Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mother with Me podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to biz your work life Sorted. I'm
Speaker 2: m Vernon, and today we're tackling the question that's probably
Speaker 2: popped into your head during every terrible meeting you've sat through.
Speaker 2: Should I just quit and start my own thing? Look,
Speaker 2: whether you're dreaming of launching the next big tech startup,
Speaker 2: I'm good for you, or if you're perfectly happy building
Speaker 2: your career in a company, and honestly both are completely valid,
Speaker 2: then this episode is for you. There's so much pressure
Speaker 2: these days to be entrepreneurial, and sometimes we forget to
Speaker 2: ask ourselves if that is actually what we want today.
Speaker 2: Our career coaches, Michelle Battersby and Soph Hurst break down
Speaker 2: the real talk about both parts and when I say real,
Speaker 2: I actually mean real. Michelle is an entrepreneur who launched
Speaker 2: Bumble in Australia and now runs her own startup, and
Speaker 2: soph took the lead from Google to launch a coaching
Speaker 2: program for people in their earthly career era. So they
Speaker 2: both worked in some of the biggest companies in the
Speaker 2: world and now they run their own businesses. So they've
Speaker 2: literally lived both sides of this story. Plus As a
Speaker 2: little extra bonus for you, Michelle is going to share
Speaker 2: three practical steps to avoid accidentally burning through your life
Speaker 2: savings guilty. Here are your big questions and concerns.
Speaker 3: Have this amazing business idea, but everyone keeps telling me
Speaker 3: I need more corporate experience first. How much experience is
Speaker 3: enough before you can actually back yourself.
Speaker 4: Everyone talks about finding the right co founder, but how
Speaker 4: do you actually know if someone's right?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: Do you go of your gut or is there some
Speaker 4: kind of friendship to business partner formula?
Speaker 1: I see all these perfect startup stories on TikTok, but
Speaker 1: no one talks about the missing middle part. How do
Speaker 1: you actually go from thinking of an idea to starting
Speaker 1: the actual business without losing your mind?
Speaker 4: The whole cost of living thing actually terrifies me. I
Speaker 4: want to start my own business, but I can barely
Speaker 4: afford rent to be people actually make that leap without
Speaker 4: family money backing them.
Speaker 5: It's something a lot of us dream about, you know,
Speaker 5: quitting our job and starting a business, And there's so
Speaker 5: much social pressure online to be entrepreneurial and breakaway from
Speaker 5: the nine to five. But is working for yourself for you?
Speaker 5: Michelle and I both currently own our own businesses, but
Speaker 5: before that we worked at companies. So Google PwC City Bumble.
Speaker 5: In today's episode, we're going to break down the hard
Speaker 5: truth of both situations so you can make smarta decisions
Speaker 5: for your career, and Michelle's going to give you three
Speaker 5: practical steps that are going to stop you wasting your
Speaker 5: life savings. Michelle, you've worked for some pretty awesome companies
Speaker 5: and now you work for yourself, So which is better.
Speaker 3: I think working at a company is better, particularly at
Speaker 3: the start of your career. So I think if you've
Speaker 3: landed a job at an organization where you believe in
Speaker 3: the mission, you love the product, and you feel like
Speaker 3: you have autonomy in your role that is just chef's kiss,
Speaker 3: that can feel really amazing, and it can also set
Speaker 3: you up with some really incredible skills that you can
Speaker 3: then transition into entrepreneurship if you do choose to go
Speaker 3: down that route later. But I also think it's worth
Speaker 3: noting that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, and you don't have
Speaker 3: to go and start a business, and working at a
Speaker 3: company can serve you amazingly throughout your whole career. But
Speaker 3: I do think there is a definite value there if
Speaker 3: you work for a company first.
Speaker 5: There's so many different factors at play here, and I
Speaker 5: think what this episode's going to do today is help
Speaker 5: people answer that question. Is working for yourself for you?
