In this Part we’re going to work out exactly why you want a business.

We’ll use this to map to what sort of business you should create. Not all businesses are built the same and not all will be what you actually want to build.

Let’s get started:

Getting Clear on your Motivations

1. Work out your why

First up we’re going to work out our Why.

Lots of people want to start a business but they never really stop to think why exactly.

Or if they have it’ll be vague things like “I want more money” or “I hate my job”.

Both good reasons but let’s gain some more clarity using this prompt

Act as a business coach

Run an assessment to work out the reason why I want to start a business. 

Reasons include but are not limited to - Own boss, Pursue passion, Financial independence, Flexible schedule, Leave legacy, New challenge, Innovate, Capitalize on idea, Fill need, Express creativity, Gain respect, Financial security, Dissatisfaction, Create jobs, Work/life balance

Ask a series of 10 questions moving from negative (push) reasons to positive (pull reasons), honing in on the top three reasons 

Ask the questions one at a time, wait for my response and then ask the next question. Draw on previous answers to shape new questions. Do not explicitly mention the framework being used

Now simply answer the questions that ChatGPT asks. The more detail the better so take your time and don’t rush the answers.

Each answer will adjust the next questions meaning that this prompt is reactive.

If you find that your answers take ChatGPT off in the wrong direction either say so so that it can reset or go ahead and start a new chat with the prompt.

💬 Prompt Output:

After running through the process ChatGPT will give you your top three reasons for wanting to start a business. These may surprise you.

Often it’s not just cash that drives us but instead more control of time, being able to build a legacy or something else more fundamental.

Don’t worry though - you can make cash at the same time. In fact you need to in order to be able to support your primary goals.

2. Income requirements

Next is an extremely powerful prompt that will help you work out how much income you actually need to live your ideal lifestyle.

Go ahead and use the prompt for now and I’ll explain more about how it works in the output.

Here’s the prompt

Act as an entrepreneurial coach who is helping a first time business founder to work out how much they need to earn in order to live the lifestyle they want

Walk through this process with me one at a time. Ask the questions for each step, await my answers and then move to the next step:
-Define your ideal lifestyle. What does quality of life look like for you? Consider aspects like hobbies, travel, housing, possessions, experiences, family time, how many children, etc. Guide me through this process to gather information on what the ideal lifestyle looks like. 
-Research cost of living. Ask me where I want to live. Look up average prices for housing, food, utilities, transportation in your desired city or town. Factor in costs of your lifestyle. List annual costs. Make a detailed list of estimated costs for your lifestyle. Include necessities and discretionary spending. Generate an estimated cost of living.
-Identify goal costs. Determine one-time and ongoing costs for major goals like buying a home, starting a business, having kids, dream vacations.
-Calculate annual amount needed. Add up all annual costs and goal amounts needed. This is your baseline yearly income requirement.
-Factor in taxes. Use the amount required and the location's tax bracket to provide a tax estimate. Adjust the annual total by subtracting estimated taxes to get your pre-tax income target.
-Add savings buffer. Ask me to decide on a savings percentage (e.g. 10-20% of income) and add this to get total needed pre-tax income.
-Provide a final result of how much is needed per year in a tabular format with the costs that make up this required total. 

💬 Prompt Output:

This is a long output but worth including in full so you can see how powerful it is.

For this example I used

“london townhouse, £1m one car, a tesla S travel 6 momths a year, international but relatively budget (airbnb) dining out once a week, theatre once a month 2 children, non-private school”

as my lifestyle inputs.

ChatGPT will take that basic information and run through the whole process of working out your required annual income for you.

The more detail you give it the more it’ll be able to accurately gauge required income.

Based on the inputs I gave and the fact that I live in London (one of the most expensive cities on earth, fml) ChatGPT comes out with a pre-tax income of £200,000 ($244k).

Obviously this is not a replacement for working with a professional financial planner but it’s amazing at getting you into the right ballpark.

Most people when starting a business never go through this exercise. They aim instead for wild numbers like “make a $1bn company and sell it” or “earn $10m a year”.

If your desired lifestyle requires this sort of income - perfect! The calculator will generate this for you and give you an accurate figure.

For the majority of people though once you plug in your actual requirements you’ll generally find that the actual amount needed from a business is lower than you expected.

For instance if I plug in a Ferrari Portofino and a 5 bed house in the Hollywood Hills in my inputs on top of all the London based inputs I added in before I come to this figure:

$763,636 per annum required to maintain my London - LA lifestyle.

Obviously this is a lot of money. But it’s not $10 million a year levels.

It’s also a real figure. A goal we can aim at. Rather than some random figure that internet gurus have got your excited about.

Go through this exercise and generate your total needed (pre-tax). We’ll be using it shortly.

3. Premium Prompt - Guidelines with Teeth

Free Trial - Premium

We’re providing a free trial of the Premium Prompts. Premium Prompts will be available for members only once our community launches. Stay tuned.

In the first prompt we worked out your why.

Let’s use this prompt to expand these wider goals into a proper brief.

The idea here is to move from generalisations to actual guidelines with teeth.

Here’s the prompt

Act as a business coach.

I have identified 3 reasons for wanting to start a business. 

Combine these three reasons into a short brief that explains how I can use a business to achieve these 3 goals. 

Focus on what I should aim at and just as important what I need to avoid. 

💬 Prompt Output:

This turns some generic “nice to haves” into actual rules for the business. I’ve included things to avoid for this reason - limiting what our business does is one of the best ways to shape its trajectory.

Pulling it together

Now we’ve done all the preparation work. Over the last two Parts we’ve run through lots of coaching prompts to extract information about the best business for you to start.

In the next Part we’re going to pull this together and start coming up with business ideas and niches.

All this preparatory work will make the next step all the more powerful.

A reminder of what we’re covering this week

Part 1: Exploring Your Interests and Skills

Part 2: Getting Clear on Your Motivations

Part 3: Finding Your Niche

Part 4: Validating and Refining Your Idea

Part 5: Planning Next Steps

See you tomorrow Prompt Entrepreneur!

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle