The Question: 'Can I Make a Living Starting a Business?'
When I ask people who come to my office for pre-startup licensing consultations, 'Why did you come to me for advice?', a significant number of them say, 'I looked at your website and saw that you went through various hardships after starting your business, so I wanted to consult with you about my own startup...'
As I wrote in my self-introduction on note, I have dabbled in various modest businesses and have modestly repeated failures.
It's not that I 'took a big gamble, ended up with huge debt, and then made a comeback with a massive one-shot success'; rather, I have repeated modest failures, occasionally made modest recoveries, and have somehow stumbled my way to where I am now.
Perhaps it is easier to consult with someone who is just barely managing to make a living while stumbling along (laughs).
I would like to introduce some of the common questions I receive during such consultations over several installments.
For the first installment, I will introduce the most frequent question.
'Can I make a living starting a business?'
This is by far the number one question in the startup consultations I have received.
I don't think the person would be convinced whether I answered 'yes' or 'no,' as they would ask, 'How could you possibly know that?', but I believe it is a question they cannot help but ask.
I would like to share my own way of thinking regarding this question.
The essence is whether you can provide 'products and services that are useful to others'
The essence of making a business work lies in whether you can deliver 'products and services that are useful to others' to your customers.
'Services that people want,' 'services that make people happy,' 'products that people find convenient,' 'services that help people when they are in trouble.'
These are all things that are 'useful to others.'
I believe that by providing such products and services to customers, 'money' equivalent to their level of satisfaction comes in as compensation.
In other words, if you can provide 'products and services that are useful to others,' it becomes easier to earn income equivalent to that level of satisfaction.
Conversely, even if you think, 'This should sell,' if the customer does not feel that it is 'useful to them,' it is difficult to translate that into sales.
The answer does not come 'before starting the business' but as a 'result of action'
When I first started my business, I had almost no work, and I was in a state where I continued to run a deficit every month.
It was not a situation where I could make a living at all.
In that environment, as I thought every single day about 'how about this service' or 'what if I proposed it from that angle,' and repeated trial and error, my income gradually began to take shape.
Therefore, I believe the answer to the question of 'can I earn enough to make a living' is not something that exists in advance before starting a business, but rather something that emerges later as a result of your own thoughts and actions, in the form of 'I was able to earn enough to make a living' or 'I was not.'
If you seek a certain answer from the very beginning, you will never be able to take that first step.
The 'asset of experience' that you possess precisely because you are in your 40s to 60s
Those who start a business in their 40s to 60s have strengths that entrepreneurs in their 20s do not.
That is 'experience'.
You have accumulated within yourself assets that are hard to see but are nonetheless certain, such as the specialized knowledge acquired over a long career, industry connections, ways of interacting with customers and business partners, and a repertoire of ways to handle problems.
I feel that how you connect this experience to 'products and services that are useful to others' is the key to starting a business in your 40s to 60s.
Summary
The number of people considering starting a business in their 40s to 60s is increasing every year.
Whether it is those moving on to a new path after early retirement, those who have reached a point where their children's education expenses have settled down and they can have time for themselves, or those who want to design a second career by utilizing their long-term experience, I think the circumstances vary.
Whether you start a business or not, I think it is a good idea to take the time to organize your thoughts, such as by taking stock of what you can and cannot do, and reviewing your experience.