Welcome to part two of financial barriers to entrepreneurship, a blog series where Pocketed helps you navigate each growth stage of your new business.
In part one, we discussed abandoning your career and how that can prove to be a major barrier for people wanting to start their own ventures.
One of the next challenges many business owners face is building their founding team. Let’s say your business is growing fast, you likely need to expand and add some new skillsets. After all, it’s just not possible to do everything yourself.
Frequently, business owners will face the need for additional employees before they’re even able to get funding from banks or investors. So, the price tag that comes with hiring full-time employees may not be accessible for their company.
Here are some top tips for financially navigating the challenge of building your new business’ team!
Hire Freelancers
Thanks to the internet, marketplace platforms like Fiverr and Upwork include many professional profiles of those individuals who have the skills your company needs. On these websites, individuals are usually looking for freelance or contract work which can come at a manageable price for a growing business.
Use these sites and social media to your advantage when looking to hire. Need someone to handle a human resources project? Done! What about working with a social media wizard? Check!
And what if you’re trying to access non-dilutive grant funding to cover the cost, but just don’t have time to write the grant applications? Don’t worry, we have you covered for this one. Pocketed’s managed marketplace can match you with a grant writer. Yes, you have to pay the grant writer, but they’ll increase your likelihood of securing a good chunk of change!
Hire Part-Timers
This is somewhat similar to our last point, but in this case you’re actually gaining in-house employees (and that’s something to brag about 😉). Maybe you’ve been doing really well with managing most of your business on your own. You might not need full-time employees — just a little extra help.
By hiring people seeking part-time work, you’re not having to issue big pay cheques every pay cycle, but you’re still getting the help you need.
Keep in mind that if you plan to pay these part-timers using grant funds, some grant programs require that your new hire work a certain number of hours per week or work term. Always check the specifics before using a hiring grant.
Utilize Social Media & Job Boards
While this point won’t necessarily impact the financial burden of growing your team, it sure will help when it comes to savouring your precious time. We know you don’t have all the time in the world as a new business owner.
When putting a call-out for employees, use social media to get the word out! LinkedIn will be an important place to put your job ad because it’s where all the young professionals hang out these days!
Use the jobs section on LinkedIn to list your ad as well as sites like Indeed where people will be actively looking for jobs. Putting your call-outs out via social media will make for a quicker process when trying to find the perfect fit for your company.
And keep your eye out for Pocketed’s in-house job board launching in 2022!
Hiring Grants
Would we really be a grant-matching platform if we didn’t talk about the importance of hiring grants? Take it from us, as a fully grant-funded team, hiring grants are magical!
There are so many hiring grants you can apply to through Pocketed and even new programs are always opening! Even if you’re pre-approved for a hiring grant, if you don’t find the right fit, you can just let the grant expire with no repercussions.
A lot of hiring grants will cover between 50% to 75% of an employee’s salary, but some will even cover 100%, like Career Launcher’s Digital Tech Internship!!
Want to take advantage of these hiring grants yourself? Create your Pocketed account now!
