I Think I Finally Understand What It Means to Reinvest in Your Business

For years, I knew I was supposed to put money back into my business. But I don’t think I fully understood that sometimes, growing a business means being willing to spend money on things you could have done yourself.

I was watching a YouTube video recently, and the creator shared something that really got me thinking.

He talked about how he had grown his YouTube channel to the point where he was making around £3,000 a month.

At some point, he spoke with a mentor about what to do with the money and how to grow the business further.

His mentor gave him an interesting piece of advice. Hire a video editor and guess what, the editor was going to cost him around £3,000.

Now, imagine making that kind of money and being told to spend £3,000 on something you could probably do yourself.

I could understand why he was hesitant. Why spend all that money when you already know how to edit your videos?

But he eventually followed the advice. And something interesting happened.

With someone else handling the editing, he suddenly had more time to focus on other things. He could work on creating better content, growing the channel and exploring opportunities he previously didn’t have enough time for. Over time, his business grew significantly.

And while listening to him explain that journey, something struck me.

I realised that although I’ve always known entrepreneurs should reinvest their revenue into their businesses, I don’t think I’ve really understood what that means in practice.

Why spending money on my business hasn’t always been easy

I think part of this comes from my background. For a long time, I was more familiar with earning a salary than running a business full-time.

With a salary, the arrangement is relatively straightforward. You work, you get paid, you save some money, pay your bills and use the rest to live. And naturally, you want to make that money last.

I also grew up around an environment where money often felt scarce. So saving money and avoiding unnecessary expenses seemed like the sensible thing to do.

If you could do something yourself instead of paying someone, why wouldn’t you?

Instead of paying someone to do your laundry, you do it yourself. Instead of hiring a professional for something, you might ask a friend who can do it cheaper.

If your business needs marketing, perhaps you learn marketing yourself.

And honestly, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of that. Sometimes saving money is exactly what you need to do.

But I started wondering whether that same mindset could sometimes be holding me back as an entrepreneur.

Because when you’re running a business, doing everything yourself might save you money, but it can also prevent the business from growing.

And that’s something I hadn’t given enough thought to.

Then I remembered an opportunity I had

I’ve been freelancing and building my software consulting business (builduct.co) since around 2019.

And one of the biggest challenges I’ve consistently faced has been finding clients. Most of the clients I’ve worked with have come through referrals, recommendations or people who already knew what I could do.

But reaching completely new people and consistently converting them into clients? That’s something I’ve struggled to build a reliable system around.

I’ve tried different things.

I’ve spoken with account executives, experimented with outreach strategies and even used AI tools to find potential clients on LinkedIn and send messages.

One of those tools actually helped me start a conversation with someone from Israel.

But overall, the results weren’t particularly impressive. A lot of the messages were ignored, and sometimes the people being contacted weren’t really the right fit.

Eventually, I started looking into hiring people who could handle client acquisition for me.

I found agencies and freelancers offering these services. Some were charging hundreds of dollars every month, while others cost thousands of dollars.

Then I had a conversation with a team that offered to become something like the sales department for my business.

Their proposal was around $350 - $750 per month for 3 months, plus a 10% commission on payments from clients they helped bring in.

Their target was to arrange around ten conversations with potential clients each month.

They would handle prospecting and help bring interested people to the table, while I would be responsible for closing the deals.

It sounded like a very good opportunity.

Client acquisition was already one of my biggest problems, and here was a team offering to handle a large part of that work for me.

But there was a problem.

At the time, I was expecting around $2,000 from a project I had been working on. I also had bills to pay, other projects I needed to fund and personal responsibilities to take care of.

Committing $350-$750 every month for 3 months was a significant decision.

And although the agency could promise to do the outreach and arrange meetings, they couldn’t guarantee that any of those conversations would turn into paying clients.

So I hesitated.

Eventually, I didn’t go ahead with the arrangement, partly because of the financial commitment and also because my business direction changed so I had to pause on the deal.

But after watching that video, I started looking back at the decision a little differently.

Was I avoiding an opportunity to grow my business because I was too focused on keeping the money?

Or was I simply being careful about an investment that might not work?

I think the answer is a little more complicated than either of those.

Not every business expense is a good investment

One important distinction I noticed is that hiring the video editor and hiring the sales agency weren’t exactly the same thing.