Speaker 5: And then if it is, how do you go into it? Michelle,
Speaker 5: I'm actually pretty surprised that you said that. You said
Speaker 5: it is better to work for a company at the
Speaker 5: start of your career, and I feel like it's a
Speaker 5: bit of a business hot take, because you know, it's
Speaker 5: counter to the narrative that you see online right now,
Speaker 5: which is all this stuff around like being a baby CEO,
Speaker 5: all these inspressional career stories of entrepreneurs, and it feels
Speaker 5: like everyone has a Shopify's store.
Speaker 6: There's also a lot.
Speaker 5: Of anti corporate, anti company talk. Sometimes it feels like,
Speaker 5: am I lame to work at a company?
Speaker 6: Explain yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I see those same narratives online and I don't agree
Speaker 3: with them.
Speaker 6: In my experience.
Speaker 3: There are three epic reasons to work for a company first,
Speaker 3: and I think the first one is really about flipping
Speaker 3: that narrative on its head, like you are not a
Speaker 3: slave because you work for the man. You know, all
Speaker 3: this stuff you see online that you know, it's almost
Speaker 3: less than it's not as fulfilling if you work for
Speaker 3: someone else.
Speaker 6: I don't agree with that.
Speaker 3: There are so many incredible benefits to working for someone else,
Speaker 3: and flip that narrative and take from your employer. You're
Speaker 3: working in these big companies.
Speaker 6: With processors, policies.
Speaker 3: In place, and money to help you develop your skills.
Speaker 3: Do the course, seek exec coaching, travel shadow people. Take
Speaker 3: as much knowledge as you can from that environment and
Speaker 3: build yourself on paper and you can then take that
Speaker 3: to the next company and propel yourself forward, or you
Speaker 3: can take it into entrepreneurship. So that's I think the
Speaker 3: first benefit for working for an organization is just how
Speaker 3: much you can acquire new skills and gain exposure to
Speaker 3: certain things. The second benefit is it's stable. It's financially
Speaker 3: stable employment. It also helps you build a network. Your
Speaker 3: network will pay dividends if you do go on to
Speaker 3: start your own business. It'll also help you if you
Speaker 3: want to progress in a corporate environment. But an example
Speaker 3: of how my network benefited me once I started my
Speaker 3: own company was my app was about to launch and
Speaker 3: three days from launch, it was rejected by Apple in
Speaker 3: the app Store for a way. We'd applied a certain
Speaker 3: piece of technology and all of our creators were on it,
Speaker 3: ready to use it. All of our media, we'd done,
Speaker 3: all our interviews, all of our press was about to
Speaker 3: go live and we were panicking. But we had someone
Speaker 3: on our cap table, so someone who'd invested in us
Speaker 3: that had an app that made a hell of a
Speaker 3: lot of money for Apple, and we tapped that person
Speaker 3: on the shoulder, someone from our network, and they were
Speaker 3: able to contact Apple, which is very hard to do
Speaker 3: if you've got a baby app, and they were able.
Speaker 6: To get that up approved for us.
Speaker 3: So building a network will help you loads if you
Speaker 3: do go on to start your own company.
Speaker 5: So you feel like if you were straight out of
Speaker 5: UNI trying to do this, you wouldn't have had that
Speaker 5: same connection.
Speaker 6: Definitely not.
Speaker 3: And your network will help you in so many other ways,
Speaker 3: like raising capital, hiring people.
Speaker 6: I think something people don't.
Speaker 3: Realize is it's very hard to hire people when you
Speaker 3: start company because they don't know that your idea is
Speaker 3: going to work. They don't know that your money's not
Speaker 3: going to run out. They might not be willing to
Speaker 3: take a smaller salary and sacrifice where they're at for
Speaker 3: your dream. So most of your first hires are people
Speaker 3: that already trust and know you, people that you have
Speaker 3: to pull from your network. You can't just post a
Speaker 3: job at and get all these people applying to this
Speaker 3: unknown company. So it also can help you and in
Speaker 3: that regard as well actually build a team. The third
Speaker 3: thing that I think is really beneficial is if you
Speaker 3: start your own company, you also automatically become a leader.
