Launch a NO GRIND business

After launching entrepreneurs around the world for the last 10 years, most of them in America, I have noticed a few disturbing trends among the 1,800+ business owners. The issue seems to be that most people think that success will be achieved more quickly by working harder, longer, investing more money, and “grinding” as a method of winning.

However, most people don’t sign up to launch a business with a goal of non-stop work and grind as a goal. Rather, most young entrepreneurs or ‘sunset entrepreneurs’ want to run a business that gets them home for dinner with their family and isn’t heavy with working outside normal hours or 7 days a week. Well I have good news: it’s possible!

There are numerous businesses and models of running a NO GRIND business that promote and allow for a healthy lifestyle of balance between work and family. You may be surprised to find out that these all allow you to be successful without a large team of employees and you can make $100-300,000 a year after just one year of the business.

This has been proven based on the hundreds of business owners we have launched who are successfully saying NO to the grind culture and YES to the healthy and holistic model of doing business in a way that honors your family, your body, your community and your spirit.

Cool fact: you don’t even have to know what business you will launch before you make decisions on how you will run it.

Three tips for launching a NO-GRIND business

Tip #1: Start with the end in mind

What type of weekend schedule do you want? How many days do you want to work? How many employees do you want to manage? What income do you want to have? It’s the income problem that gives entrepreneurs the most temptation to slip up on their goals of healthy time boundaries. Most new entrepreneurs start with grand ideas of the end being a ‘scalable business that I can sell in 5 years for 3x my revenue’, but that’s not going to be the way to a NO-GRIND business. That will foster comparison and unhealthy time sacrifices.

Don’t get me wrong: starting a business is hard work. But it can be done in a way that honors yourself and those around you without chasing a top dollar end. In fact, almost every business owner I have spoken with who ‘started small and now run a $5-10 million dollar company’ tell me that they work a ton, wish it was the earlier days, and aren’t as satisfied with their lifestyle as when they first began.

When I started Launch Kits, we decided that we would honor our families and work 4 days a week. We knew this would mean losing some potential clients as we weren’t going to be as available to them as they wanted – but it was worth the building of a healthier business.

I suggest writing down goals related to 4 main areas:

1. Time: how many hours a day do you want to work? what time do you want to start each morning? what days of the week do you want to work? what days or times are non-negotiable to have off?
2. Travel: how local do you want your business to be? what limits do you have on distance/remote customers? do you have goals about travel you want to accomplish through your job? do you want to have family travel and seeing new places be part of your business model?
3. Team: do you want to run this as a solo entrepreneur or have a team? how large a team do you want to have at your peak? do you enjoy managing a team and overseeing the operations, or do you prefer getting your hands dirty every day as you work alongside others?
4. Equipment: do you like running “lite” and being able to fit all you need in a backpack or a car trunk? or do you want to have a single piece of equipment/heavy equipment that you use? do you want to rent equipment each day that you return, or own it and care for it yourself?

Tip #2: Choose your exit strategy before you choose your business model

Before you choose what type of business you want to run (service based, remote/virtual business) it is very important to decide if your goal is to scale and sell quickly, or to build a legacy business you can run for 10-20 years and maybe hand off to your children.

Why is that important? It makes a difference in what type of business you choose, it shapes the approach in your first year of business, and it gives you unique criteria to evaluate your success as you go. There are different metrics to track based on your decision and it helps you attract the right people on your team.

When we started Launch Kits, we realized that my co-founder had a desire to scale and sell and yet I wanted to grow a business over time that would have a greater impact on the team members I hired and services we provided. That created some friction early on (nothing we didn’t work through) but it made me realize how important a step this is when launching. If your goal is to scale-and-sell, it makes it hard to NOT GRIND because you just want quick growth, rapid results, and the grind culture will tempt you and speak to your aspirations.

I don’t think scale-and-sell businesses fit well in a NO GRIND business model. I think it’s possible if you stick to the first four questions and boundaries with conviction.

Tip #3: Value your time based on your desired salary

This is a tough one for new entrepreneurs because it doesn’t make sense at first. Here’s what you need to do:

1. pick your desired salary for year one (ex: $100,000)
2. value your time based on that salary (following this example: $50/hour)
3. charge for time accordingly, but more importantly: hire people for tasks under your hourly rate

The third part is hard, but here is how I suggest you practice it. If your bookkeeping needs done, rather than struggle through it yourself and being less efficient with your skill set, if you can hire someone for $25/hour to do it for you so that you can do something worth $50/hour – then do it! If you need a brochure or business card designed, rather than spend 4 hours perfecting, designing, and ordering prints, hire someone for $150 to get it done for you.

If, on the other hand, you are good at those things and enjoy those things, then do it yourself – but be aware of the time-money you are spending on it.

The math is simple: hiring someone do to something while you are doing something worth $50/hour that means you are not losing as much money as if you did it yourself.

A lot of grind culture encourages owner entrepreneurs to do it all themselves. Stay up late. Run hard and run longer than the others and you’ll win.

Well, I can assure you of this: over time, trying to run harder and longer will only wear you out, suck your joy of the business out from you, make you miserable to be around, and you’ll end up overspending time-money as well as relational currency.

I also would encourage you to consider your worth per hour when you are running errands or going to quote jobs, eating lunch, or agreeing to do something in place of your work. This is especially helpful if you want to make $200,000 or more in your first year or two because then your time is worth MORE so you should be more aware of what you give it to.

Wondering how to easily figure out your hourly worth? Take your annual salary goal (ex: $150,000) and knock off the “000” and divide by 2 to get your hourly (ex: $150,000 annual salary = $150 / 2 = $75 = $75/hour). Another way is to work from the hourly side and simply multiply by 2 and add the “000” to get your annual salary. So if you want to value your time at $35 per hour, that’s (x2) $70 and becomes $70,000.

This trick and monetization of your time can provide a helpful “Is it worth it?” filter for your daily choices when running a business.

Now The Fun Part: Pick an industry that fits your goals

Here is the fun part. Based on your answers above, you now can go through ideas that interest you and see if if fits your time, travel, team, and equipment goals. Of course, it helps to be talented in your chosen field, but – speaking from experience as an oceanographer-turned-web-designer, it is not an essential part of being successful. Then research if people in your desired business are typically scaling and exiting or building legacy lifestyle businesses.

There are a lot of businesses that work well as lifestyle businesses that have strong NO GRIND cultures and opportunities. Here are a few that come to mind as we’ve launched over 1,800+ entrepreneurs in the last decade:

• Handyman and Remodeling Companies
• House Cleaning/ AirBnb Cleaning
• Lawn Mowing/ Landscapers
• Deck Builders / Fence Installers
• Above Ground Pool Installers
• Power Washing Companies
• Photography / Wedding Photography
• Consulting and Coaching
• Dog Poop Clean Up Company
• Pet Walking Businesses
• Resellers (Amazon or Clothing UpCycle)

There are plenty of other businesses that you can launch and run alongside keeping your lifestyle balanced and personal well being in check.

The nice thing about these businesses above is that they are also Ai-proof businesses that will survive advancements in technology and continue to need real people to serve other people well.

I hope this gives you permission to launch a NO GRIND business and discover the joy of enjoying your work life alongside being present with your time and energy for your family and friends.