Would you choose to start your own business again?

I think that’s a myth that we expect when we start a business, but it isn’t reality. There are always too many fires to be fought. It’s like a bad marriage, you tell yourself “Just keep your head down and get over this hump, and then it will be okay” but there’s always something else that comes up. It’s relentless.

I can’t imagine that we’d ever have reached a point where we’d have found someone external to take over the running of the business for us. We’d have needed at least three very high level staff to do the 160 hours that DH and I worked each week between us. We couldn’t have afforded that while we couldn’t even pay ourselves NMW. Our admin staff earned more than we did! But at the same time, we could never let staff be aware of that because they’d (rightly) have been worried about their job security. So some no doubt thought that we were just rich, greedy bastards who were denying them another pay rise.

In our case, we were lucky in that we made a lot of money when we sold, so now we do have lots of freedom and flexibility. But we sacrificed a decade of our lives for it, and our children sacrificed a lot too.

Is the lifestyle really worth it if he is away so many hours (although perhaps for him if it is his passion)? I would think the advantage of your own business is freedom and flexibility and basically someone else doing all the work while you make the profit.

Oh gosh, it's not just me then? 11 years down the line here. Employ 30 staff. It's a NIGHTMARE. I have the exact same problems as everybody else here - whilst they are on point in their roles, they can be very entitled and some earn more than I do some months. My industry has constant ongoing changes and updates, the red tape is awful and all the HMRC want is their pound of flesh. 80 hour week, I work through the night sometimes - and although yes, I do live a good life, it should be better considering the amount of work I put into it

online retail

@MistressoftheDarkSide My friend had to close her independent shoe shop for that reason.

People were coming in to measure their feet, and then they would order shoes online, often in front of her

70 hours per week is not fully flexible.

HMRC are killers too 20% VAT on all sales. Can hardly claim any back as our rent doesn't include VAT and we buy fresh produce so no VAT to claim. But once you cook it HMRC want 20%. This was our down fall. Just couldn't pay it with everything else.

Agree @Lost77 100000%

Nope!!! Selling up and we will get 'normal jobs' been too close to a mental break down! We are done!!

I'm 12 years in, if you'd have asked me pre Covid I'd have said completely rosy but the last 5 years have been a show.
Made enough money to keep us afloat, have the odd holiday etc and give the staff a few perks however the stress, every changing legislation, staff becoming more and more entitled, red tape for doing things let alone the horrendous increases we've endured. It's been awful, not sure why I'm carrying on, in the hope things will turn around again I guess.
I do around 70 hours a week on average but also allows me to be fully flexible so I can walk out at 2pm and go to school if needed.
A better work life balance is needed, just don't see it happening right now. Something needs to be done about the staff, people are getting a lot lazier, don't give a toss attitude, any new staff we employ we have to go through 5 to find a good one
grateful to have some brilliant staff who have been with me since the start, feel so bad for them picking up the slack as you can't just sack someone who is a waste of space anymore, the hoop jumping is endless.

I'm only a year in, but it's incredibly difficult knowing people are relying on me to pay their bills. I struggle with it.

sadly, the rewards mean I couldn't go backwards k if o wanted to because I was in a minimum wage role before, and I love it really.....despite the stress and pressure.

Sadly what @Anonym00se said.

Never ever again. Most people we know who run a business are taking home less than their staff.

We did until a few years ago, but no never again. We grew to the point that we had over 80 f/t staff, but at points we were barely breaking even. I can remember paying the PAYE bill on our personal credit cards. They were scary times.

We wanted to chuck it in because we were both working 80 hours a week for no wages for months at a time, but you can’t when so many people depend on you. Everyone thought we were rich but we had the shittest cars out of all our staff, and we were lucky if we got a week away each year in a caravan.

We eventually won a government contract which significantly improved the value of the company but our hearts weren’t in it, so we sold up. I would never do it again.

Me and dh have our own business in the UK holiday sector. Things are tough going but hopefully they will pick up 🤞

I wouldn't change anything and do it all again.

Currently aiming to close our family business in the next couple of months. And no, never again and that’s after many years of running said business.

What sort of business is it?

Our payroll has just increased by £4000 a month due to the NMW and employer NI increases. Our insurance is our second biggest overhead at about £15,000 a year.

Absolutely not. DH and I started trading cars during Covid (he’s been in the motor industry 30 years employed and me just a couple before then). We started at home just trading, not retailing cars with about £500 a month overheads. We now have a showroom, 80 cars in stock, 10 employees and overheads of £65000 a month. It’s beyond stressful, with rising costs and more and more compliance to manage it’s harder and harder every month to make money. We are glad to break even most months.

Voted YABU

our family buisness started with a one off investment of about £20k....

DH running it from his parents garage with a computer in his bedroom, and working a "normal" FT job (as his income) as well.

20 years later he turns over millions, has a 4 acre site with 40,000 square foot of premises (bought out right and owned by his company), and another 20,000 square foot of new build buildings being built as we speak.

We employ lots of people, and its our pension.

It allows us to live in a beautiful home, privately educate our children, take lots of holidays etc etc.

(although I often despair at the rediculous hours DH works, at least 2 hours a day at home both before and after his 9 hour day AT work) and a few hours every Sunday too.

I do the payroll for a few dozen clients. The turnover of new staff is awful - so many newbies are taken on and leave or are sacked within the first couple of weeks. If they last a couple of months they tend to last for the long term, i.e. years, but that's the minority. Eg, one client who already has some convenience stores opened a new one a couple of months ago. The basic staffing is 5 part timers and a full timer as he has a standardised rota and structure for each shop. He's already gone through about 30 starters and leavers in the first two months - only one of his new starters from the first week is still there. It's about 50-50 as to whether he has to sack them or whether they leave or just disappear with no contact never to be heard from again! It's not him, either. In one of his other shops, he still has the exact same 6 staff this week that he had 2, 3, 4 years ago - no movement in staff at all. It drives him mad that so many new starters are completely incapable or don't give a toss, and that's after he's wasted hours of time doing interviews for people who are clearly just "ticking boxes" to keep their UC awards, who turn up drunk, on drugs, reeking of BO, etc.

DH and I have a business together. It's just getting too hard, with the minimum wages increases etc we've had to let our unskilled staff go and working without support staff has made it all a fair bit harder. Especially as a fair bit of it has fallen on me. We've also got one very difficult employee to manage, and I'm finding that really difficult. They're very skilled but take up more time than the other 6 put together. We've got 2 due to retire soon and attempts to replace them aren't going well...... they're so skilled and it's a changing industry in many ways. DH wants to retire in the next 5 years and I can't wait. I'll carry on working but will enjoy working for someone else and having time off/holidays!