After 15 years of working as an event marketing professional, I decided that I was ready for a new chapter in my life. It was time for me to quit my job and become a solopreneur.

The companies I’ve had the pleasure of working with have treated me well, given my family benefits, and paid me generously. I sincerely appreciate the opportunities I have been given. It was just time for me to follow a new calling.

When I started my podcast in 2016, it was just a hobby. Something to do as a way to give back, learn from others, and hopefully help a few people along the way.

As time passed and I learned more about the incredible network in the personal finance community, I discovered some people were doing this for a living. Not only were they doing it as their sole income source, but they were also earning great money and had flexible hours as well. 

Fast forward a few years, I too figured out how to make a living from my hobby. Now I have an award-winning financial education platform that has landed me sponsors, content creation opportunities and speaking gigs.

This wave of opportunity, combined with my passion for helping families build wealth and thrive, was too hard to ignore. 

So I went for it. But it wasn’t easy to give up a stable career with great benefits and a six-figure salary with two young kids at home. My wife and I had a lot of conversations, and man, did we prepare. Here are the 10 steps we took to ensure my transition to solopreneurship was a success. 

Eliminate Debt

When my wife and I got married, we both carried some debt into the relationship. I had $30,000 of student loans, and she had a $20,000 car loan. 

We agreed that we’d tackle the debt together by living on my income alone (at the time, it was around $70,000) and using Nicole’s income to pay off our debt. This helped us eliminate our $50,000 of debt in around 12 months. 

With no debt or car payments and lower overall living expenses, we allowed ourselves to be more open to opportunities like part-time work for my wife, her eventually going full-time Stay-at-Home Mom, or, in my case today, solopreneurship. 

Achieve Coast FIRE

Over the last decade, we have saved for our retirement so that we can take advantage of compound interest and save on taxes. Here are the areas where we invested:

401k

For my last 6 years with my employer, I maxed out my 401k. Combined with the match I received (another awesome perk), we amassed nearly $200,000. My wife took advantage of 401ks through her workplaces over the years, too. After leaving our jobs, we rolled over our 401ks into IRAs to consolidate things and make it easier to track.

IRAs

In our IRAs, we have amassed $700,000 (both Roth and Traditional). If we allow that to do its compound interest growth thing (and not add another dime to it), we should have around $2.2 million by age 60. This is what we like to call Coast FIRE! We can stop contributing and still achieve our retirement goal 17 years from now.

With that burden reduction, solopreneurship felt even more attainable.

Pay Off the Mortgage Early

A few years ago, we were able to pay off our $200,000 mortgage early. We were able to do this by partnering together, keeping our expenses in check, and increasing our income. 

During this time period, we averaged around $170,000 in income, so as I said earlier, I was very grateful for the generous income I received in my career.

Even though we were making great money, we lived on a lot less than we made. Our annual expenses were between $60,000 and $80,000. This helped us to realize we could live on a lot less than we made and still feel very happy.

Once the mortgage was gone, I felt a lot more confident, happy and prepared to make decisions that were in the best interest of our family and our future. 

Save 12 Months of Expenses

About 50% of small businesses fail after the first 5 years. One of the major reasons that they fail is that they run out of money. I didn’t want that to happen to me.

We decided to save up 12 months of expenses in a high-yield savings account as a cushion. This made us feel protected as our income was going to be unpredictable at the beginning (no steady paycheck anymore). 

Originally, we were going to use this money to buy our first rental property, but we’ve since decided against that. This small business is going to be our first big investment instead. 

If you're looking for a smart place to park your emergency savings, check out Crew. This is our family bank and we're enjoying their high interest and convenient family-centric features. Here's our full Crew review.

Research the Cost of Health Care

One thing I was always worried about was the cost of health care. If I lost my benefits, how would I get coverage and take care of my family?

Well, it helped me a lot when I started to research it. It wasn’t as scary as I thought. 

If I kept my coverage at work through COBRA, it would be around $1,700 per month. That wasn’t bad, but I thought I’d do some more research. 

I went on HealthCare.gov and found a High Deductible Health Plan that covers our family (very similar to my coverage at work) for around $1,200 per month. With dental thrown in, we were around $1,300 per month. 

And since we went with a High Deductible Health Plan, we continued to invest in our Health Savings Account (HSA) and save and invest for future health care expenses. As that HSA account continues to grow (we partnered with Lively), it gives us even more protection for unexpected health events that may arise. 

Diversify our Household Income

I hope for the best for my solopreneur venture, but it's good to know I'm not alone when it comes to our household income. My wife works part-time as well as an aesthetician. Both of us work around 20-25 hours per week.

Additionally, my business has multiple sets of income. I have affiliate marketing, sponsorships, freelance content creation, brand ambassador work, coaching and speaking opportunities that help me diversify my income. If one of them falls flat or goes away, I have the others to lean on. 

In my fourth full year in business, I was able to pay myself an $80,000 salary. As I head into year 5, I’m hoping to grow that salary even more while still maintaining my part-time work schedule.

Try the Business as a Side Hustle First

Jumping right into small business ownership would have made me feel nervous. I’ve learned so much over the last 8 years about managing and owning a business.

Being an employee for 15 years, I’ve had an HR department, sales team, marketing leaders, accounts receivables and even an accounting department. With solopreneurship, you have to be ALL of those things and more.

I’m glad I gave myself some practice to realize this before taking the leap. I have gotten some virtual assistant support from Belay, which has helped a ton. I'd highly recommend checking them out for fractional VA services. They have taken the minutia off of my plate so I can focus on growth and strategy.

Also, by trying out my small business as a side hustle first, I gave myself ample time to decide if I liked it or not. I’d hate to quit my job, start my new business and then decide I don’t like it

My side hustle time was like a test run beforehand. “Try before you buy” per se!

Plan Out Our Budget

My wife and I know we can comfortably live on $84,000 per year. We know this because we craft the numbers together using our Monarch budget. It helps us stay on top of our expenses. This is super important as a solopreneur. I enjoy Monarch so much that I use it for both my personal budget and my business budget.

The sheer act of writing down the numbers made us feel more comfortable with this big decision. We have had to sacrifice some “extras” in the first few years as we got used to our new income level, but we’re comfortable now. 

Grow My Network

Over my 15 years in the corporate world, I’ve developed a solid network of folks who work in the event marketing industry. That network has helped me to get new career opportunities, grow my skills, and increase my salary from 5-figures to 6-figures.

Now that I’m jumping into a new industry (financial education), it was important for me to grow a new network as well. So for the last 8 years, I’ve been making connections, both in-person and online. Through my interviews on my podcast with millionaire solopreneurs, personal finance experts, and financially independent families, my network has grown substantially. 

With a bigger network, you get more opportunities. Based on the connections I’ve made, I was able to receive new opportunities for writing, speaking and content creation. 

As they say, your network is more important than your net worth.

Take a Leap of Faith

I like to think I was very prepared for this big decision, but I know there are thousands of things I’m still yet to learn.

After all, I’ve never been a small business owner before.

I've seen days of failure already. And I know more failures will come. There will be more rough days ahead.

But I know there will also be some big wins in my future. And those days will be incredible ones.

I know, either way, my family will be there to give me a hug and say, “You’re doing your best. Keep at it.”

This is an adventure. Pure and simple. That’s what gets me excited. The unknown. The unpredictable.

So here I go. Jumping into year 5!

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

Do you think you could leave your corporate job to start a business? What do you think of these steps toward solopreneurship?

Please let us know in the comments below.