[BlurredSevens]

By way of background, I’m 27, and run my own tech business with 6 employees. I’m not a typical tech nerd, in fact I made my living as a journalist out of college for a number of years.

But, one day, the opportunity and the idea presented themselves to me, and I jumped on the chance.

Of course, running my own business at this age is a pretty cool feat, and it’s a lot of fun for various reasons, but I’ve got to ask: for other guys that have started their own company, do you ever regret it?

What I mean is, I have a harder time getting away from my own business than I ever did as a full time employee working for someone else. I’d love to quit tomorrow, take 4 months away from any kind of work, and just cruise around Europe for the summer, living off my savings.

But I can’t. It's not like I can tell my boss to screw off and that I'm quitting...because I am the boss. I have to be the first one in the office tomorrow, and the last one to leave. I just feel this huge weight of responsibility, and I feel trapped. I know I can’t leave this company in good conscious for at least a couple years. Sure I will take some vacation and some days off here and there, but fuck, I’d love to spend ages 28-30 traveling the world, doing odd jobs here and there, and then figure out the rest when I’m in my 30’s.

I guess it’s sort of like being in a long term relationship. There are tremendous benefits, but I miss being free more than anything in the world.

Anyone else have a similar experience? Care to talk some sense into me?

[RougeNoir]

Have your company valuated then sell it.

[WanderingSoul]

Can you take on a partner to run most of the day to day work in the office while you handle what can be handled from abroad?

[Parlay44]

Take 1 employee and make him a manager. Pay him more than an employee but let than a partner.

[BlurredSevens]

Thanks for the replies so far guys - I understand that I do have a couple exit strategies and other options at my disposal, but realistically I'm in it for the foreseeable future. So my question is really more existential, the cost/benefit of owning a company at an age where most guys are traveling and having a lot more fun than I am.

[Valentine]

You're only in at as much as you want to be - as an entrepreneur you should never do something you can pay others to do.

Instead spend your time focusing on using your strengths, improving your business strategy and expanding.

Existentially however, this is simple deferred gratification. You're making the future better at the expense of the present, which in most cases leads to better rewards but you should always try to find a balance.

[reaper23]

..

[el mechanico]

Most employees have a tendency of running your shit into the ground. Mine can't do shit without me here as I prove everytime I leave and give them an option to stay here and make money. Do you want to know how much they've made? Not one fucking dollar in three times I've went to the DR.

Don't fuck with a partner if you didn't need one before it's like marriage and you'll get milked at the split.

I'm handcuffed to this place the same way you are but I make way more money than I could working for someone else plus I'm too Alpha to work anyplace where I'm not in control. Last month I decided to flip some cars and saved 10k in 30 days. Your not going to do that working for someone else.

So I'm going to inflate the value of this place for now and make as much as possible. Take short trips to stay sane. I posted somewhere here a link about using Wikipedia for your local Airport to see where they fly direct. Find the easiest/ best out of those and pipeline the fuck out of them.

[Parlay44]

I just started my own business with an old friend and co-worker of mine.
We partnered up and went legitimate on the books, company registered,
bank account ...etc.

The good part is we target most commercial work and don't need a regular
store front. We found some warehouse space in a local business park.
It has heat, electric, bathroom, a small office and even two huge garage
doors to the work area. All this for $500 a month.

We don't care about foot traffic. So our work comes in by us
hitting up local places and selling the work, word of mouth and targeted
marketing. So when we work we'll have a week or two of work per job
and may have a few days or weeks off.

So if I wanna take some time off we schedule the work around my vacation
time and my partner takes care of the day to day stuff in the meantime.

[Bad Hussar]

Some businesses just require the owner to be present otherwise things go to shit. Ideally you should be able to delegate management to an employee, but this might not work. In the first place you can't expect an employee to act the same way you, as owner, would act. Never going to happen. Nor should you expect it to.

An idea may be to get an equity partner in who also has management skills. Maybe even a current employee who can raise some cash to buy in. Don't loan him the money. It's all about equity. When someone has a non-trivial equity stake their behavior changes. Typically for the better.

PS: As an aside: One good thing about having your own business is that you can "fire" a customer. Try doing this as an employee. You'll be the one who ends up fired.

[Cruisen_Chubby]

I think right now you have a grass is greener mentality:

-All 27-30 year olds are livin' it up traveling the world... Yeah- No.
Most of them are getting engaged to soon to be human RV's and parking at home with them contemplating to procreate an ingrate spawn. Some are traveling (but it is for their employer under which they are subject to his destination and his itinerary).