With the video editor, the outcome was fairly clear. You pay someone to edit your videos. The videos get edited and you get some of your time back.

What you do with that time, and whether it eventually increases revenue, is another question. But at least you know what you’re paying for.

With the sales agency, it was different.

I could pay $750 every month, have conversations with potential clients and still not close a single contract.

That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad investment. It just means the outcome is less certain.

And I think that’s an important part of learning how to reinvest in your business.

The goal isn’t simply to spend more money. It’s to spend money on things that actually move the business forward.

Sometimes that means hiring someone.

Sometimes it means buying software.

Sometimes it means paying for expertise you don’t have.

And sometimes it means investing in something uncertain because the potential opportunity is worth the risk.

But I think you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve with that investment. Maybe the real goal is to buy back time and capacity

This is probably my biggest takeaway from the whole experience.

When I pay someone to do something I could have done myself, I’m not necessarily wasting money. I might actually be buying back time.

And that time could allow me to do something more valuable.

For example, imagine I spend several hours every week editing videos, researching content, posting on social media and responding to routine messages.

I could probably do all those things myself.

But what if someone else handled some of them consistently?

What if AI could automate some of the repetitive work?

Now I have more time to develop products, improve my services, work with clients or focus on opportunities that contribute more directly to the business.

The business continues moving even when I’m working on something else. And I think that’s the part I hadn’t fully understood.

Reinvesting isn’t just about putting money back into a business. It’s about using that money to increase what the business is capable of doing.

So how do I decide what’s worth investing in?

I don’t know yet if there’s a specific percentage of revenue that everyone should reinvest. Maybe 10% or maybe 30%

Someone running a side business while earning a salary is in a very different position from someone depending entirely on their business to pay rent, buy food and cover other responsibilities.

The amount you can comfortably reinvest depends on your situation, your obligations and the stage of your business.

But going forward, there are a few questions I want to ask myself before spending money on the business.

1. What problem am I trying to solve? Is there something consistently slowing down the business or taking too much of my time?
2. What outcome am I paying for? Am I paying for something specific that needs to get done, or am I paying for an opportunity that might produce results?
3. What does this free me to do? If I take this task off my plate, what more valuable work can I focus on?
4. How much risk can I afford? If the investment doesn’t produce the expected financial return, will I still be able to meet my obligations and keep the business running?
5. Can I start smaller? Instead of committing thousands immediately, can I test the idea with a smaller budget or a shorter engagement?

I think these questions would have helped me evaluate that sales-agency opportunity more clearly.

Not necessarily to convince myself to take it, but to understand whether it made sense for my business at that particular time.

And I also think there’s value in prioritising investments that improve something the business needs to do consistently.

Things like content creation, research, marketing operations, customer support or administrative work.

They might not create a dramatic increase in revenue overnight, but improving them can gradually make the business more productive.

What I’m going to do differently

I should mention that reinvesting in my business isn’t entirely new to me.

I’ve spent money on tools, software, products and services that have made my work easier. And I’ve benefited from those decisions.

But I think what has changed is how deliberately I want to approach it.

Instead of always asking myself how much money I can save by doing something myself, I want to ask: If I spend this money, what new capacity am I creating for my business?

And perhaps more importantly: What opportunity am I missing by continuing to do everything myself?

That doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to start hiring people for everything or reinvesting every dollar I earn.

I still have responsibilities, and I think it’s important to be realistic about what I can afford.

But I want to become more intentional about identifying the things that are holding my businesses back and deciding where money could make a meaningful difference.

I’m going to experiment with this approach and see what happens. As I do, I’ll share what works, what doesn’t, and what I learn along the way.

Because I think one of the most important things I’m beginning to understand about entrepreneurship is that sometimes keeping more money isn’t necessarily the same as building a bigger business.

Sometimes, the better decision might be to use some of that money to help the business grow beyond what I can do on my own. Especially at the very early state of the business, most of your revenue is for reinvestment and establishing the business before you start to think about your payouts.

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On a related note, I recently wrote about another lesson I’ve been learning about money, this time from a personal-finance perspective. It’s about understanding where your money goes and making better spending decisions. If that interests you, you can read Where Does My Money Actually Go? What Tracking My Expenses Taught Me.