Is Part Time Entrepreneurship for You?
I was recently turned on to Cristian Dorobantescu’s IT entrepreneurship blog, by reading Anita Campbell’s excellent Small Business Trends. Anita linked to Cristians recent two part post where he discusses 5 reasons why people should become a part time entrepreneur, and 5 reasons why folks should not be a part time entrepreneur. Cristian is an side entrepreneur who also works a full time job.
Cristian rolls out some interesting points for consideration if you are teetering on the brink of starting a business. Here are the bulleted reasons, however I highly recommend you visit Cristians blog for his detailed posts which can be found here and here.
5 reasons NOT to be a part time entrepreneur………..and probably not being an entrepreneur at all:
* Evenings and weekends are just for fun
* You need a boss to tell you what to do
* Working long hours at your current job that you love so much
* Friends and family are more important
* You just want to be like everybody else and nothing more
5 reasons to take the part time entrepreneurship path……..and not the full time entrepreneurship experience:* Fear
* Lack of investment funds
* Doing it just for fun
* Extra income
* Pride and self accomplishment
These points ring very true and I give alot of credit to Cristian for being able to run a side business while still maintaining a full time job. This is something that is very difficult to accomplish if you want any kind of a personal or family life. As Anita comments on her post:
“It is tough enough to be an entrepreneur when your startup is your full-time gig. It’s even harder to do on the side, after a full-day at work. Starting a side business cuts down your financial risk, that’s true, but it also cuts down your available time for family, hobbies, church and other activities. It requires trade-offs — make sure you are prepared to make them.”
Having a good understanding of your committment level and reasons for starting your business are key. There are plenty of businesses that can be run on the side without much sacrifice, such as part time consulting, or design. With small businesses like this you can choose your project workload and fit it into your lifestyle. However, if you plan on doing anything significant that will generate more than just “extra income,” I would suggest making your part time stint as short as possible, build your cash flow quickly and jump in full time (yes it is alot easier said than done). Don’t risk stressing yourself, your family or your relationships by working around the clock, those sacrifices are not worth it.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Hi Greg. Thanks for the connection on LinkedIn recently.
Anyway, I am a part time entrepreneur right now, and also read that article by Anita. I agree with most of it, but do have a problem with one of the reasons not to be an entrepreneur, and that it is “Friends and family are more important”. I see this more as a challenge instead of a barrier. I have 3 small children, and although it is difficult, they need to come first when I get home from Job #1. They’ll be in bed soon enough, and then I can start thinking about Job #2. Luckily, I can get some work for Job #2 done during Job #1, or at least plan ahead. That may change soon as I am looking for a new Job #1, or ways to make Job #2 more self sufficient.