You should take a good look at your books to see how much income is coming in every month.

Do a case analysis that would show how much income is coming in without your presence. If somewhat sufficient- you could train in a manager (increase the fixed monthly expenses pro-forma if you do this though) and go travel every other month or so.

The flight to Europe from the states is about a grand- but once you get over there bumpin around from country to country is not expensive at all.

I hope all works out for you.

[Vicious]

I had a small business once that never really got off the ground. Did some CAD drawing for crummy pay just to get a foot in the door but I had to hustle and bitch to get my cheques.

[BlurredSevens]

Thanks for all the honest replies guys, I appreciate it. I think El Mech and Cruisen_Chubby hit the nail on the head for me - the grass is always greener type of thing, and I don't know if I could ever go back to working for someone else at this point.

[jctennis123]

(05-08-2013 12:40 PM)BlurredSevens Wrote:  

Thanks for all the honest replies guys, I appreciate it. I think El Mech and Cruisen_Chubby hit the nail on the head for me - the grass is always greener type of thing, and I don't know if I could ever go back to working for someone else at this point.

I was hit in the face by the same experience myself. I thought starting a business would be better than being an employee. It seems like going out on the edge should be rewarded by more freedom of lifestyle and finances.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out what I can do that would be both fulfilling, freeing, and would actually provide income.

[Staros]

It seems that this is not doable for you, but a solution could be to turn your business to the web and become location independent in the process.

[kali]

Your still a slave to your job which defeats the purpose unless you are making a substantial amount of money. Obvioulsy there are some benefits but if you dont enjoy what you are doing, outsource or do something else. My suggestion is to get into real estate investments and develop passive income.

[MikeCF]

27 is young.

Make that cash while you're young. Early 30s are better than 20s. If you make something of your company and sell it, you will be balling.

At my age (mid 30s), I have a one-man company. Me. I've seen my friends build large companies.

Most guys don't realize that you really do start becoming a slave to the company. You have payroll obligations. If cash flow doesn't match payroll, you're taking out a line of credit.

There's the pressure to succeed combined with the pressure of knowing that many family depend on you.

I'm not into that.

However, I could never work for a company. You are a slave to middle management and can lose your job based on one screw-up at work. If a client gets pissed, you might lose your job.

It sounds like you have a good thing set up.

Go meet some older businessmen in an informal setting.

Cigar bars are great for that. If there's a nearby cigar lounge, you'll find lots of interesting older guys who can understand where you are coming from and offer good advice.

If you have the chance to sell, do it.

A friend-of-a-friend was offered $100 million for his company. He didn't sell. That was right before the market started tanking in 2008. All offers were dropped and now the company is worth maybe $10 million or so.

Right now the economy is a scam but is growing. If you can sell before the bottom falls out, take the money and run.

[iknowexactly]

I knew a guy that started a chain of stores, there is no way he could directly supervise everything. Delegating is a skill, some people think they are too smart to delegate. It may mean they're unskilled at delegation. Also, there's a lot of social reward being the guy everyone has to ask everything. Deep down you may not WANT to delegate.
To get past a certain point you HAVE to delegate, no question. Do you think Steve Jobs knew the chemical engineering details of integrated circuit manufacturing?
Did he know the details of skilled video editing for Apple's television ads? Of course not.

Here's the thing that that guy who had a chain of stores did-- he had what he called the "Four D's"

Before you do ANY task yourself, pass it through the D's:

1) Don't do it. Some tasks just aren't necessary. For instance, painting the inside of a storeroom no one sees.

2) Delay it. Sometimes there is no cost to doing something later, and it allows you to do more things that ARE time critical. For instance, paying a utility bill that isn't due for several weeks.

3) Delegate it. Train someone or find someone who already knows how to do it.

4) Only if the first three do not apply do the task yourself.

If you can't delegate something, you may have a failing as a manager at:
a) Choosing talent
b) Codifying knowledge and establishing standardized procedures such that others can do them.
c) Emotional attachment to being the center of attention and/or inability to trust.
d) Establishing incentives to motivate behavior -bonuses for performance etc.

[BoiBoi]

(05-09-2013 12:50 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

Before you do ANY task yourself, pass it through the D's:

1) Don't do it. Some tasks just aren't necessary. For instance, painting the inside of a storeroom no one sees.

