Why There’s No Such Thing as the Perfect Time to Run a Business

Let me say from the outset – there is no perfect time to start or run a business. For many budding entrepreneurs every year brings the question of “is now the right
time?”.

There are always going to be reasons for people to not to take the leap. Economy feels uncertain. Life feels full. Responsibilities are stacked high. And somewhere between ambition and anxiety, we tell ourselves: I’ll start when things calm down. There will never be the perfect time to start or grow a business. There will be some, the ‘wantrepreneurs’, who have all of the books and the perfect plan, but never quite get their business going as they continue to wait for the universal signal that tells you, “now you’re ready, stop waiting”. Others who have their hands forced by big, life changing moments. And of course, those who grow their side hustle or passion into a business and have to decide when to take the leap.

The reality is that most business aren’t started in well-organised chapters of life. They start in the middle – with pressures, responsibilities, disruption, and doubt. And they will still need to be run whilst juggling families, caregiving, financial stress, or all of the above. I know this not as a theory, but as lived experience. If you run a business, it’s easy to get caught in the daily grind. However, there will be moments which rapidly pull you out of the ‘business bubble’. For me, everything suddenly changed for me when my mum first became seriously ill, and I stepped in to become her carer.

I am incredibly fortunate to live next door to my mum. Our company offices are on the top floor of her house which she previously ran as a B&B. Yet when she became ill, the reality of the closeness meant there was no shielding my personal life from my professional one. Life became messy, emotional, exhausting, and relentless. Every day felt like a caring tug of war. Between business decisions and medical appointments. Between client strategy calls and school drop-offs. Between ambition and responsibility. Between guilt and grit.

Balancing personal and professional responsibilities and life is something every business leader has to face. There can still be this overwhelming feeling and pressure that you can’t let any of the balls drop and if you do, you are failing. If you read the ‘business guru’ books they’ll tell you, “when time is scarce you stop wasting it”, but I have found that to be a myth peddled by those who don’t have real caring responsibilities of their own. In difficult situations, especially with caring, you are not making choices driven by rational, but by love. The real reality is when time is scarce you have to make tough decisions. For me, it was do I outsource caring or accept scaling back on business?

Where do you put your energy when energy is limited?
I knew I didn’t want to scale back Sell Beyond. So, I made the decision to put systems in place that would allow me to step back and delegate. I focused my energy towards hiring skilled people to ensure we could offer top-level training to clients, helping companies build their own step-by-step Amazon plan to significantly increase their customer base, revenues and profits. A complete solution for Amazon sellers – one that ensured Amazon worked for business owners, not against them. By making a leadership decision and developing a fantastic team, I was able to both grow my business and serve my personal and family needs. Did I make this decision knowing what the outcome would be? Of course not. But entrepreneurs and business leaders need to be able to make decisions with the acceptance that youcan’t get every decision right.

I have the privilege of interviewing incredible business leaders from different backgrounds and who have founded their businesses in different ways on my , Tell Beyond, and a common thread is that entrepreneurship is about making a conscious decision to stop worrying about whether every decision is the perfect one. You have to pull the trigger again and again. This doesn’t mean you have stopped caring. Far from it, but that you are wiling to take a risk in order to grow.

A final thought for 2026
“Never go too fast, you might miss a butterfly.” That’s something my mum says, and it’s been on my mind lately. Business feels tough right now for many people. The economy, the pace, the constant noise – it’s easy to get caught up and forget to look around. However, it’s
important to take moments to slow down and breathe. I find fresh air and open space are a good reminder that there’s always something beautiful out there if you take the time to notice it.
Sometimes, we all just need to lift our eyes and look up.