Are you too strapped for time to start a business? Think again. Typically, if you are someone in a 9-5 job role and dreaming of a ‘passive’ income, whereby you aren’t paid hourly and can even make money whilst you sleep, it is difficult to get out of a daily routine which takes up every waking minute and leaves you too tired to do anything productive in your time off. That said, it is small incremental baby steps which pushes you in the right direction when you are feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed to start a business. A small amount of progress each day is better than no progress at all. Every journey begins with a single step...

1. 30 day guide to start your own
business when you are too busy
working a 9-5 job…
Are you too strapped for time to start
a business? Think again.
By StartupStreams.com

2. Typically, if you are someone in a 9-5 job role and
dreaming of a ‘passive’ income, whereby you aren’t paid
hourly and can even make money whilst you sleep, it is
dif
fi
cult to get out of a daily routine which takes up
every waking minute and leaves you too tired to do
anything productive in your time off.
That said, it is small incremental baby steps which
pushes you in the right direction when you are feeling
unmotivated or overwhelmed to start a business. A
small amount of progress each day is better than no
progress at all.
Every journey begins with a single step…

3. Escaping a full time job generally looks like this:
1.1. Your 9-5 job fuels your side hustle
2.2. Your side hustle fuels investment into assets
3.3. Your assets replace your 9-5 income
Setting aside time for your side hustle can be a challenge itself
and is where a lot of people fail. This is why we have created a 30
day plan whereby you would only need to set aside approximately
15-20 mins a day to setup, launch, manage and develop your side
hustle or a ready-to-grow Startup Streams store.
*(Of course, you can complete many of these tasks in one sitting if you’d prefer to
work on your side hustle business at the weekend or during the holidays).

4. For your 15 mins a day, make sure you
fi
nd a comfortable and quiet
place where you can work undisturbed. This is the time of day
when you work on your personal goals so you need to take
yourself seriously and be strict with your ability to focus. So grab
yourself some liquid caffeine, work when and where it is quiet and
switch off from all outside distractions - get ‘wired in’.
If you still struggle to
fi
nd 15 mins a day, just remember that
everyone in the world has the same 24 hours in a day as you - no
one is ever ‘too busy’, everyone just has different priorities. What
are yours? Just know that there are people right now who are
busier than you who still manage to work on their side-hustle…

5. This guide is based on how to launch any of the
100+ pre-made, ready-to-grow businesses for
sale from StartupStreams.com, but can apply to
almost any business which uses the Shopify
commerce platform.

6. Day 1: Come up with a catchy name
A memorable name is important as it allows you to say what you’re
about and helps people to think of your company unprompted and it
is what your business’s
fi
rst impressions will be based on. You can
choose an obscure short one word name, like Google, or a keyword
rich name like ‘Keto Guides Online’ as a few examples.
Make sure the name you choose is available as a domain name and is
untaken on social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter, as this will come handy later on.

7. Day 2: Buy a domain name
Next you need to acquire your prime digital real estate - the best
domain name for your business. A .com domain is preferred in the
USA, but you may wish to choose any one of hundreds of other
domain extensions to help you to differentiate yourself from
competition. In your Shopify store, go to Settings > Domains > Buy
New Domain, and enter your domain name of choice. Equally, you
can use a domain name provider like GoDaddy to buy the domain
and then link to your account.

8. Day 3: Read our support pack
Our support pack is a great resource to help you understand
how Shopify (the world’s leading ecommerce platform your
store uses) works and how to manage your store. It would be
better to read this early on in the 30 day plan, which is why it
is today’s task, to give you a basic understanding of your store
and to make yourself familiar with the other marketing
content included which you can refer to at a later stage…
You can access this from the Startup Streams member’s area

9. Day 4: Change store settings
Today is the time allocated to make sure the back end of
your store is setup correctly. You will need to change items
like the store home address and tax settings. Head from the
store’s admin and go to Settings > General, and make your
way through each of the sections to make sure the
information is correct. You can change items like email
addresses and currency later as this will take more than 15
mins to set up today.

10. Day 5: Write a short about page
Your about page is the second most visited page one your
website when you
fi
rst set out. This is because potential
customers wish to know who they’re buying from and
want to know you’re a trust worthy store to send payment
for goods to. Make sure you include some quick
background information, show your passion for the niche
and leave a name and contact details (email address is
fi
ne
at this stage - we’ll make a custom one later). A welcoming,
professional photo of you wouldn’t go amiss either. This
would help build trust with your customers.