2) Delay it. Sometimes there is no cost to doing something later, and it allows you to do more things that ARE time critical. For instance, paying a utility bill that isn't due for several weeks.

3) Delegate it. Train someone or find someone who already knows how to do it.

4) Only if the first three do not apply do the task yourself.

Thats kinda of a variation of the Eisenhower Method. Nothing new, but very useful.

[GyopoPlayboy]

I ran a small consultancy that employed around 5 people. I don't regret starting it. But I worked close to 12 hours/day and I was almost completely burned out a little over a year into it. (I also partied too much and thus didn't get enough sleep, which most likely expedited the burnout.)

If I were to do it again, I'd change a few things:
1. i'd delegate more. i don't like relying on others to do the important stuff, but this is probably my weakness. I would spend more time training the staff and delegating more work incrementally over time.
2. i would think hard b4 going back into a service-based business. i think there are more stress-free avenues to wealth than to constantly be at the whims of your clients, no matter how good they are to you.

[RichieP]

I regret trying to start my own business before I'd really entered the world of work properly.

I basically knew nothing out of uni and thought because I was smart I'd be raking in millions with internet marketing.

What I should have done was just go take a low-stress, OK-paying job, using my degree. And figured out how to freelance, and then figured out how to build a site or two, etc. And read 2 books a month on really practical stuff - anything people skills, marketing, sales, the best business books, etc. Shoulda baby-stepped it - by now I'd be a monster. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Hooligan Harry]

(05-06-2013 10:48 PM)BlurredSevens Wrote:  

By way of background, I’m 27, and run my own tech business with 6 employees. I’m not a typical tech nerd, in fact I made my living as a journalist out of college for a number of years.

But, one day, the opportunity and the idea presented themselves to me, and I jumped on the chance.

Of course, running my own business at this age is a pretty cool feat, and it’s a lot of fun for various reasons, but I’ve got to ask: for other guys that have started their own company, do you ever regret it?

What I mean is, I have a harder time getting away from my own business than I ever did as a full time employee working for someone else. I’d love to quit tomorrow, take 4 months away from any kind of work, and just cruise around Europe for the summer, living off my savings.

But I can’t. It's not like I can tell my boss to screw off and that I'm quitting...because I am the boss. I have to be the first one in the office tomorrow, and the last one to leave. I just feel this huge weight of responsibility, and I feel trapped. I know I can’t leave this company in good conscious for at least a couple years. Sure I will take some vacation and some days off here and there, but fuck, I’d love to spend ages 28-30 traveling the world, doing odd jobs here and there, and then figure out the rest when I’m in my 30’s.

I guess it’s sort of like being in a long term relationship. There are tremendous benefits, but I miss being free more than anything in the world.

Anyone else have a similar experience? Care to talk some sense into me?

My job required a ton of travel and when I branched out on my own the travel pretty much continued. What dropped off was the length of time I was away though, and I do miss the longer trips where I would be gone for 2-3 months at a time on average. I have to do shorter trips now, although the frequency is increasing as we relocate our operations out of Aus.

You are right, people dont understand how many hours you put in when you work for yourself. Its not just about your job on a day to day basis anymore, its all the other shit you have to deal with constantly.

Its also not that easy to just promote someone. Christ, its impossible trying to find good people, let alone people you can trust not to run entire departments or companies into the ground. Not everyone is entrepreneurial either and no manner of education will make them so.

My suggestion is to look to take a a few breaks from time to time. Its not that hard to be away these days. With mobile phones and internet access, you dont have to be in the same room all the time. Start giving a few guys a bit more responsibility and see how they go at first. Take week long breaks and gradually start spreading out a bit longer when you can.

Another option is to consider outsourcing to a place you want to spend some time in. Or perhaps even expanding somewhere and using it as a chance to spend some time there to see if its worthwhile. Guess it depends on what you do. If its support services, I guess there is not much you can do other than grow the business or try to groom someone into taking a lot more off your plate so you have some more free time

[Woolf]

In a real business You can replace yourself. What You have done is more upscaling a job where You get 100% of the value You create and not the usual 50% when You work for a company. Would your business profitable if You would hire somebody who does what You do? If not, does your business has really a market value?

Sure, if we You have an innovative Startup it´s nearly impossible to replace yourself, but on a vertical business it´s a MUST from my point of view.