You Don't Want To Start A Business - But It's Important That You Think You Do - How Money Works

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The culture of being an entrepreneur, or an investor, or a freelancer is increasingly driving young professionals to pursue career paths that are truly not in their best interests.

Now starting a business can of course be incredibly rewarding, and I might sound like a bit of a hypocrite here because of course I started this YouTube channel (at least in part) because I thought it had the potential to be very profitable… and it has been which is great.

But I am also well aware of the fact that I have been extremely lucky, (like winning the lottery levels of lucky) even to get to where I am today. I am also aware that a YouTube business is about the easiest possible business in the world to run. The product distribution, advertising, accounting, server hosting and invoicing are all handled for me.

It’s also incredibly low risk. If my channel never took off, I would have wasted about $300 in equipment and software subscriptions…

Now I bring up YouTube because it’s one of the defining examples of a business model that is perpetuating the idea that if you are not a “Hustler” you are failing at life.

So if you have ever even subconsciously thought that you are destined to be a business owner then it’s time to learn how money works to find out why it might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

#Entrepreneur #Career #HowMoneyWorks

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Music by Epidemic Sound

[michaelmckeever]

The business of convincing people to start their own business is a business in it's own.

[danmoriarty]

I spent all my savings trying to start a business, it failed. The biggest lesson I learned however was that I don't want to be a business owner. As much as working for a wage can suck, the ability to clock off is immensely underrated. When you're off the clock, you're off the clock, work isn't on your mind, it isn't your responsibility. When you're a business owner you are on the clock 24/7

[pkkkks]

Working 14 years in 9-5 jobs (well 9-7 in second world countries), I can tell they suck big time; corporative environments are nasty, mostly politic. The idea of growing up on the ladder is just an illusion; if you are not in the owner's trusted circle, you have a ceiling in middle management. You are in like a salaried prison, and you DON'T own your time.
Starting your own business can be risky, but fulfillment and management of your own time can be worth a try. Just be aware you need to have an edge in what you are going to do.

[dezzy]

My father was a business owner so I saw first hand how hard he worked and the many hours he put in. Many people I know that are entrepreneurs didn’t realize how much work it is and that you don’t have off days and may not get to take vacations. I had a friend cry after starting her business because she was so busy and hardly got to see her kids. Being a entrepreneur is more enjoyable if you have other people running it and you can sit and collect the money.

[dexterne]

Sm business owner here. 14 yrs in. It was honestly life changing, but I won't go into details. People ask me all the time how I did it and how they can too. I just can't. The things that worked for me then WILL NOT work now, and WILL NOT work for people who aren't me. The simple fact is that I just made it up as I went and stuck with what worked, until it stopped working and then I made up something else. Being an entrepreneur is the art of making shit up day after day and making more good choices than bad choices. You can't really be taught that skill. But you can learn it if you have thick enough skin and manage to pivot when you make a bad choice.

[krombopulos_michael]

Thanks for pointing all of this out. The whole entrepreneur subculture online is very concentrated around treating normal jobs as a suckers game and that everyone should be starting a business, but the reality is that starting a business is a big risk that won't pay off for everyone, and many people don't have the money to survive it if it fails.

One thing that isn't really brought up is that if you are going to start a business, you'd want to actually have an idea that you think can generate value better than others. They focus on starting a business for its own sake, but that's putting the cart before the horse. If you're going to do something, it needs to be something you can do better than the people doing it already, or finding some undeserved market.

Aside from that, the world wouldn't function if every person was their own business owner. Businesses can't grow and benefit from economies of scale without people working for them. Trash talking normal workers as mindless drones only works until you need to hire some of them yourself.

[namleht]

I had a Professor in College that said..."if you like doing something...work for someone else, if you want to run a business realize you have no time for anything else but running the business" Truer words were never spoken... Luckily I ran a business for 3 years & sold it for 17 times what I had in it & then went to work for a top 10 S&P company doing accounting & having vacation, sick time, etc...

[mikeviscusi]

I started up a small business in July 2015. I won't lie, there have been long periods of time that I didn't have a customer, or the customers that I had were not the best.

But now, I got 4 solid clients that I work with and I bring in good money.

But the one thing I never did?

I never quit my day job. The benefits were too good to pass up, but I reduced my role at my day job.

It can be done

[MassDefibrillator]

You forgot what I think is the most important reason for people wanting to work for themselves: getting sick of authoritarian company structures that act as mini-private governments.

[KelvinNishikawa]

Survivorship bias is a hell of a drug.

[Hassan-GnB]

Being a “business owner” is the new status symbol. What matters is service.

[VarsVerum]

One other thing I think needs to be remembered is the rule of “don’t quit your day job” too many people throw their perfectly stable lives away in the blind hope they’ll succeed. No, you throw your life away AFTER you succeed not BEFORE. I was fully prepared to look for a job after graduating college, swearing I would not go full time YouTube until I would be able to live comfortably and pay all my bills even during the bad months (such as January).

Fortunately my wish came true, but people need to realize the difference between being ambitious and YOLO. Sadly, not many do, and end up shooting themselves in the foot. Whenever people ask me for advice on being a content creator, I just simply say “don’t quit your day job.”

[tianolamas]

I grew up with both perspectives, my mother owns a barber shop where she cleans out roughly 250K a year, my father is a chemical engineer who makes roughly 150k a year. They are both successful in their own ways and where very supportive in whatever direction I chose in life. One thing I did notice however, is how my mother has many more additional stressors like : taxes, pandemic, health insurance for employees, working 7 days a week, threat of being robbed, worried that she may loose clients to a competitor, not wanting to take vacations because she might feel like they will leave for someone else.

When compared to my father who lives very stress free, he simply clocks in and out without a care in the world. Because of this I personally believe that wanting to have your own business really depends on how much responsibility you really want in life.

So really in the end, depends on what kind of person you are. Are you happy being the sole person responsible of whether and employee gets to feed their families? Or do you much rather not worry about how to attach clients and choose just to focus on your stuff

[andrewchandler]

The essential thing that everyone should be thinking about right now is investing in non-government sources of income. Especially in light of the current global economic crisis. It is still a wonderful moment to invest in gold, silver, digital money, and stocks.

[rizwanshaikh]

This is like an anti Hustle channel. 🤣 Debunking all the misinformation shared by hustle influencers (intentionally or unintentionally). Thank you for this. Idk how many people go through mental health problems because hustle culture has them believe that they are not gonna make it if they don't hustle.

[HumanDesignforthePeople]

“DONT QUIT YOUR DAY JOB” makes so much sense now after investing and losing so much time and money trying to be a full time entrepreneur.

[MRDDev]

Problem is the US wants you to be either an employee or an employer. Being a freelancer comes with tons of other taxes that are mitigated if you are employed or an employer. I found it the hard way and went back to being an employee after 3 years of freelancing.

[WookieSenshi]

I love being self-employed, but it's important for people to understand that that's not necessarily the way they have to go. I couldn't see myself working for somebody else again, but there are plenty of great jobs out there where you do work for somebody. A W-2 job isn't for everybody, but in the same light working for yourself also isn't for everybody.

[kingdionentertainment]

Yall, just do what works for you. Whether it’s a personal business or a Job. Stop looking to YouTube to tell you what you want

[yannickkhalil]

Being a youtuber is NOT starting a business. The business is the platform, you're just creating content for the platform.