Being at home with your kids is a blessing and a challenge, but it can also be an opportunity for branching out into business dreams you’ve nurtured. Being a mompreneur can be very satisfying and lucrative with a strong start and the right moves. Use this guide courtesy of Fromgirltogirl to help you become a successful mompreneur.

1. Choose a Mom-Friendly Business

Choosing the right business idea is important for any budding entrepreneur, but when you have not just a business to run but children demanding your immediate attention, it becomes even more vital to pick a mom-friendly business that works for your family. For example, your business will likely need to have flexible hours so you can work around school pickups and drop-offs, toddler naps, and everything in between.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, any business idea you choose needs to have strong market appeal and a need it can satisfy. If there are already 10 women in your community selling something, that is likely not what you should be selling. Instead, look for problems people around you have that you could potentially solve, and develop your business from there.

2. Manage Your Time

Because being a mompreneur means being divided between two competing forces, time management is essential. Time-management apps can help you keep track of day-to-day tasks.

It also helps to have a big-picture planner to ensure you are meeting not only the demands of the day but the long-term needs of your business and family, as well. A monthly planner template can be customized with sticky notes, graphics and even videos to help you personalize your experience to make sure it suits your needs. The benefits of an online calendar for planning include being able to see all the tasks you need to tackle in the next 30 days so that nothing sneaks up on you.

3. Know When to Outsource

While you may have many skills, it’s difficult for one person to run every part of a successful business on their own, and achieving work/life balance is going to be practically impossible if you’re doing it all alone. Some areas of running a business can particularly benefit from a professional touch. Accounting and marketing, for example, are essential to business success. The professionals who are trained in these areas know how to get results that an untrained person will not have the skillset to achieve.

There is no need to hire full-time employees either. You can find freelance accountants using online marketplaces such as Upwork, and you can obtain digital marketing services to get news about your business out to your target audience on Fiverr. Using services such as these allow you to get the most bang for your buck as you do not have to carry the expenses that come with hiring full-time employees.

4. Give Yourself Grace

Raising children and running a business are both demanding and important jobs, and there will inevitably be times when you feel like you’re failing at one or both. When this happens, do not let yourself get down. Instead, assess where things have gone astray and make plans to better prepare for those situations in the future. Setbacks are a natural part of any endeavor, but instead of thinking of them as failures, reframe them as opportunities to learn, grow, and do better in the future.  

Do not let fear of failure hold you back. Believe that you can achieve the work/life balance you have dreamed about. You will be on your way to mompreneur success in no time.