A Trade School Could Be Your Path to Business Ownership

If you are like a lot of young people, running your own business is a career dream. However, it is no secret that doing so is difficult as many businesses fail within a few years of opening. One of the most common causes of failure is not having enough capital to cover expenses before reaching self-sustainability.

To avoid this fate, running a lean startup with you as the sole employee can be a great option. Of course, you will need to learn the right skill set early on to be able to offer useful services. For this, going to trade school can be an excellent first step to business ownership. To learn more, explore the following insights, courtesy of Milestone Academy.

A service-based business that begins with a team of one can have good odds of success. However, you will need to do a lot yourself. Fortunately, taking a vocational school program may be the answer. Trade schools provide hands-on training for in-demand skills.

Although many people think of trade schools as focusing only on construction and related trades, they are significantly more expansive. For example, you could go to a vocational school to begin your healthcare career. This may help you to start a new pharmacy business or to work as a home health aide.

Of course, you won’t be able to learn everything you need in a single program. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources and tools that can help. For instance, if you plan to hire employees down the line to help bring your business to life, then you’ll need to understand the ins and outs of payroll.

Although this may seem simple on the surface, it’s actually quite involved. However, if this task is a little outside of your comfort zone, there is software available that can help simplify the process. For instance, small businesses often turn to employee time tracking software that allows employees to easily clock in and out for shifts. This software can also allow you to build schedules, generate a variety of different reports, and manage your team, all in one place.

You may be considering pursuing a bachelor’s degree (or another program) from a university. While this has advantages, four-year degrees are expensive and take a lot of time. Conversely, you could get certified in a trade program in two years or less at a significantly lower cost.

This means that you will have two major financial benefits. First, you will spend less getting started. Second, you will open your business (and start earning money) sooner. In other words, trade school is perfect for the lean startup methodology — a strategy that’s smart for many reasons, such as adaptability, ingenuity, and quick evolution, according to IdeaBuddy.

To expedite hanging your shingle you’ll first need to choose how to structure your business. Will it be a corporation? A partnership? An LLC is a popular choice for startups, as it offers liability protection to your assets and avoids the double taxation of a corporation. LLCs also have tax advantages, and less paperwork is required during formation and later for filing (which an online service also takes care of). States have different regulations around forming an LLC, so check the rules in Pennsylvania before moving ahead.

For your business to succeed, it needs to offer goods or services that customers want. Fortunately, trade schools focus on programs that are in high demand. Conversely, college degrees may not lead to an in-demand skill set. In the U.S., Statista shows that college enrollment increased dramatically between the 1960s and 2010s. However, it flattened in recent years as people realized that going to college is no longer a guaranteed path to success.

On the other hand, trade school employment is generally very high. Better yet, if you seize the opportunity to run your own business, you will have a lot of control over your own future. You can both provide in-demand services and make sure that you are always employed.

Automation and AI are a significant threat to many jobs. Fortunately, a lot of trade jobs are relatively resistant. For example, healthcare technical jobs often require patient service skills, technology upkeep, and communication abilities that AI is not well-suited for, making a healthcare program a worthy investment.

It is important for young people to know that a trade school can help you develop skills to run a lean startup in an in-demand niche without spending too much earning your degree. In other words, it is a great option for anyone whose career goal is to be a self-employed business owner.