11. Day 6: Add privacy, terms and refund policies
From your store’a admin panel, go to Settings > Legal. You can use the
Shopify template terms and privacy policy and delete or add as you see
fi
t. Make sure you have a refund policy too, as some marketing channels
like Facebook and Google won’t permit you to sell with them without a
refund policy - Shopify provides a copy-and-paste template. The refund
policy can be as you see
fi
t: No refunds, part-refunds or full 30 day
guarantee no-questions-asked refunds (most likely to convert into
sales?). Make sure you also copy and past each of the terms, privacy and
refund policies and past into a dedicated page (From admin > Online
Store > Pages > Add page). This is so that customers can see this
information before checkout. Make sure you also add these pages to your
navigation section (From admin > Online Store > Navigation > Main
navigation, and add pages).

12. Day 7: Decide on your pricing structure
(and currency)
You can charge any amount for the products you sell on your
store. This means you can take our recommended RRPs
(recommended retail prices) which will automatically appear
when you add the ebooks to your store in Shopify or you can
edit each individual price from Admin > Products. The price
range can be anywhere from $1-$50 but if you do choose to go
for the upper price bracket, make sure you are providing enough
value. Also bear in mind your expenses. How much will you a pay
for each customer and keep in mind any payment processor
fees? You can also change your currency to one of your choosing
in general settings.

13. Day 8: Add a payment provider
How do you want to get paid? You’ll need to add a payment processor
to your store in order to automatically take payments from your
customers. Popular providers include Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google
Pay and PayPal. We highly recommend Shopify Payments (actually
Stripe) which accepts most card types. Make sure that you check
which provider is available in your country / geographic region.
Adding this is super easy to do: From admin > Settings > Payments.

14. Day 9: Visit the Shopify app store
The Shopify app store has 1700+ readily available applications
which can seamlessly install and run on your store. Apps
greatly increase the productivity and customisation for your
store and there are plenty of apps which may be worth
looking into. Many are free, but as you’d understand some of
the best ones are paid apps so be careful how much you
spend each month on apps before making sales. We highly
recommend an app called ‘Stickify' (sticky add to cart button)
and ‘In Cart Upsell’ (you can recommend items to a customer
on the cart page when they add something to cart). Both of
these apps are free!

15. Day 10: Add a Cookie banner (EU only)
Keep it in the diary: 2 weeks to go before you launch your store!
According to EU Spam Law, you need to add a cookie permission
banner to allow those in the EU to give you permission to
monitor their activity on your website. Your Shopify store will
monitor customer’s activity such as which pages they visit. You
can install an app on your website, found on the Shopify App
store - many free choices available.
If you aren’t based in the EU/UK, you may wish to install said
Cookie banner anyway as most apps let you decide to only show
in EU/UK countries - best be safe.

16. Day 11: Create an email account
It may be a good idea to setup a dedicated email account for your
business. This is to separate customer correspondence from your
personal email account to make sure no messages get missed or lost in
your junk box. You could either set up a free Gmail account
(yourbusiness@gmail.com) or a professional Business Gmail account which
you will need to pay for each month (info@yourbusiness.com). It is
interesting to note that, at the time of writing, if you buy a domain
through your Shopify store, it comes with free email forwarding so any
email sent to your company’s email address (info@yourbusiness.com as an
example) will be forwarded to your personal account, or any account you
nominate. You will have to respond to these forwarded emails from your
own inbox but it is a great cost effective solution as you start out and
before making any sales.

17. Day 12: Test website on multiple devises
Now we need to test and check. Even though you may be
running the store from your desktop, it is important to note
that the majority of search traf
fi
c is from mobile devices. This
means your store needs to be mobile ready. Of course our
custom coded themes are designed to look great on mobile,
but it would be worth checking if you have made any additions
or customisations to your store. From admin > Online Store >
Themes > Customise. From here, toggle the views at the top of
the editor - or simply visit your domain address on your
smartphone and or tablet (or ask your friend to do so).

18. Day 13: Make a test purchase
To test everything is working properly and that you and
the buyer gets the relevant post purchase messages, it
would be a good idea to reduce one of the product
prices to $0.00 and make a test purchase - this will also
make you familiar with the customer journey. Just
remember to increase the price back to the original
before you open and start marketing the store!

19. Day 14: Create a Facebook account
The odds are that you probably have a Facebook pro
fi
le?
Today we shall make a page for your business. Head to
Facebook, start a new page from your personal login and
pick a name as close to your business name to maintain
brand consistency. Make sure that you
fi
ll all information as
recommended by Facebook including, but not limited to,
the about section, page descriptions, pro
fi
le and header
pictures (you can use the banner image from your website)
and make sure you link to your ecommerce store. Setup
your account to be ready for your launch so you are
prepared to let people know as soon as you launch.

