My company, Paperform, was born from a place of both passion and filling a need. I was fascinated by no-code development, especially how it could be implemented to help growing businesses with specific needs like online payments, landing pages, surveys, and more. Many entrepreneurs with established companies did not know where to turn for those necessities, and I knew I could help solve that problem. So began my entrepreneurial journey.
When I launched Paperform, I was a full-time programmer. However, days at the office combined with nights devoted to Paperform were wearing me down. After a couple of months of that grind, I made the decision (alongside my wife, Diony) to turn Paperform into a full-time gig. We both quit our jobs and spent all of our time on Paperform. Within a year, we went from a standard 9-to-5 to being our own bosses. Four years later, and the company continues to expand with clients around the world.
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. There were a lot of lessons learned along the way. There will be ups and downs; you simply can’t avoid them. And that’s where passion comes in. If you don’t feel that passion, you won’t be able to weather tough periods (and there will be tough periods). At the end of the day, your business, even though it’s your “baby,” is still a job. But finding the balance between enjoying your work and making it a (healthy) obsession is key.
Anticipate and Plan for Setbacks
During the first year of running Paperform, we encountered quite a few tough decisions and setbacks. These are the three lessons that were some of the hardest to learn during that early going:
1. Sacrifice Free Time. When we were still working full time and only spending our free time outside of work on Paperform, it wasn’t getting us as far as we wanted. So, we used vacation days at our jobs and devoted that time off to Paperform instead of traveling or relaxing. That extra time was invaluable to improving our product and its offerings.
2. Watch for Burnout. During those first few months, while we were still working full-time, we were taking turns waking up every three hours at night to respond to customer service inquiries. That was fine for a while, but eventually, we knew we couldn’t keep this up forever. What helped was knowing that this unsustainable approach would not last forever.
3. There Will Be Slow Sales Periods. As we now know, our sales are typically slower during the second half of the year. Unfortunately, that was news to us during our first year in 2017! There were a few weeks in August 2017 where sales were practically dead, causing major concern. Thankfully, we had budgeted for slow periods. When we moved forward, we factored that slow period into our annual sales predictions.
Find Sustainability
I built the first version of Paperform during my spare time in Winter 2016. I then launched in beta to receive feedback and make improvements. That feedback was invaluable, and allowed me to launch a paid offering resulting in $40,000 in sales. These initial earnings gave me proof of concept and money to launch. That monetary cushion allowed us to quit our jobs in March 2017 and transition Paperform from a side-hustle to a career.
Turning your passion project into a career isn’t a moonshot, but you need to be making enough money to live on before you quit your current job. We started seeing growth in recurring revenue four months after launch, giving us enough cushion to make our move. Sustainability was the goal, and although we weren’t quite there yet, we took a calculated risk because we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Make a Plan and Follow Through
An essential step to getting your ideas to the next level is building a plan and following through on it. If you’re quitting your day job to go into a new venture, you better make sure you aren’t doing it blind and know what you’ll be doing with your time. Planning was never fun for me, but creating a blueprint hashing out ideas and future improvements helped me visualize progress. We created a “worst-case scenario” contingency: we pessimistically predicted how much time it would take to become profitable (or at least sustainable). When we first started, we had about $1,000 in recurring monthly revenue. While that was not enough money to live on, it showed us that there was a viable market for Paperform and growth potential. By the end of 2017, we reached $10,000 MRR, allowing for a comfortable existence.
#BEYOUROWNBOSS
Possibly the most important thing I can tell you is that you must be self-motivated. Not everyone thrives in this environment, and you need to be honest with yourself before making the leap. At the end of the day, #BEYOUROWNBOSS makes a great hashtag, but growth doesn’t come without setbacks, so passion and grit (along with a healthy dose of proper planning and follow-through) are key to full-time success.