Speaker 3: And not everyone has natural leadership capabilities. So being in
Speaker 3: an organization, you're exposed to managers, to leaders, to execs,
Speaker 3: to people with decades and decades more experienced than you,
Speaker 3: and you will be exposed to good leaders and bad leaders,
Speaker 3: and you'll know how it feels to be an employee,
Speaker 3: and that is very very important because if you've had
Speaker 3: a bad manager, you know how shit that feels, and
Speaker 3: you never want to make someone feel that. So it
Speaker 3: helps you grow into the kind of leader that you
Speaker 3: want to be, to have experienced both good and bad.
Speaker 3: I actually thought of another thing that doesn't fit into
Speaker 3: my three. But you also get to make mistakes and
Speaker 3: it's not at your expense, it's on someone else's dime,
Speaker 3: and that is a freedom that you do not feel
Speaker 3: when you have your own company.
Speaker 6: So those are all my pros.
Speaker 5: As someone who now owns a business, and I'm just
Speaker 5: bleeding money from software mistakes that I didn't need to buy.
Speaker 5: Make mistakes on someone else's money.
Speaker 3: Use it as a crash course if you are really entrepreneurial,
Speaker 3: see how many projects you can get your hands on
Speaker 3: and use them as a crash course to starting your
Speaker 3: own company, Like what projects can you build from the
Speaker 3: ground up?
Speaker 5: Michaele. Those are some pretty good reasons to be an employee,
Speaker 5: But most Australians still have some kind of desire to
Speaker 5: start their own business. So I think the numbers around
Speaker 5: seventy percent, and it's actually higher for gen Z. It's
Speaker 5: like eighty four percent of gen Z say they want
Speaker 5: to start their own business. On the Way next, Michelle
Speaker 5: breaks down exactly what you need to know before you
Speaker 5: start your own business. We're talking about the transition from
Speaker 5: being an employee to owning a business. What do you
Speaker 5: want our listeners to know and what is the scary
Speaker 5: shit that no one really talks about.
Speaker 3: I think the first thing for anyone to be aware
Speaker 3: of who's starting to work on a side project is
Speaker 3: what is in your current employment contract. This may or
Speaker 3: may not seem obvious, but a lot of employment contracts
Speaker 3: actually don't allow secondary employment. Or if you come up
Speaker 3: with an idea whilst you're working at the company, they
Speaker 3: own that ip and they own that idea. So simple
Speaker 3: things like using your personal laptop, using your personal email.
Speaker 3: If you are starting to dabble in certain things, it's
Speaker 3: a good idea to make sure you're not pursuing something
Speaker 3: that's a conflict of interest. If something is a conflict
Speaker 3: of interest, then that could end up in a pretty
Speaker 3: big legal kerfuffle for you and potentially lost time and money.
Speaker 3: I was mentoring someone who had spent a considerable amount
Speaker 3: of money developing an app, and they'd then gone and
Speaker 3: told their employer about that app and it was deemed
Speaker 3: a conflict of interest and they've not been able to
Speaker 3: continue to pursue that side hustle. So thinking about where
Speaker 3: you're at in your career, what your idea is, and
Speaker 3: being aware of what's in your employment contract is a
Speaker 3: good thing to look out for. Secondary to that is
Speaker 3: the main thing that a founder is going to have
Speaker 3: to sacrifice, a financial sacrifices and time, So you really
Speaker 3: want to make sure that you're pursuing something that has legs,
Speaker 3: and ultimately you want to figure out if it has
Speaker 3: legs in the fastest, cheapest way possible before you start
Speaker 3: to sacrifice too much time and money.
