Through the Carnival of Entrepreneurship, I ran across this entertaining post by Chris Pearson called How to: Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye. Chris details his experience leaving a corporate job and setting out on his own to design websites for a living.
He has a nice lead in and tease:
"Does the idea of a corporate gig give you that warm, fuzzy feeling? Is a raise of 6% per year until you retire to a $20 storebought cake and a Rolex your idea of financial well-being? Did you know that health insurance really isn’t all that expensive? Hey, college boy, do you run around campus to hit up interviews each spring?
Stop already! There are tons of myths out there that protect the corporate lifestyle, but you need not be fooled. If you want to be continually robbed of your freedoms, be my guest, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. On the other hand, if you want to know how to avoid the corporate rut forever, read on!"
I love it when I hear a story of a real person who made the shift from bitter corporate drone to happy (and in his case golf-playing) entrepreneur. And at the risk of sounding old, he is just a spring chicken! Makes me proud and hopeful about the next generation.
More power to you Chris!
Photo by Nara Vieira da Silva Osga
If security is a concern, the best way is to do both.
Employers might frown upon this if they found out, but then there are plenty who are okay with it.
All it takes, in some cases, is a few long weekends to get things off the ground. Then a continual effort on nights and weekends for a while.
But once you get everything automated, you need only devote 2-5 hours per month on your side biz, if you can set it up that way.
Using these techniques I’ve bootstrapped my current side businesses to $3,000+ revenue per month. (almost all could be profit but we’re pouring it back into the business instead)
I made the shift over a year ago and discuss it a bit here. As a result I often end up in conversations about working on your own. The idea of security always comes up, “I need the security right now”.
I’ve never understood this false notion of security. Working on my own allows me to build as much of a ‘buffer’ against slow times as I like. A company can, and will, walk you out the door at the drop of a hat. I’ll take the security of working for myself anyday over this supposed corporate security.