I’ve been where you are. I don’t envy you the path of the next few years. But I do want to encourage you and pass on a couple of things I’ve learned in the last 2.5 years.

1. Having a new business is kind of like having a newborn.

If you’re not a parent, that’s a meaningless analogy. But if you have children, you’ll immediately get it. Newborns require all of your time. You barely have time to sleep, eat, or even shower. You go to bed thinking about them. You wake up thinking about them. A new business is like that, except that you can’t go to sales meetings in your pajamas, and you need to at least look/function like you’ve had more than 2.5 hours of sleep. Even if you haven’t. When we started MantyWeb Designs, I literally dreamed about the business every night. I dreamed about strategy. I dreamed about sales meetings. I dreamed up ideas that were ridiculous in the light of day. If George (the husband and business partner) and I went on a date, we talked about the business. When I talked with friends or family, all I could talk about was the business. I’m pretty sure my children thought they had a new sibling called “the business”.

The take away: New businesses are needy little creatures. Find people who share your enthusiasm and will encourage you along the way, so you don’t burn out (or burn your friends and family out).

2. “Profitable” is a state of mind.

Especially, if you’re leaving the corporate world, that blissful land of benefits and 40 hour work weeks and paid vacation, you’re in for a surprise. For the last 2.5 years I’ve had a moving milestone of what we needed to make to be “profitable”. The real number was too scary to think about. So, I measured profitable as the business (gross) made the same as George’s take home pay. Never mind that his take home pay was after taxes and insurance. Shh! Close enough. Then it was the business (gross) made George’s salary before taxes and benefits. It was a while before I could look at the business income (net) vs. what we actually needed to pay our bills. If anyone had told me when we started the reality of what the business would need to make to cover our monthly expenses, I would have told George to start sending out his resume because there was simply no way that was possible.

The take away: Be realistic about your financial needs, but break your goals down into reasonable chunks. You may have to lie to yourself a little bit, but if you stick with it, in the long run it will be worthwhile.

3. The old standby “it takes money to make money” is, unfortunately, true.

I’m not going to say it’s impossible to make a living on zero start up money, just like I’m not going to say it’s impossible that if you throw a lemon seed in your back yard that it will grow a lemon tree. I’m just going to say it’s very, very unlikely. You don’t have to have millions to start a business, but you need to have something. This may mean you have to take a part time job to cover the expenses for your business. Or max out credit cards. Or borrow from your parents. Or empty your 401k (yes, I know, tax advisers HATE that advice). But if you believe in the business passionately, give it a chance to live. Pay for that professionally designed marketing material or (ahem) website.

The take away: Get creative and look for payment plans or barter or whatever you have to do (that’s legal and ethical, of course), but make sure that you’re giving the business the resources it needs to thrive.

4. Time or money – it’s one or the other.

As a new business owner, you will feel like you don’t have enough of either. But everything that needs to happen in your business will either require that you do it yourself (time) or pay someone else to do it (money). Figure out where your time results in the most monetary return and pay for the rest. If I had it to do all over again, we would have hired a book keeper day one. Minute one. When we couldn’t afford anything. George and I hate dealing with that side of the business and, in the long run, it cost much more to get someone to “catch up” our books than it would have ever cost if we’d just hired someone to take care of it from the beginning.

Take away: If you’re absolutely not going to create content, or make cold calls or whatever – find someone who will. And get on with making your business make money with YOUR strengths. You’ll be happier and more productive.

5. Speaking of content, inexpensive ways you can help promote your business.

This is really a another whole blog post, but I’ll just be brief. You can promote your business inexpensively. It will require your time. You need to create content. Either through blogs. Through social media channels. Or both. If you can get out there and network like crazy (some networking groups are paid, and some are free – find one that works for you), and you can create social media content or blog posts and get your friends and family to share them like crazy, you can promote your business. If you love this part of your business and can think of no better way to spend your day than hanging out on LinkedIn answering questions about your business or Tweeting away, and it’s helping your business turn a profit, awesome! Keep doing that and get someone else to do the rest. If you’re not crazy about it, do it long enough to get some clients and hire someone else to do it. If you don’t know what you’re doing, paying someone to teach you (either one on one or through webinars) or spending the time to sift through the free content online is probably one of the best investments you can make. Put a blog on your website and USE IT! It’s not a magic bean that grows traffic. You can’t just add a blog tab on your site and expect the business to roll in. But putting a blog tab on your site and creating content WILL help your business. Really.

Take away: You’re going to have to promote your business somehow. If money is tight, content creation and social media participation is an excellent way to get the word out. Just remember it does require a consistent time commitment.

So, dear owner, I hope this has been useful to you. I hope you’ve learned something that helps you. If you love your business, just stick with it. Find other business owners who will encourage you. Read business blogs that fill you with hope and dreams. Remember that most businesses are not overnight successes. 2-3 years seems to be the minimum that it has taken most of the business owners I know to get to a comfortable place (not rich, but able to pay the bills on a regular basis). Hang in there. You’ll do great!