20. Day 15: Create an Instagram account
This time, you need to open a separate account and it’s be great to
see if you can make it an Instagram business account as this will
give you more features such as activity and engagement statistics
on your page. Fill in all information and make sure you have an eye
catching pro
fi
le pic - but make sure it is basic and easily
identi
fi
able as the icon will be small on mobile devices. You can
then link your Instagram account to your Facebook page so
whenever you post on Instagram, you don’t need to post the same
image on Facebook which makes the whole process of social media
management very ef
fi
cient. Extra bonus points for searching for
the best hashtags (#) to use for your niche.

21. Day 16: Create a Twitter account
Twitter is a fantastic way to keep a running commentary about your
business as you can project short snippets of your company’s
activity to potential customers. Remember, that social media is in
fact social(!) so make sure that you are actively engaging on the
platform as well; which means re-tweeting, liking and commenting
on other people’s posts (make sure the pages your interact with are
on brand). Start a Twitter account today, again keeping the name
similar to your company name and domain then
fi
ll in the required
fi
elds of information to
fi
nish setting up your account.

22. Day 17: Blog post: Structure a blog post
Getting excited? 1 week to go before you launch your store!
Content is king. Setting up a blog is fantastic as it can both educate potential
customers about your services as well as bring organic traf
fi
c to your website from
search engines like Google. All Startup Streams stores on Shopify come with a built
in blogging engine meaning that you can setup a blog effortlessly. From admin >
Online Store > Blog > New Post. Decide what your
fi
rst post should be about. You
will want to concentrate on something which is interesting, attention grabbing,
relates to your business and has a call to action at the end to focus customers
towards your product(s). We provide a list of blog title examples in the Startup
Streams member area to help you to choose a catchy title. Once you have the theme
and title in mind, structure the content of the blog post, and as we shall spend the
next 3 days writing a blog post, plan no more than three paragraphs with a
conclusion at the end. Spend your time today brainstorming only.

23. Day 18: Blog post: Write the intro and
fi
rst paragraph
Start you blog post today with an introduction to your
topic. You will want your blog post to respond to a
problem with a solution (which you sell of course) and
make sure that you are ‘speaking’ to the customer. Also
focus on the language you use - will you be formal or
informal? How does it match your brand?

24. Day 19: Blog post: Write the second and
third paragraph
Spend today writing two additional paragraphs, the core section of
your content, and make sure each paragraph attends a problem
solved by your solution (the products you sell).

25. Day 20: Blog post: Write the
conclusion with call to action
Finish your
fi
rst blog post today and make sure that you
sum up your key points with the ending pointing towards
your product(s) as the solution to your customer’s problems.
Here you can link to your product(s), and that is how to do
content marketing!

26. Day 21: Blog post: Proof read and publish
They say your best proof reading is done after you hit ‘send’.
Make sure you read through your work, fact check any
fi
gures
you used and when you’re ready, hit publish. Rinse and repeat
this formula for making more blog articles - aim to write 2-4 a
month or you could outsource to cost effective article authors
on freelancing platforms like Fiverr.

27. Day 22: Make a discount code
To aid your big launch (2 days to go!), you may consider
making a discount code for people to buy your product(s). You
can create hype around your product by limiting the amount
of discount codes available. With Shopify, it is super easy to
make a discount code. You can choose to offer a money off
discount or a percentage discount. You can choose which
product(s) you want the discount code to apply to and can
choose how many times each discount can be redeemed.
Once you have your discount code, make sure you add it to
your social media account pages.

28. Day 23: Setup a competition
One of the best ways to create buzz around a new launch is a
competition. You can use competitions to collect data from
potential customers and then you can send a discount voucher
to every entrant who didn’t win to divert a bout of paying
customers towards your store. We use a service called Gleam
which is great (but expensive) but you should be able to
fi
nd
some free, or at least cheaper, alternatives on the Shopify app
store. You have digital products to sell, which means the
competition prizes cost you nothing. You can also use a
competition to cross promote by contacting other companies
in your niche to see if they want to offer a prize as well and
share the competition with their pre-existing audience.

29. Day 24: Publish your store!
Today is the big day! You have spent the last 23 days getting
ready for now. You have your store built and ready to go, you
have your social media marketing channels up and running,
discount codes set… the last thing to do is launch! From admin
> Settings > Billing and link a card to make your Shopify
payments. This will open your store. Lastly go to Online store >
Preferences and uncheck the password box so the store no
longer needs a password to enter the store and you’re all set
and ready to promote! Three, two, one… go!

