Working Towards A Long Term Business Strategy

 Premise

The aim should be to select an industry that meets the following criteria

  1. An unglamorous business. These have lower competition simply because people do not want to do this work as much as other kinds of work. For example, nobody wants to do a garbage collection business because it is deemed to be low status
  2. A non-Black Swan business. Avoid these all or nothing businesses - for example Instagram influencers - the top 2% make 95% of the earnings and the bottom 98% earn 5% of the earnings. You are very unlikely to be in that 2%
  3. Higher barriers to entry. For example, to set up an accounting practice, you need a Practicing Certificate which requires 2 years of post-qualification experience.
  4. You don't want to just offer generic services as it will not stand out - you want to develop a thesis
Possible Outcome 1: Finance

  • Study for ACA - pass exams now and then apply for another training contract to get qualified by age 26. Then get 2 years post qualification experience to get the practicing certificate - up to age 28. This means you would be able to provide all kinds of accounting/finance services legally. 
  • Please note that you are able to provide all these accounting services without the ACA and without the PC - please see this weblink: Do I need a practicing certificate | AccountingWEB - clients rarely ask if you are ACA and you could start providing this services as of now. You can resign an ACA qualification, then not need a practicing certificate. If someone is ACA qualified, then they must get a PC - the advantage is that you can advertise yourself as being ACA qualified, but this is not necessary to get clients. Without the ACA and PC, you can prepare annual accounts, do bookkeeping, preparing management accounts, preparing payroll. Also read the comments on Time to talk about unqualified accountants | AccountingWEB to see why client's don't really care.
  • Based on this, it is best to use my fresh accounting experience and knowledge to try and offer some freelance accounting services which are basic. This will require some research on how to do this: e.g. do I need Sage or any kind of software, learning some basics of bookkeeping, brushing up on some practical aspects. Also worth doing a blog on summarizing my knowledge of accounting
  • To get started, build a client base on fiverr or upwork

Possible outcome 2: 

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