Career entrepreneurship is taking charge of your business training and
advancement yourself, and crafting a career that nurtures and supports you.
Often, the issues of being a career entrepreneur are similar to being
self-employed.  Many "consultants" are engaged in career entrepreneurship.
So let's use this item to discuss the pros and cons and the strategies to
employ if you are launched into this activity (by your own choice or not!).

9 responses total.

Hello All, I was self employeed all through college.  whitch is a great place
to be self employeed.  Nothing to hold you down.  I cleaned pools I had a
route of about 4 pools that I took care of.  I was in a new city, and did not
know how ruthless the other companies were.  When I tried to expand a little,
everything went down hill.  My serveice was fine, I just got three call from
my pools saying that they wanted outof my contract.  I told them they had 30
days like normal, and they all left.  My one pool kept me on, because I was
doing a good job.  but that will not pay all the bills.  That is the biggest
problem with being self emplyeed.  MONEY>!!! If I had to do it all again, I
would make sure that I had at least a hyears worth of money saved to live on
incase something like this happened.  I have been looking at other ventures
in my area, that went under because of lack of MONEY.  Look out Money will
rule everythign when you become self employeed.  Now I am learning a new skill
so some day I will go back to the life of a Self-employeed person.  Computers
are the wave of the future.  Now I work at DELL.  

*smile* Your experience is fairly typical Brad.  The main cause for small
business failure is undercapitalization.  Most businesses don't start with
enough money to pay the bills for the business, and for the owners to
support themselves until the time that the business itself can provide
that much income.  

The other big consideration for someone starting a business with their
own money is ROI, or return on investment.  If you have $10,000 to invest
in a business, you could also choose to invest that money in a mutual
fund, or bonds.  The big question is: In five years will I have made more
money in business than I would have if i invested in a mutual fund?  If
the mutual fund is returning 8% interest, I would have $14,693 at the end
of 5 years.  If I use that for a business and living expenses, will I have
$14693 saved at the end of five years?  

A business has to make a lot of money to be a better return on investment
than a well managed earnings fund.
 

  

hi all! ia m a business student and this educaton has in fact closed some
options for me in terms of the kind of jobs i will be comfortable with when
starting a new venture. i am expecting some perks with the job and a certain
lifestyle which i will not have while startingon my own. so my approach to
stating a new venture will be first to gain some market exposure, make some
money, get contacts...and then dive in..

I don't understand why getting an education will close options.  Are you
saying that you are willing to trade off being your own boss for the ability
to purchase certain consumer itesm? Or is it the security of having a paycheck
and benefits like hospitalization, life insurance etc?  In either case, it
seems to me that having an education makes gives you more options rather than
fewer.

see, you are never your own boss. i think what u mean by being your own boss
is having freedom to choose what you want to do...my problem 

see, you are never your own boss even if its your own business. but what i
ment by saying that education has closed some options for me is that new
venture on my own will force me to do the kind of work that i may not want
to do..now i have the option of focussing my energies on to one specialised
area while working in another's firm. i may not be very comfortable getting
my hands dirty with a start up... alos a new business on my own will restrict
me to that business for a long time and i wont have the kind of freedim to
move on to another  business that easily...
for me i think freedom is the determining factor. but then starting one's own
business is always a dream.

I started my business with one used dictionary (free) and one used typewriter
($5), and enough other work to keep me going for a long time.  Have since
bought one computer system and more dictionaries and a fax machine and modem.
It is more an investment of time than money, the main thing is to educate
yourself and make contacts.

I can't see how an education can be a hinderance when starting a new business.
I know that I would not be able to even dream of starting my new business
without my education.  My education has taught me where to begin and hopefully
will keep me from making some mistakes.  I still plan on making plenty of
mistakes though.

Is there some online association of people in the same business who could give
you pointers?  I was astonished at what showed up in a few websearchers for
Slovene and Albanian translators.  Everyone likes to give advice (free).

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