Start Your Own Business After a Layoff

Starting your own business and becoming self-employed is one solution when you've lost your job. Looking back at it afterwards, it may even turn out that losing your job was a blessing in disguise. But that doesn't mean that everyone should immediately start their own businesses as soon as they become unemployed. Moving from being employed to being self-employed is a big change and to make the transition successfully takes planning and preparation.

If you're suddenly unemployed and thinking of starting your own business consider these points:

First, are you ready to be a business person? Being self-employed is very different from being employed. See if you have the entrepreneurial mindset necessary to make a successful transition from being employed in some one else's business to starting a business of your own in 6 Traits You Need to Move From Being an Employee to Being Self-Employed.

Second, you have to financially bridge the gap in income that will occur when the last pay cheque is gone. New businesses don't make money right away and it may take months before you have any more income coming in. Here are 7 Financial Strategies for Transitioning from Salaried to Solo that will help you keep the bills paid while your new business gets off the ground.

More on Becoming Self-Employed:

• Start Your Own Business: Pink Slips To Deposit Slips (About Small Business Information)
• Top 10 Tips For Starting a Business That Will Succeed