10 reasons to start your own business
13 Nov
This is the second part of a series of business tips that I felt I should share, all from experience, of course. The first part was about the realities of owning a business. Hard brutal facts.
So you’ve thought long and hard, you’ve worked out your plan, had a reality check about the disadvantages of owning a business and you’ve decided you have what it takes to start a business. You’re good to go.
But first, let’s look at the other side of the coin. What are the actual advantages of owning or running your own business?
I wasn’t going to cover this, since I thought it was pretty obvious, but since Dante hinted at it in the comments section, let me list down a few reasons why owning a business rocks.
Presenting, the sunny side of Entreprenuership Street:
1. Personal satisfaction
There is no better feeling that waking up everyday, walking into that office, store, restaurant, boutique and knowing that everything in there is yours. When you buy a new car for the business, or open a new branch, or hire a new employee, the personal satisfaction you get is beyond any you will get at any job.
The day a customer decides to give a personal word of thanks or commend you for a job well done… your heart swells with pride.
And when five years down the road, you have made it, when you look back at the long journey, with all it’s hardships, trials, sad times and good times, you will know that yes, you finally made it.
2. You will be building a major asset, and building equity
Assets bring you money, that’s the easiest definition. At each stage of growth of your business, its value is growing, your profits are increasing and eventually, your business becomes self reliant. At that stage, you can decide to retire, sell your business, or continue working. Either way, you’re getting paid for all the hard work you put in and the sacrifices you made.
A small business investment can end up raking in hundreds of millions of shillings at the end of every financial year, and as the owner, you are entitled to a very huge chunk of that profit. The rest goes to taxes and re-investment into the business.
Or if you decide to cash out, you can sell your business for hundreds of millions of shillings and walk away to a new life.
Personal experience: Someone once offered to buy out NVGOR8 for a very huge sum of money, and later, I got another offer to buy out Elemental Edge for close to 120 million shillings. And later, another offer for a 36% stake in Node Six for almost 80 million shillings. In each case, the companies were not more than 1 year old. Considering I was the sole propreitor of Elemental Edge and Node Six, and I totally loved what I was doing, each of those offers would have been a windfall.
3. Owning a business is the best business experience you could ever ask for. Period.
Nothing teaches you how to run a ship like running a ship alone. You get to know all aspects of the business, legal, accounts, procurements, HR, etc. You will be miles ahead of your peers in terms of dealing with responsibility, taking actions and making critical decisions.
You will find yourself making corporate presentations with ease, talking to customers with pride, you will learn how to deal with employees, how to settle disputes, how to set short term and long term business growth goals.
In essence, you will learn how to run a business at almost any scale.
4. You will be your own boss
I know this is a direct contrast to what I said earlier, but it is in an entirely different context. Yes, your business and your customers will be your bosses, but it is you in charge of the business, there’s no one higher than you pushing you around, making threats or setting your in and out time. You work on your own terms and conditions, but within reason. Want to work from home or at the beach? Want to work in jeans and sneakers? That’s okay, as long as your clients are happy.
Personal experience: almost 80% of the time I’m wearing jeans and sneakers, and at one time, I even had cornrows. What matters most is the clients were happy because their work was being done and delivered on time.
Be warned, if you misuse this freedom, your business will fail. Period.
5. You will eventually attain financial freedom and financial independence
First, all the money the business makes is yours. Of course you have to pay taxes, pay salaries, rent, etc, but all the money the business makes is yours. If you plan and manage your finances well, you will find yourself earning a whole lot more than you did when you were employed.
Second, you will learn to be self reliant. You will learn to live within your means, no uneccessary expenses, savings will become a part of you and you will stop depending on a monthly paycheck for your survival. This is one of the biggest things holding people back from starting out on their own.
6. Your hard work and long hours are appreciated.
Let’s face it, the reason you leave work at 5pm is because you believe your loyalty to Big Corp Inc ends at five, as stipulated in your contract, after all, no one appreciates the extra time you put in, right? Well, when you own a business, your hard work and long hours directly benefit you, instead of increasing profits for your employer, which in turn leads to more financial freedom, and greater satisfaction.
7. Set your own work schedule
Again, this one is a direct contrast to what I said earlier, but it holds truth. As the owner of the company, you can decide what your official work times are. If you prefer to work at night, or during the day, four hours a week or 140 hours a week, it’s your call.
You can take off a month to go on vacation, you can take off time for family, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is delivering your product to your customers, making sure they are happy, and making sure you stay in business.
