How did you build something and quit your job?

[POWdone]

Everyday that passes I have this niggling feeling that I’m not living the life that I wanted to live.

While growing up in a family of business owners I always thought I’d be an entrepreneur and saw myself as becoming one but never really took off and I just stayed in job after job because it was cushy.

Now I’ve got a toddler and a mortgage to pay and… you guessed it: a full time job. I’m constantly torn because I really enjoy what I do and my job keeps me engaged and has good benefits but at the same time I feel like I’m not living up to the idea that I had for myself.

I’ve got lots of ideas and constantly try to get them off the ground but I’m so drained from my demanding job plus constantly ill from nursery bugs and everything else in life that I never seem to get to it and it feels like it gets further and further away.

How did you create the mental space and the time to do something on the side and eventually grow it to replace your main income?

I’m really struggling to see how one transitions from a full time job to a business owner yet feel the pressure of time passing and not going in the direction I want to go.

Any voices of experience really appreciated - please someone tell me that it’s possible!

You need to fine tune your language. One either is an entrepreneur or one is not. You can’t “become one”. If you haven’t been driven by an idea, a passion to create x or y, then you’re not an entrepreneur.

you want to be a business owner - well that takes a long time and means your goal has to be to build that into a business that doesn’t rely on you ie a company. Otherwise, you’re simply working for yourself.

So, you can set up an Etsy shop and call it a business which it is, but it’s more stressful, more demanding, than being an employee. Or you can set up as a personal stylist, self employed, all it Ms Minx and turn it into a Ltd company but you’re still working for yourself. Take a leap, and employ other stylists under the Ms Minx brand and you stop doing styling but work on the business, say expand into Wales and Scotland, and you have a company you generate income from and which has a value beyond yourself. You have created an asset which you can sell.

I did the latter. It meant I took six weeks maternity leave with my twins, as the company needed me. We got a live out nanny. I had a superb partner who did his share. We had no luxury purchases or holidays, I’m naturally low maintenance but say haircuts twice a year and clothes from eBay. Costs cut to the bone - second or third hand car, you get the picture. I thought of my company as a third child and it got more of my time than my kids did. I lived and breathed development ideas, problem solving, budgets and strategies. I paid myself more or less according to cash. In the crash of 2008 I had to make people redundant and stop paying myself for almost 9 months.

I sold it after 30 years for several millions. And I regret it. I regret the impact it had on my family, that I missed so much of my children’s lives. I regret that I got so bought up by discovering what I could do that I stopped valuing what I had. My son says he’ll only marry a stay at home wife, which I see as a consequence of how much he didn’t get me growing up. My daughter is independent, feisty, successful - which I see as successful role modelling from me.

in short, you have to commit. To prioritise it. Something - many things - have to “give”, to make time and space for you to attend to what you are growing. Doing a side hustle and hoping it can tip into a viable earner may give you the worst of all worlds.

You make some really interesting points there. Harsh but true.

@BondenThank you for taking the time to share your story and adding the honesty to paint a real picture.

Lots of food for thought!

I will keep revisiting it.

X

It doesn’t sound like you have so much a burning desire to make one particular idea happen so much as you think you should be an entrepreneur. ‘Growing to in a family of business owners …the life I should have … the ideals I set for myself’ My feeling is that launching a business should be something you’re obsessed with and not something you think you ‘should do’. And even if you have that drive the price can be very high as the previous poster shows.

You could launch an Etsy shop and you’re a business owner. But it sounds like you have a great set up already with young kids. Maybe focus on that and try to free yourself a bit from the ‘shoulds’.

It’s so interesting to see how both of your perspectives are aligned. I had never considered it from an external view or even what my position was. I guess when you’re surrounded by people who know you it’s just assumed.

This has made me really reflect on why I have this image and what is truly driving me, regardless of the venture itself.

Thank you for taking the time to share some thoughts.

Sometimes the sharpest advice is found in the most unexpected places.

Love your response. Was worried I’d put the boot in. Good luck.

My motto is "if something looks too good to be true it usually is"

We have a business - it is an art gallery on a high street. We set it up by re-mortgaging the house.

BUT - broadly DW runs this, I run it at the weekend, and have a "regular" weekday job to pay for our life until it gets going. Also, DC is now at uni.

All businesses are either making something, or providing a service. Unless you are just a one (wo)man band you will need substantial assets of some sort - which will need funding.

Beware of anything that looks remotely scammy. I'm not convinced that, for example, "digital products" are actually a thing. Ask yourself have you ever bought one?

I love watching people unpacking huge bundles of second hand clothes in warehouses and supposedly selling second hand trousers for £30+, but for every person you see doing that there will be loads of others with a spare room full of rags that need disposing of.

You can't just have a generic "business" - it needs to do something people want.

Try not to waste the life you have thinking about the life you want. A lot of independent traders would actually prefer the security of a full time job that pays good money, but maybe circumstances mean they never really had the skills to end up in one.

Agree with the first two posters!

I think it comes from a place of wanting to turn a passion into a business rather than saying “I want to be an entrepreneur.” I have a consulting type business and my family run a wellness business that I am a director of. Both are successful.

maybe this sounds harsh and I am sorry but you just make the time if you want to see it succeed. I have spent many weekend hours training. Worked till late. Limited time off for periods. But you do it initially because it’s a passion you want to grow. You don’t consider not doing it because you want to see it succeed.

There has to be some gap in the market for what you offer. Some angle. Approach. Uniqueness.