you know, you feel like you're not able to be creative or you're in a quote unquote dry spell of sorts. Um, it's 100 percent up to you to fix that. And so everything that is positive is also negative, like there's a saying I heard a while ago [00:04:00] the things that help you are also the things that hurt you, right?
So having full decision making control helps you because you can go faster. But it can also hurt you at some point too. So you have to realize and you have to balance those things out. But those are, you know, pretty much some of the positives and challenges of starting a business solo. I have seen other businesses that have taken on partners.
I've seen them fail and I've seen them be successful and I'm going to share that in a different video., but in my case, I think I decided, you know, to start solo and not look for a partner and also not look at my husband as a partner. And I'll tell you, it comes from personal experience. My mom had her own business.
And then she was doing so well that she got my father to join her [00:05:00] and, I think that that makes a really challenging, marriage. And then you can't escape each other because you have your business together and your marriage together and your kids together. And I. didn't see a lot of positives in that.
So, so in terms of, you know, when I started my business, I, there were times when I asked my husband to do things for me. So for example, when I started my business, I needed a website. Like I felt like I need to So I didn't want to spend the money on a website. Like you guys might be doing it too. You feel broke.
You feel poor. So you start coming from that mindset of like poverty and like I got, I got to save every nickel and dime. Right. And that can hurt you. That can hurt your business and that can hurt how fast or slow you grow. So I started with like asking him to build my website [00:06:00] because He knew how to do a website, you know, he's a fricking IT guy.
All the IT people were like, we're not all the same, but he, I asked him, he said, yeah, you could build it for me. Then I'm like, when the fuck are you going to build this shit? So then it became. This thing where he was building it, but he wasn't building it. And so I'm like waiting on this website I'm like, I can't do XYZ.
So he built me kind of like this frame and didn't look good but I lost like I want to say I lost like two years from him like me trying to be like Can you know my website so I can save a couple thousand dollars, you know, I could have made Like, had I had, if I had the mindset, if I had the mindset that I have now back then, I would have come out the gate six months making that money.
I would have put that shit into a website right away. I didn't think like that. So I was thinking [00:07:00] that, you know, I didn't know how to utilize a website. I didn't know how to make my website work for me. So I ended up waiting. Two years, again, 100 percent decision making control and it was a mistake and it was my fault because I couldn't push it on, on someone who, you know, technically wasn't getting paid either, you know, and, and money is, money is a exchange of energy.
Money is an exchange of energy. The man, I was trying to get the man to work at night. I was trying to get the man to work on the weekends, right? No pay because I wasn't getting paid. So because I wasn't getting paid, I was like, you, you can't get paid either. So who is driven to do that, right? So he, and, and websites, to all his credit, websites were not his thing.
He's actually a software and, you know, software developer and business intelligence person. So yes, does he have a certain understanding of marketing or whatever, but for a [00:08:00] ginormous corporation? You know, within a particular niche, right? So it's not like, you know, he built websites all day. And, he knew what to consider from a small business standpoint, small business, big business.
Some things are similar, but so many things to get you started are completely different. And you have to take those things into consideration. And I really didn't, I didn't know any better. And this is one of the reasons why I'm sharing with you, some of the positives and challenges. So, you know, I had full decision making control and I tried to get him in and I'm gonna share with you a little secret.
I'm gonna share with you a little secret. Sometimes you learn a lesson back then, but you're bound to repeat yourself. I promise you're bound to repeat yourself. So you have to have, you have to learn awareness so that you don't start to repeat them and stay in, in them too long. [00:09:00] So I had him start to build my website.
Anyway, two years later, I'm like, dude, what the fuck is my website? And I said, you know what? Forget you. I'm gonna go spend my money on a website. So I dropped 5, 000. At that time, it was huge. Nowadays, 5, 000 is nothing for a website, right? But I, I built a website. I went with a company that, again, did websites for bigger brands.
I won't, I don't recommend that either. I'm sharing with you a lot of mistakes so that you can make different ones or, or it can help to inform you to make better decisions, right? I went with a website. company that I met through, a B and I group and they made a beautiful websites design wise. They were beautiful, but because I didn't know how my website needed to function for [00:10:00] a small business.
It didn't work for me. It didn't make me money. And your website's supposed to make you money, right? So there's the design and then there's the functionality of a website and you have to understand the two. And a lot of times when you're starting solo, when you're starting solo, you don't know what you don't know.
And so part of it is. Is the is the are the mistakes that you make, but you have full 100 percent control and so, on certain things, you can go faster and other things you might make mistakes, but you essentially you learn them and you turn those decisions around and I think to a certain extent, there's You got no one to blame.
You're not going to be slowed down by pointing fingers. You know, you're not going to be slowed down by, okay, we have to have a meeting and let's discuss the shit out of this. Right. So, yeah, those are some of the [00:11:00] positives and challenges of starting a business solo. I can honestly tell you that I love it.
So low. I started my you know, hand therapy secrets where you're watching this four years ago, actually probably longer. But officially, I think officially I did the S Corp thing, around four years ago, but before then I was already, I was already gearing it up. So probably like a year before I started doing, I created the S Corp.
I started it solo and I did, I was having the, do I, do I try to find a partner to either help with the burden or with the burden of work or the burden of the financial responsibilities. So I decided to go solo. I decided to do that solo and then I started a third business. It's actually my property business and.
I could have, you know, I could have gone in there [00:12:00] with, other partners as well, you know, buying a piece of property, turning it into a rental business and, I have plans for that, but I could have started that with other people and I can still consider different projects with other people, but that property that I have is more of a It's like the whole point is to make money off of it, but it's also a lifestyle, you know I bought a beachfront property a little condo in a small town like literally right on the water and I could have gotten a partner I could have been like Oh divide the responsibilities share it and then but I decided, you know I'm just gonna do that myself as well And that way I have full decision making capabilities, purchase it, put the down payment, got it fixed, pick the paint color, pick the, you know, everything.
And yeah, so if it makes money, I get the credit. If it doesn't make money, [00:13:00] I get the credit. But it just allows me more financial, more You know, creative and more decision making control. And I think that you have to look at your personality and you have to look at what you ultimately want and make your decisions on whether going into business solo or finding a partner is smart for you.
I will tell you that one of the things that I see in people who decide they want a partner, it tends to come out of fear more than smart business decisions. And so I would encourage you if you are If you are starting solo or you are getting a partner for your business, I want you to explore what that fear means to you and how you're making decisions based off of that fear.
All right? Because I don't want you [00:14:00] to think that when you make decisions based off of fear, there's consequences to it. There's consequences to making decisions, based out of fear. So yeah, just take those things into consideration. And I'm going to share another video where I'm talking about the things that I've seen in a partnered business and what to consider I myself might not have done it, but I have seen it.
I have lived it and I think that it's important to take into consideration when you're getting a partner. Alright, so those are my considerations positives and negatives for solo. So I hope that that helps you and if business tips for your O. T. business can help you to either start a business or grow a business, I'm going to include the link below so you can get on my O.
T. business corner email list and I will share more and more with you. All right, peace out. Thanks. Talk to you soon.
