Thinking Of Starting A Creative Business From Home?

When I started my creative business, it was a journey into a world that I really didn’t know that much about: I had worked in corporate for years, but the online world was new and ever-changing (even more so now with the advances of AI!) and all of a sudden, I was in charge of it all!

It was simultaneously exciting and scary: my whole success balanced on whether or not I could figure out what needed to be done!

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Why Are You Starting A Creative Business?

The reason why you choose – or are looking – to go into business will influence how you set it up, your strategy and goals and how long it could take before you start seeing results.

When I started my creative venture, I had three very young children and building a business was something that became my escape: it was something that I could focus on in the quiet moments, with the goal of growing it slowly around a very busy family life. In the days when nappy changing and toddler tantrums were rife, it allowed me to see that I could achieve things and reminded me that I did indeed have a brain!

If you have limited time available, it’s worth exploring what will give you the best return on your effort: for me, this was creating digital patterns, website content and affiliate marketing.

Although digital patterns take a lot of time to produce upfront (especially that first one!), I could work on them at my own pace and then list them in an online shop where they can sell over and over again (even when I wasn’t working).

Website content generally has a longer life-span that social media posts on Instagram and TikTok, which tend to be be short-lived. Spending time learning how to optimise your content for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can pay huge rewards in time and help people discover you.

None of these strategies are a ‘Get Rich, Quick’ scheme, but they will help you to build a solid foundation that will scale with you as your audience grows.

Common Obstacles To Starting

When starting a new business there are so many decisions to be made and quite often, the biggest obstacles to making progress can be Fear and Overwhelm. Things that come up again and again are;

1. Imposter syndrome: this can be especially common when you’re starting out, when you might think that the success you’ve had so far is all down to luck, instead of a result of all the hard work and effort that put in. Nearly everyone feels this at some point or another on their entrepreneurial journey, especially when you’re doing something new/outside of your comfort zone;
   • Celebrate your wins, big & small: make a folder of lovely reviews/comments that you get to remind yourself of just how well you’re doing.
   • Recognise your knowledge & skills: you may not have had a craft business before, but you most likely have lots of relevant experience from other jobs which are just as valid.

2. Wondering if there’s space for you: oooh this is a biggie! There are very few brand new ideas in the world and when you see lots of other people doing the type of thing you want to do, it’s easy to interpret this as “why will anyone want what I have to offer?”. There are, however, other ways of looking at it;
   • It’s proof there’s a need for your idea! If there are so many people already doing it, there’s clearly a need and a demand for what you want to do. How can you make it different?
   • Your competitors are not you! We are all fabulously unique and connect with some people more than others…..and all of your potential customers are exactly the same! There is room for you.
   • Frequency Illusion: When you are interested in something, you will notice all the same people, brands and trends in that space that the ‘average’ person won’t have seen.

3. Technology overwhelm! This can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks, especially with the speed at which things are changing at the moment! You’ve got an idea you want to get out there and when there are so many different options to choose from, it can be hard to know which one is the right to go with. A couple of things to remember though are;
   • You don’t have to live with this choice forever! Choose the one that feels right for now, and then review in a years time. With experience under your belt you’ll be able to make a much more informed choice, but if you don’t start, you’ll never know!
   • How important is it really?! It’s easy to get caught up thinking you need all the tech from the very beginning but you can actually get started with very little and still be successful. The key is to identify the must-haves from the nice-to-haves in the future.

Knowing what you want your business to look like (eventually) and working on the next step can help you to make progress without worrying about all the other things that need doing too.

How Much Does It Cost To Start?

A creative home business can actually be started with very little monetary investment (although in some cases, investing can help you grow quicker). It all comes back to how much time you have to spend on your business and how quickly you want it to grow.

The things I would encourage you to spend money on in the beginning are;

• Domain (from £3)
  • Buying a website address is a relatively small investment, secures your company name and gives you the ability to set-up a professional looking email address from the start.

• Website(free – ££)
  • Not essential to have from the very beginning, but it does give you somewhere to showcase your work (articles, tutorials, new products that you’re launching) and encourage people to follow you on social media/join your newsletter.
  • Gives you the opportunity to be found from general internet search queries (this is part of the much bigger topic of Search Engine Optimisation).
  • Depending on where and how you set-up your website, you may need to pay for hosting.

• Setting up an online Shop (free – ££)
  • There are a couple of options which are low-cost/free where you only pay fees when you sell something eg. you can list an item on Etsy for just $0.20 / c.15p (and if you use this link you will get 40 free listings when you start a brand new shop!)

• Email Provider (free – ££)
  • An email list is so important to your business. It’s something you have complete ownership of (in comparison to Social Media) and is a great way of building a relationship with your customers.
  • There are many platforms that are free to use for the first 500-1000 contacts (eg. Mailerlite, Email Octopus) but you may find they have some restrictions. I started off using a free service and then moved to Flodesk which has a flat-rate fee regardless of the size of your list, as I grew closer to the threshold.

As you grow, make a date to review the tools and equipment that you’re using: its’ easy when you start out (and often have more spare time) to stitch together lots of free services but there will come a point where investing will give you a better tool/platform which frees up time, gives a better experience to your customers, simplifies your admin responsibilities and enables you to grow.

You can find a list of my favourite and recommended resources to use here (there are some discount codes too!)

What I’ve Learnt

Unsurprisingly, running your own business – even a creative one which you love – is hard work and it’s worth knowing that you are likely to experience one or more of these…..

• The admin involved will pull you away from doing the thing that you love.
• It can be frustrating trying to figure out how to make something work.
• As the business grows, it will fill as much time as you allow (often all of it……you will always be thinking of things that you need to do/ideas of things you could do!).
• There will likely be days when you question if you did the right thing and whether or not it’s really worth it.

On the flip side, it is also So. Much. Fun! You truly can build a business that suits the life you want to live, make friends with people who have similar interests and learn new skills.

Action Steps

1. How would you like your business to look, not just now but in a few years time?
2. How much time do you have to invest?
3. How much money do you have to invest?
4. What platforms/tech do you need to get started right now?

If you are looking for support in building your business then do check out the Craft a Business Club where we have weekly co-working sessions, mini trainings and a great community.