The Decisions That Actually Matter When You're Starting a Business
Part 3 of What I Would Do If I Had to Rebuild My Income from Scratch
In Part 1, I talked about what I wouldn’t do if I had to start over. Part 2 was my actual step-by-step plan for the first 90 days.
Now I want to talk about something that trips people up constantly: which decisions actually matter in this process and which ones feel important but actually aren’t.
Because when you’re starting from scratch, everything feels urgent. Every decision feels like it could make or break you, and that feeling leads to overthinking, procrastination, and wasted time on things that don’t move the needle.
Decisions That Actually Matter
Which income path you choose.
This one matters because it determines everything else: your content strategy, your offer, the audience you’re speaking to, and the metric you’re tracking. If you pick the wrong path for your life and your actual responsibilities, you’ll burn out or quit before you see results. Take time on this decision. Use the AI Monetization Map if you need help getting clear.
Whether you can sustain your content rhythm.
It doesn’t matter if you post daily or three times a week. The real question is whether you can keep doing it for months without falling apart. A rhythm you can sustain beats an ambitious schedule you’ll abandon in three weeks. Be honest with yourself about what you can actually maintain given your real life and all its responsibilities.
The quality of your freebie or lead magnet.
This is how people get on your email list, and email is where most online income actually happens. Your freebie needs to solve a real problem or answer a real question for your audience. It doesn’t need to be long or complicated, just genuinely useful. If it’s not, people sign up and immediately unsubscribe because they didn’t get value.
How you show up when people engage with you.
When someone comments, do you respond? Do you actually have conversations when people DM you? This is how trust gets built when you’re starting from zero. You don’t have a reputation or testimonials yet. All you have is how you treat the people who are paying attention. That matters more than most people realize. I can’t stress this one enough. In the beginning, personally respond to every single comment and message, and if you are using automation to respond to anything, make sure you are carefully monitoring it.
Whether you actually track your one metric.
If you’re not tracking something, you have no idea if what you’re doing is working. You’re just posting and hoping. Pick one number that actually tells you if you’re making progress. For most people starting out, that’s going to be email subscribers, discovery calls booked, or sales made. Tracking keeps you honest and shows you what’s working so you can make decisions based on data instead of feelings.
Decisions That Feel Important But Don’t
Your logo.
You don’t need one. A clean headshot or a simple text-based profile works fine. Nobody has ever decided not to follow someone because their logo wasn’t polished enough.
Your color palette and brand fonts.
These can come later. Right now, pick something simple and move on. You can always rebrand once you have an audience and income. Spending weeks on brand aesthetics before you’ve posted anything is avoidance. And this is coming from someone who loves everything to be aesthetically beautiful, so I understand the desire. But is beauty or aesthetics your goal? Or is it making money? Don’t get stalled on needing it all to be perfect before launching.
Which scheduling tool you use.
They all basically do the same thing. Pick one and start using it. You can switch later if you need to. This decision should take five minutes, not five days.
Whether your bio is perfect.
Good enough is good enough. Write something clear about who you help and what you talk about, and then start posting. You can refine your bio as you learn more about your audience and what resonates. It’s not permanent.
What your website looks like.
You might not even need a website yet. A Linktree or a simple landing page for your freebie is enough to start. Building out a full website before you have traffic is putting the cart before the horse.
The perfect first post.
There is no perfect first post. Your first posts will probably be your worst posts, and that’s fine. You get better by doing. Post something, learn from it, and post again.
The Real Filter
When you’re not sure if a decision matters, ask yourself this: Will this directly move my one metric in the next 30 days?
If the answer is no, it can probably wait.
Your logo won’t move that number and neither will your color palette. But your content will. So will your freebie and your engagement.
Focus on the things that directly connect to your one metric. Everything else is noise until you have momentum.
The Trap to Avoid
The trap is spending so much time on decisions that feel productive that you never actually start building. I’ve watched people spend months picking a niche, designing a brand, building a website, creating the perfect opt-in page, and they still haven’t posted a single piece of content.
And honestly? I’ve done this too. It’s easier to stay in planning mode than to actually put something out there. But planning doesn’t pay. Showing up does.
In the final article, I’ll break down a 30-day sprint. I’ll show you how to take everything we’ve talked about in this series and create an actual action plan, day by day, to go from zero to your first income coming in. No fluff, no busy work, just the stuff that actually matters.
This is Part 3 of the “What I Would Do If I Had to Rebuild My Income from Scratch” series. Subscribe to get the final article when it drops.
Still figuring out which income path fits your life? The AI Monetization Map walks you through a 10-minute decision matrix that helps you figure out which of the seven income paths actually fits your skills, your schedule, and your life. It also includes a 30-day action plan so you’re not just staring at a list of options wondering what to do next. Download it and get clear on your path before you start building.