Speaker 5: I think that is actually where a lot of people
Speaker 5: get really stuck. So the person who's sitting there thinking like,
Speaker 5: I have this amazing idea that's going to change the world,
Speaker 5: or you know, you might have someone who's like, I
Speaker 5: want to start a business, but I don't even know
Speaker 5: where to start. How can you actually validate a business idea?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is what I want to make
Speaker 3: super clear, because I'm sure you've seen this as well.
Speaker 3: So where someone comes to you for mentoring and they've
Speaker 3: already spent their whole life savings developing an app or
Speaker 3: some kind of product that they've never actually asked anyone
Speaker 3: if they want, or maybe they've asked their parents or
Speaker 3: their friends. That is a good start, but they're not
Speaker 3: necessarily going to tell you the truth. So three ways
Speaker 3: you can validate your idea without spending too much money
Speaker 3: is surveying. So I recommend using a site called type
Speaker 3: form generates really easy to use and interpret. It surveys
Speaker 3: generates a link and you can send it out to anyone.
Speaker 3: You could start with your friends. You could ask your
Speaker 3: friends to pass it on to friends of them. You
Speaker 3: could share it on LinkedIn and ask your immediate network
Speaker 3: to get around it, and then it kind of spreads
Speaker 3: from there. You could share it on social media. That
Speaker 3: is a really good way to test you've actually identified
Speaker 3: a problem people have. You want to be asking open
Speaker 3: ended questions where possible. You want to be asking questions
Speaker 3: that aren't just going to give you the answers that
Speaker 3: you want really broad industry insights. You need to just
Speaker 3: start researching the space. So surveying is a really big one.
Speaker 3: The second one in that vein is you could actually
Speaker 3: start to generate content. And again you could keep this
Speaker 3: really broad. Like you're at the very start right now.
Speaker 3: So let's just say you think that all the influencers
Speaker 3: in the world right now are currently having a huge
Speaker 3: problem managing their dms. You could literally create a video,
Speaker 3: post it on TikTok and say to all the creators
Speaker 3: out there, if you could hire one person in your
Speaker 3: team to do one thing that would make your life easier,
Speaker 3: what would it be. That's just going to tell you
Speaker 3: is dms actually something that's coming up, or have they
Speaker 3: got other problems? You know, just little things like that
Speaker 3: that will start letting you know if you're actually onto something.
Speaker 3: Then the third one, and I love this is competition
Speaker 3: is good. Competition indicates that there actually is a need
Speaker 3: for the thing you're focusing on. So go and find
Speaker 3: all the competitors, all the companies that may have come
Speaker 3: and gone in this realm, and hit up the founders
Speaker 3: or ex employees or current employees maybe at those companies
Speaker 3: and talk to them a similar method to the surveying,
Speaker 3: but you're not going directly to your potential consumers with
Speaker 3: this one. You're going to people that have actually worked
Speaker 3: in it and have lived and breathed it and potentially
Speaker 3: made mistakes, and you're figuring out, like what are the
Speaker 3: red flags of this idea, or like is my idea innovative?
Speaker 3: Or have I iterated enough on what these other people
Speaker 3: have done to make this successful? And that last one
Speaker 3: is actually inspo from my co founder because there's an
Speaker 3: idea that she had for a platform, which was to
Speaker 3: build the next gen Facebook events platform, and she found
Speaker 3: many people had tried to build a product that was
Speaker 3: going to be the next version of Facebook Events, and
Speaker 3: she just hit up all these ex founders who had
Speaker 3: tried and she got on the phone with them, and
Speaker 3: she very quickly realized that that wasn't an idea that
Speaker 3: she wanted to pursue, and she moved on to the
Speaker 3: next And so this method is tried and tested. The
Speaker 3: surveying with type form is exactly what I did with
Speaker 3: my business before I went all in. None of those
Speaker 3: ideas actually cost a dollar exactly.
Speaker 5: It really feels like you're going from this idea is
Speaker 5: in my head to now I'm actually getting it into
Speaker 5: the real world and getting real feedback. I think that
Speaker 5: point around not just your friends, it has to be
Speaker 5: people you don't know, friends or friends, because I think
Speaker 5: your friends are probably gonna they're gonna be pretty nice
Speaker 5: to you about your ideas, so you want to make
Speaker 5: sure you're validating it with other people.
Speaker 3: Another thing that can often come out of this surveying
Speaker 3: approach as well. Something that happened with me and Sunroom
Speaker 3: is as I started doing the surveying, consumers were starting
Speaker 3: to say to me, I'll invest in this, and that
Speaker 3: for me was the light bulb moment where I thought, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I think we might be onto something with this. These
Speaker 3: people are telling me they'll use it, and they're also
Speaker 3: telling me they'd give me their own money for me
Speaker 3: to go and build it.
Speaker 5: So, Michelle, you were talking about the survey questions. Do
Speaker 5: you actually have the survey that you did for Sunroom
Speaker 5: that you can show people.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 6: Let's put it in the show notes.
Speaker 3: I will share the original Sunroom validation survey. And I
Speaker 3: also have a TikTok that I posted about another app
Speaker 3: that we were developing at Sunroom, where I was trying
Speaker 3: to check the power of parasocial relationship. So I'll show
Speaker 3: an example of content that I posted to validate if
Speaker 3: an idea was good or not.
Speaker 5: Michelle, I actually wanted to add one more point, which
Speaker 5: is around this idea of sort of proving or disproving
Speaker 5: your idea. I went through a similar situation where I
Speaker 5: was leaving my company job and I wanted to figure
Speaker 5: out what my business idea was going to be.
Speaker 6: I still feel like I.
Speaker 5: Just wanted a bit more handholding. I did a really
Speaker 5: great program, sort of a founder program for women, and
Speaker 5: I just want to share with you guys. It was
Speaker 5: called tech Ready Women. It totally fit into my life.
Speaker 5: I think it was like a six or seven week program,
Speaker 5: super cost effective. I think it only cost me seven
Speaker 5: hundred dollars and it's partly subsized by the government. It's
Speaker 5: run by this amazing woman, Christy Whitehill, so we'll put
Speaker 5: that in the show notes as well. I definitely recommend
Speaker 5: if people just want a bit more support and coaching,
Speaker 5: that's a program I did. All right, let's close this
Speaker 5: out with some action points. So Action point number one
Speaker 5: is you really have to be willing to sacrifice. So
Speaker 5: what are you going to sacrifice in terms of your
Speaker 5: pay and in terms of your time. Something that I
Speaker 5: did was just writing a list down of what those
Speaker 5: sacrifices would be, so you're going into this with your
Speaker 5: eyes fully open. Number two, if you have an idea
Speaker 5: for a business, you really want to start with validation.
Speaker 5: So what's the cheapest and fastest way to prove or
Speaker 5: disprove your idea? And hint, that's probably not building out
Speaker 5: a full app. Again, Michelle's really helpful steps are going
Speaker 5: to be in our newsletter. And action point number three.
Speaker 5: I sort of wanted to end the episode with something
Speaker 5: that I think summarizes this really well. It's something I
Speaker 5: heard the other day. So making money is your reward
Speaker 5: for putting value into the world. So don't think of
Speaker 5: it in terms of what do I want to build.
Speaker 5: Think of it in terms of what people actually need.
Speaker 2: So my absolute favorite thing this episode is being assured
Speaker 2: that it's okay to love your corporate job. I'm sure
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia is very happy about that. Sometimes we want
Speaker 2: to go boss, and sometimes we just don't. And for
Speaker 2: anyone sitting there with the business idea burning a hole
Speaker 2: in their brain, please please please check out our newsletter.
Speaker 2: This week, Michelle's broken down exactly how to validate your
Speaker 2: idea without spending ascent. I'll chat to you in our
Speaker 2: buz Inbox episode that drops this Thursday, where we answer
Speaker 2: all of your career dilemmas and see you next time.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on