How do you get over the hurdle of a ‘new’ startup business, and when was the point when you started earning enough to pay yourself/staff? What determined these decisions?
My path wasn’t conventional. Ran the business very part time and paid myself a few hundred dollars from each farmers market I did in the first two years. Beyond that, I didn’t pay myself. We had a distributor build our retail business while I hosted my television show Boundless and then only when that show wrapped did I dive in (mostly) full time. I started paying myself when our revenue neared $1M, but ultimately you need to have a very good understanding of your business fundamentals. You need to know and honour your budget on a weekly basis to ensure you’re on-track (revenue fluctuations etc. aside). Each business is different and if your goal is to pay yourself quickly, then build that into your pricing and instead of reinvesting in ads or other growth items, take part of that and put it towards yourself. If you’re ok to go unpaid for a year or more, then build out what that would look like and where profit goes for brand building and business development.