[Peregrine]

I agree with wwt in saying that you should keep hustling. You've done it once, you can do it again. Take contract gigs insofar as it helps you avoid waiting in line at soup kitchens.

(I also agree with wwt in saying that your ship has sailed on a corporate career. Let that motivate you to hunt your own dinner.)

Edit: This thread is loaded with good posts - thanks for your time and insights.

[RichieP]

You were doing 7 figures revenue per year, and now you had to get a job??!

One would think you must have some serious, serious internet marketing and system-building chops to achieve $1mm/year revenue. Doesn't that translate into setting up another $3-10k a month business with no trouble? Hell, just throw up a website, decent copy and start offering internet marketing services (PPC/SEO/Conversion). Or web dev. Get a couple of clients and outsource the work, make 60%+ margin. In 1-2 months you'd be at a "covering bases" income at least.

It would be tough to learn for a complete newbie but surely you could do it in your sleep? If you hit $1 million in revenue through your online business... I would think something like that would be a piece of cake for you.

Just an observation, but taking a job feels like too much of a step backwards. Do you think it's perhaps more about loss of confidence, and the trauma of such a big loss, than anything else (just a thought)?

In terms of marketable skills...Business is THE skillset to have dude. Everything else is just a specialist subset that doesn't carry nearly as much reward as being the conductor who orchestrates the whole operation. Maybe you do need to get a job to replenish funds for a few months after your loss... but IMO you should be getting back out there and using that killer skillset again to start raking it in, this time wiser for the lessons learned.

There's no way you just "got lucky" taking a biz to 7 figures. You do that once you can have massive success again for sure. Just learn from your mistakes... build your next business with risk managed properly (i.e. once it takes off, taking time to let it plateau and "cash out" for a while, building up your personal savings before reinvesting profits, making it defensible, building it "to sell", etc.)

Your issue is not "building marketable skills in case my business fails"... it's learning proper risk management, diversification, etc. Being able to walk away with $xx,xxx-$x,xxx,xxx in personal assets/savings because you cashed out sensibly along the way.