Investing in Your Business, Episode 90

with Brad Touesnard on February 05th, 2016

When your business is young and cash isn’t exactly pouring in, it’s tough to know when to take financial risks. Sometimes it’s a $40 risk on a plugin, sometimes it’s a $4,000 risk on hiring some help. But how do you make sure you’re taking the right risks?

Being the owner/operator of your business means you will need take financial risks to grow, so the question is not “will I take risks”, but rather “how do I be smart about risks?”

Join me on this episode with Brad Touesnard of Delicious Brains (if you don’t recognize his company, you’ll like recognize his flagship product: WP Migrate DB Pro). Brad started as an independent web developer and has grown into a full-on business-owner, supporting his career and the folks that work with him.

We’ll talk about the evolution of freelancer to employer and hear Brad’s experience on taking risks to grow a business.

Watch this episode

Episode Transcript

Essential points about business risk from this episode:

Look for creative ways to minimize your business risk. For example, lease hardware instead of buying.

Pursuing education is not a business risk.

Software that saves you time and money is worth the investment.

Participating in a mastermind group can reduce the risk of unknown business ventures by knowing what others have tried.

Pricing new products is risky – too high or too low?

Sending a survey to your target customers can help you frame the risk of investment in a product that you want to launch.

Even though the cash flow may not be there for a product, you may need to take on the risk of adding an additional employee to build it.

There’s risk when hiring somebody. Be honest and upfront about a trial period and about the offer for employment.

A business focused around products should be able to be run by the employees without the owner oversight for a period of time.

Episode links:

Brad’s recommended podcasts: