A Startup May Be A Great Option

Let me know if this sounds familiar. You, or someone like you, or friends you know, have worked for large companies for most of your working life, whether its 10, 20 or 30 years. You’ve gone from one major corporation to another major corporation, or even medium sized corporations, climbing the corporate ladder, so to speak. Everywhere you’ve been, you were usually assured of a very stable job, good to excellent benefits and no constant fear of losing your job, mergers etc. You felt safe, cocooned in this large, mostly happy corporation.

You worked during the week and had the weekends off. You had time to take your kids to soccer practice on Saturdays and watch the game on Sunday. When you were at work you worked, and when you were at home you relaxed. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement – your company takes care of you, and you take care of your company. You were loyal to each other.

On the other hand, you heard about the startup entrepreneurial life, and you decided that it was not for you. The friends you knew who ran their own businesses always seemed to be working, hustling to make ends meet, not knowing when they would be able to land their next contract, going through lean times and good times. You looked at that life and said “whoa man, that is not the life for me, too unstable! You have to do everything! You are always working! You might enjoy what you are doing, but you are always at it.” You’d smile when you see some of the other dads who ran their own businesses on the phone while your kids are playing soccer and think, “I’m glad I don’t live that unstable life. I’m so glad that I work for a company, instead of run my own business.” Even if they were more financially successful than you, you figured that they gave up stability for that success.

Then 2008 happened, and something changed. Let me know if you noticed this as well.

Suddenly, overnight:

• Your corporate health care plan got worse and more expensive
• Your company started laying people off, before or after merging with other companies
• Your boss expected you to always be on the clock, around the clock and on weekends and available at a moment’s notice
• Your workload seemed to double or triple as employers attempted to cut costs by cutting employees but not reducing the workload

All of a sudden, you look around – and it’s your buddy the entrepreneur, the startup founder, who has the stable life, and you’ve been laid off, hired, merged, laid off again, found a new job, only to be laid off again. You do the work of three people when you are working, and you have to jump from health care plan to health care pan, each getting steadily worse and more expensive.

If you ask me, the tables are now turned. It’s the corporate job which is in turmoil, and just jumping from one of those to another one of those is not going to solve the problem.

If you want REAL stability in your work life, you MUST start your own business. Being an entrepreneur returns the control of your life back to YOU.

There has never been a better time:

• There are tons of free resources out there on how to learn to be one
• There are a ton of businesses that you can start from next to nothing
• You probably have a lot of experience that you can leverage, no matter how much experience you do have
• If you want to build a software product, it has never been easier to learn to code or cheaper to hire an excellent coder
• If you want to build a hardware product, there are maker spaces and 3d printing shops everywhere you look, with plenty of people who can help you
• There have never been more ways to fund your business: from credit lines to crowdfunding, the way to funding is exploding.

This is the time. If you are sitting in a dead end job, waiting for the next layoff, or unemployed, get yourself in gear and build a startup.

What ideas do you have in your head right now that you can spin up?

The time has never been better.