What is a Lifestyle Entrepreneur and How to Become One?

04/13/20 | 6 MIN READ Revised 10/23/21

Discover what makes a lifestyle entrepreneur and how to become one.

A lifestyle entrepreneur is an individual who creates a business for the purpose of changing their lifestyle instead of making profits. This type of entrepreneur usually wants to create a business because they are passionate about it and believe that it will be personally rewarding for them. While it's always possible that the business the individual creates will eventually become successful because of how passionate the entrepreneur is, this success won't be brought about because of a focus on obtaining profits.

While the idea of a lifestyle entrepreneur is a relatively modern one, there are many entrepreneurs in the past who could now be labeled as lifestyle entrepreneurs. For instance, Richard Branson could be deemed a lifestyle entrepreneur since he wasn't originally focused on profits. The actual term was brought about by individuals who understand how powerful the internet is at creating streamlined businesses that primarily revolve around the core skill set of the entrepreneur.

If your goal in creating a business is to do something that you love and are passionate about, you might be able to consider yourself a lifestyle entrepreneur. When you're interested in leading a lifestyle that doesn't depend solely on making money, this type of entrepreneurship may be a good fit for you.

This article goes into more detail about what this type of entrepreneur is and the things that you can do to get started as a lifestyle entrepreneur.

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Signs You Are a Lifestyle Entrepreneur

A lifestyle entrepreneur is any individual who creates a business with the main goal of improving their life in some way. An example of a lifestyle entrepreneur is someone who travels the world and posts articles and pictures to a blog throughout their journey. To best understand what a lifestyle entrepreneur is, it's important to know more about traditional entrepreneurs.

A traditional entrepreneur is someone who finds a career to enter and then builds their life around the career. While this is a perfectly fine way to live, it's not always personally rewarding if you're not 100 percent passionate about what you do. As for a lifestyle entrepreneur, they focus on building their career around the life that they lead. While businesses created by lifestyle entrepreneurs will typically make money, the profits are used mainly to support the individual's lifestyle.

The main qualities that a lifestyle entrepreneur typically has include:

Flexible

No matter the type of business you are looking to start, lifestyle entrepreneurs should be flexible enough to know when to change tactics as new challenges arise

Committed

While lifestyle entrepreneurs aren't focused on profits, they still need to be committed to the business idea, which means performing an extensive amount of market research

Independent

If you decide to create a business as a lifestyle entrepreneur, it's important that you're an independent person who wants to create the business on your own while focusing on your passion

Realistic

If you want to be a successful lifestyle entrepreneur, you will still need to make money, which means that you should set realistic goals from the onset

Resilient

You likely won't be successful when you first start out as a lifestyle entrepreneur, which is why resilience is an essential characteristic for anyone who wants to make this a lengthy career

If you have at least some of these characteristics, you should definitely look into becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur.

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Benefits of Lifestyle Entrepreneurship

There are numerous benefits that come with lifestyle entrepreneurship as long as you are prepared for what this type of entrepreneurship entails. This form of entrepreneurship is important to many individuals because it allows them to run a business while they're traveling or from the comfort of their own home. You can have more freedom and flexibility as a lifestyle entrepreneur than many traditional entrepreneurs.

The many benefits of being a lifestyle entrepreneur include:

  • Being able to spend more time with your friends and family
  • Being able to make your own schedule and work when you want
  • Allows you to focus on your strengths instead of honing new skills
  • Gives you more freedom and flexibility to do the things you love while also making money from them
  • Has a substantial amount of personal growth potential
  • There are technically no limits to your income

Being a lifestyle entrepreneur isn't right for everyone. However, there are many reasons why you might want to become one. If you enjoy finding more efficient ways to complete your work but find that this isn't possible in a traditional workplace environment, becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur may be right for you. The same is true if you want to focus on your main skill set while automating practically everything else that comes with running a business.

If you're able to create a successful business as a lifestyle entrepreneur, it's possible to earn a significant amount of passive income, which is income that's earned when you're not directly involved in running a business. For instance, authors are able to obtain passive income from sales of their books once they are published on the market. While some work needs to be done, the fruits of your labor should provide passive income for months or even years. If you want your work to be centered around the things you enjoy doing, it's highly recommended that you consider becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur.

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How to Get Started

When you want to become a lifestyle entrepreneur, the main steps involved with doing so include:

  • Determine what kind of lifestyle you want to lead
  • Identify your passions
  • Think of business ideas that correlate with your passions
  • Research these ideas and formulate a plan
  • Set pricing and marketing
  • Automate and outsource when you can

Before you begin to work as a lifestyle entrepreneur, it's important that you determine the kind of lifestyle you want to lead, which could be anything from traveling around the world to spending time completing volunteer work. Once you understand what kind of life you want to live, you can begin to create a business around it. It's also important that you identify your passions. If you enjoy writing and traveling, creating a travel blog is a great way to enjoy both of these passions while making money at the same time.

The business ideas that you think of should correlate with your passions. The three ways that you can make money as a lifestyle entrepreneur include:

  1. Selling information

  2. Selling your skills

  3. Selling physical products

If you enjoy teaching, you can become an online tutor or sell educational books that you write. Once you've cultivated a list of business ideas, you should focus on researching these ideas and forming a business plan from them.

If the idea that you've settled on is able to make you enough money to support your lifestyle, you will then be tasked with getting this business off the ground. Your business plan should include your expected financials, a marketing plan, and a product or service idea. When setting pricing, it's important that you charge enough to fund your lifestyle while also making sure that the market you're catering to is willing to pay these prices. You will also need to focus on marketing if you want your business to be a successful one.

Finally, you'll want to automate and outsource whenever possible. Whether you hire virtual assistants for customer support and bookkeeping or focus on digital product delivery, being a lifestyle entrepreneur is most beneficial when you can earn passive income and avoid working constantly during the week. As you start this business, make sure that you reassess on a regular basis. If some ideas aren't working, cut them and focus on the areas of your business that are showing potential.

Use the Right Tools

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If you want to function properly in lifestyle entrepreneurship, it's important that you use the right tools that will allow for substantial automation while also matching your business idea. In the event that you want to run an online storefront while you travel, you should make sure to create this storefront on the right platform that will help you obtain long-term success.

Shopify and WooCommerce are considered by many to be the top eCommerce platforms on the internet, which means that you should look into using these platforms for your eCommerce needs. Lifestyle entrepreneurship is only possible if you use the right tools. The exact tools that you require all depend on what kind of business you're creating.

🔬 Find out: How to Create a Business Plan

The Future of Lifestyle Entrepreneurship

The future is looking brighter than ever for individuals who want to be lifestyle entrepreneurs. This type of entrepreneurship is able to thrive on the internet, which means that further technological improvements in the future should make it even easier to be a lifestyle entrepreneur. Being able to avoid producing and distributing physical goods when creating a business on the internet makes it more advantageous to become a lifestyle entrepreneur.

If you would like to become a lifestyle entrepreneur, the various steps that you should take include identifying your passions and what you're interested in, deciding what you're good at that could help you obtain a lead over the competition, and making a comprehensive outline of your ideal day. Once you take these steps, you should be able to find a business idea that corresponds with what you're interested in and the things that you're good at.

As long as you're able to automate most of your business tasks, you should expect to have a very short work week where your money is mainly derived from passive income. The beginning of this journey will likely be the most challenging aspect of it. Over time, however, you should be able to navigate these challenges and lead the lifestyle that you're truly passionate about.

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