30. Day 25: Tell all of your friends and
family
Your
fi
rst handful of customers would usually be people in
your inner circle: Your friends, family, colleagues, next
door neighbour, the staff at the corner shop, the postal
courier… whoever you know. Contact your friends and
fans of social media and link to your website to start to
sending instant traf
fi
c to your store. Send an email out to
everyone on your email contact list and write a quick
personalised message to every number you have on SMS
and WhatsApp. These are the easiest sales!

31. Day 26: Post on all social media
channels
Now you have started to get your
fi
rst website visits (which
you can check in the Shopify analytics tab), you can start to
tell strangers - potential customers - about your business. You
already have the social media accounts locked and loaded,
now is the time to use them. Post 12 times on Instagram to
make sure your page has content for people who check out
your page to see what your offering is, include your discount
code in the page description and link to your website. If you
have linked your Instagram account to your Facebook page as
stated earlier, your posts will be automatically posted to
Facebook. You can then manually tweet about your store
launch also.

32. Day 27: Join Facebook groups and pages
Next, you will want to start promoting manually. Find pages on
Facebook in your niche and ask politely if you can post about
your business. As Facebook is a social media platform, make sure
that you are actually social and engage with other people in the
group or page. You’ll be able to
fi
nd lots of groups in your niche,
but some will be harder to
fi
nd than others. Make sure you use
Facebook’s search feature by
fi
nding a variety of different search
terms and limit the search to to groups and pages to be shown
only. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t just self-promote
and spam. This will be a waste of time as you’d get no sales and
most likely be kicked out of the groups and pages - you need to
provide value to the community.

33. Day 28: Instagram outreach:
Micro-in
fl
uencers
You can send free copies of the ebooks to in
fl
uencers as you have
in
fi
nite copies of your products and you can do this all for free. You
can
fi
nd in
fl
uencers on Instagram using hashtags, reaching out to
them and asking if they'd post about the site in return for receiving
the ebook for free. This is also a ‘numbers game’ so the wider your
net is, the more in
fl
uencers you contact, the better the results will
be. You can then reinvest this into Facebook and Google Ads to
create a steadier and less time consuming form of marketing and
income at a later stage.

34. Day 29: Facebook PPC Ads
PPC stands for ‘Pay Per Click’, which constitutes your average
digital marketing paid ads campaign. You only pay when
someone clicks on your ad - not just sees it. You can create
picture or video ads easily. Facebook also offer a variety of
analytics to help you and setting up an ads campaign has
never been easier due to their intuitive ads campaign setup
process*. You can
fi
nd freelancers to make your ads for you
on Fiverr.
*From personal experience, you'd want to start with 3 campaigns and ad sets to test, and would probably
want to spend $50 minimum per day in the
fi
rst 3 days ($150 total) on obtaining the best audience data to
fi
nd your ideal ad sets and customers - you can not guess this and is different for every business.
Facebook
fi
nds your ideal audience based on how people react to your adverts and needs a minimum of 3
days to do this. After the
fi
rst 3 days, pause the two least performing ad sets, invest in the best campaign
and scale from there. If none of that makes sense, head over to YouTube where you can
fi
nd out lots of
info on the subject.

35. Day 30: Startup the next business
Now you know what to do! It is time to rinse and repeat…
You have experience with setting up and launching an
ecommerce business with only 15 minutes a day. You have
the skills and know-how to apply this new found knowledge
again and again and again. A prime reason to join Startup
Streams is so that you can startup as many revenue streams
as you want, so now would be a great time to start to think
about which niche and store you wish to start next? Brain
storm your ideas then return to Day 1 on this list and repeat
the process.

36. Moving forward…
From now on, it is all about continually improving. This is what
an entrepreneur does best. A successful entrepreneur always
expands their knowledge and knows that marketing is an ever
changing game: Every year algorithms get edited, different
strategies stop working and new platforms are released and
you can only ever get ahead of your competitors by staying
relevant. Make sure you’re always learning, watching relevant
YouTube videos (be critical about what you’re being told on
there however) and each time you launch a new business, push
yourself harder and faster than the last time. Being successful
online is a continuous state of review, experimentation and
improvement.

37. StartupStreams.com
100+ Pre-made, ready-to-
grow businesses for sale
Written by Eddie Eastman,
CEO, Startup Streams