8. You can use the business to buy assets.
It gets a little tricky here, but depending on how good your accounting system is, and how your business is set up (limited company, partnership, sole-proprietorship, etc), you can buy almost anything you want and write it off as a business expense or investment. A car,a computer, land, etc.
But, you have to be very careful here and make sure you stay within the law, otherwise your financial (and physical) freedom may vanish very rapidly.
There are risks involved, like if your business goes bankrupt or is sued, that chunk of land belongs to the business so it will be up for grabs.
Tread carefully on this one.
9. Say goodbye to office politics and associated drama.
Owning the company means you can hire whoever you want, even if they are not qualified (of course, the repercussions to this are obvious). You choose the right people, the people you get along with, the people who will help you grow. Of course as the company grows bigger the politics creeps back in, but for a while, you will enjoy this freedom.
You can do away with bureaucracy and create a complete company culture of your own, like bean bags for chairs, or a swing smack in the middle of the compound (we have one, needs repair though).
10. Can anyone say R.E.S.P.E.C.T?
There is a certain amount of respect we all reserve for people who own their business, and who are successful. The kind of respect that is not given to a normal employee, even if they hold a fairly high position. Owning a sucessful business tells the world you are focused, disciplined, a go getter, and made of tougher stuff than Superman. Okay, maybe not Superman.
But you get the respect, and this ties perfectly with the personal satisfaction, and builds very powerfully on the brand of Me Inc.
And finally, you will have the time of your life!
People who looked at this item also looked at…
Related items
Hi. I read a few of your other posts and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links?
Thanks for posting the article, was certainly a great read!
Can I say an Amen to point number 9? I absolutely LOATHE any kind of politics – especially office politics.
Being a recovering procrastinator, I know what you mean about the balance between setting your own schedule and wasting time. It can be tight.
Can I just add to your list? Owning a business is a great way to enhance your personal development. You learn so much about yourself (and other people) in the process and every step makes you a better, stronger person.
[owning a successful business tells the world you are focused, disciplined, a go getter, and made of tougher stuff than Superman]
[okay, maybe not Superman, but how about as tuff as Superman, coz he was given his powers at birth...]
[and finally, you will have the time of your life!!!]
.m.a.d.p.r.o.p.s..!.!.!.!.!.!.!
DAWG
NUFF SED..
when do we have that sit down…
Is the Art of Japanese Management book making any strides?
or you are gwan tell me that time has been lacking playa…
hola
Mr. B2B…’s last blog post...p.r.o.p.s.
Eiiii, missed the socks..gotta run. Will get back to this.
Nevender’s last blog post..The Aging of American Presidents
So that you can learn that time for the grind is strictly for the grind…
and that other time is strictly for you and yours playa…
STRICTLY!!!
i am co-signing with P’zMomz on the learning about yourself part too…
Mr. B2B…’s last blog post...p.r.o.p.s.
I better get serious also. Thank you for this, SK.
My my, the Elf is indeed full of the wisdom lately, whats going down? lol I agree with you on this and especially with PMama & B2B, owning ones own business certainly does teach you alot about yourself. I learnt quite abit about good old me during them navugo days. Speaking of which I saw a company the other day called Envigour! And don’t ask me what its core business is.
The Apprentice’s last blog post..This is beneath you…
No 4 appeals to me most. But No7 is not as easy…the work hours could be worse than u had it at Big Corp Inc.
SK, u shd (totally) have seminars and workshops, I know I could benefit heavily from that.
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..So, guys cheat too?
@Mike and Dan, welcome. I’m glad you found the post useful. We’ll see about the link exchange thing.
@Mamapete, lol, Amen indeed. I actually left out the personal development point because I thought it was inferred throughout the post. Thanks for highlighting it though.
@MrBDawg. Lol at the superman thing. Still trying to sketch time for the sit down. Time bees tight. And the book is a gem.
@Nevender… dude, seriously, sometimes you need to look beyond the socks and read the posts.
@Mudamuli, you’re welcome
@The Apprentice, knowledge is useless if not used or shared. Envigour eh? Rip offs!
@Miss Fyne, the work hours can be worse, very true, but it’s about discipline. Maybe I’ll have online seminars
R.E.S.P.E.C.T my brother, Respect.
Otherwise, how yu doing?
King, I do read. If I am to win any socks again. I surrender them to Ms Cheri. So you will not hear socks bizness again from me on your blog.
Nevender’s last blog post..The Aging of American Presidents