If you’ve always thought about being an entrepreneur or simply wondered what it is like, then you’ve reached the right place. In this post, I’ll explain to you what it’s like being or becoming an entrepreneur from my own personal experience.
My Personal Story Of What It’s Like Being An Entrepreneur and How It’s Changed My Life Forever
I started off on the usual path. My parents told me to go to school and get a good job. So that’s exactly what I did.
I spent many years in school and studied hard for exams. I then made it into university where I studied my Bachelors of Science in Software Engineering and eventually completed my Master’s of Science in Software Engineering.
After I graduated, I spent nearly a year looking for a job. During that time while I was looking for a professional job, I was working as a manual labour guy cleaning floors, wiping tables and pulling rubbish bins. I had a Master’s degree and there I was cleaning up a cafe.
Eventually, I was lucky enough to land a job as a software developer for a major IT company. My main role was to help the company develop education software for large schools in Australia.
I worked with a software development team, I worked in a cubicle with grey walls, programming all day long and many people who worked there for several years even had grey hair.
An Entrepreneur Is Born
I remember clearly that on a particular day, I came to work and sat down and began my projects. The boss walked in casually at around 11am, waved hello at all of us and walked straight to his office.
This is when the seed of being an entrepreneur started.
I remember stopping everything and thinking to myself what would it be like to be my own boss and to have my own company one day.
I started asking questions, why am I working here? Do I truly get satisfaction out of this job? What would it be like to work here for the next 10 years? What if I started my own business and became an entrepreneur instead?
Michael Gerber in his great book “The E-Myth” explains that this is called “Entrepreneurial Seizure” when the day you quit your day job and become an entrepreneur.
Within a 2 weeks after that day, I handed in my resignation and decided to start my own business and try the world of entrepreneurship.
The Result Of Being An Entrepreneur
Around 6 years after that day when I quit my job and became an entrepreneur, I managed to achieve the following…
- I travelled the world and visited great places such as New York, London, Paris, Austria, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Switzerland, Italy and more places.
- I built several businesses that generated thousands of dollars online and offline.
- I purchased my own house that was minutes away from the city.
- I wrote and published my first book
- I have been able to train people.
- I was featured in several medias online and offline.
- I gave thousands away to charity.
- and much much more.
All of this happened because I wanted to pursue my dreams of having my own business and to become an entrepreneur.
The following sections will explain the advantages and disadvantages of what’s it like being an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur Advantages
1. You get you pursue your dreams.
Nothing is more satisfying waking up in the morning and working on a project you absolutely enjoy doing. Especially if this project is your own dream. Let’s say that you’ve always dreamed of owning a profitable online business, the day you wake up and work towards that goal day in and day out, is the day you get lost in your work. Work doesn’t become work, it becomes play. If you look at the big picture, fast forward 20, 30, 60 years from now, you’ll be thankful you went after your dreams.
2. You work from home.
Working from home is awesome. Enough said.
3. You are the boss.
You make your own decisions and your decisions are final. You don’t have anyone telling you want you should do. You don’t have anyone telling you how long your lunch break is or how hard you have to work or what projects you should work on. You decide what you do.
4. You work on projects only you want to work on.
If you’ve been employed for a long time, you’ve probably been in a situation where you had to work on something you absolutely hated but you had to do it anyway. Being an entrepreneur means you can chose the projects you want to work on. It’s great waking up in the morning, coming up with an exciting idea and implementing it instead of someone telling you you should do data entry and feed the fish.
5. You learn a lot about business.
This is incredibly true. I once heard that when you create your own business, mysteriously your business teaches you everything you NEED to learn in order to progress to the next level. If you’re not good with people, you’ll learn how to work with people. If your not good with accounts, you’ll learn how to update your books. If you’re not good with sales, you’ll learn how to close deals and generate leads and prospects. Learning about business is a skill that you can apply throughout your entire life. Even if you fail in business, you’ll still learn something and reapply those lessons continuously for your 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 10th business. You’ll always get better.
6. You build lots of confidence and character.
Having the confidence and character is essential if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur. You’re going to encounter lots of rejections and frustrations. However, in every cloud there’s a silver lining. The confidence and character you build will eventually translate to success because you build an unshakable attitude of proactive actions towards your goals and getting what you want.
7. You learn a major skill that you can apply for life.
Building a business is a money making process. If you get good at building businesses through trial and error, mistakes, pain and frustrations, you’ll build a profitable business eventually which will look after you for years to come. Even if you lose your entire business, home and money, the knowledge you have from building a business from ground up and generating income is absolutely priceless. This means that no matter which country you go to, the knowledge of building a profitable company stays with you and you’ll prosper no matter where you go.
8. You make more money.
Business is a money making vehicle. If you work for a company, you get paid for time and we all know that everyone is given a certain amount of time therefore your income is limited to time. However if you build a business based on products, you’ll make more money and your fortune is unlimited. Let’s say you’ve invested 30 hours into building a great product, you get paid for that 30 hours for the rest of your life.
9. You’ll get to see your business grow into something you’ve always dreamed about.
Let’s face it. When you build a business that you’re passionate about and you love, it’s your baby. When you’ve spent years building your business from your kitchen table and it’s now featured all over the world, you get incredible self satisfaction that goes way beyond profits.
10. You create financial stability.
Sure most businesses fail but so does the company you work for. If you work for a company for several years, you may be replaced with a younger person who will work for less. Your job may be outsourced to cheaper workers. But if you spend years building your own business, you create thousands of customers and clients. These clients are your bosses. If you had 1,000 bosses and you lose 50% of them, you still have 500 bosses to look after. But if you worked for a company, you have only one boss which is risky.
Entrepreneur Disadvantages
Unfortunately the world of entrepreneurship does come with a nice list of disadvantages too, that’s life.
1. You are not guaranteed fixed income.
This is one of the scariest things about being an entrepreneur. Money that comes in completely depends on you. If you work for a company, you can show up to work, casually work on your projects and get paid even if you do a bad job. No matter what happens, even if you’re chatting with co-workers, you’re getting paid. When you’re an entrepreneur, you work constantly to figure out how to get cash in to pay the bills and your salary. If you slack off, unfortunately you won’t get paid for it.
2. It’s hard work.
It really is. It’s tough. It’s not easy spending your limited cash to find clients and close them. It’s not easy doing multiple jobs such as looking for clients, doing the work, balancing accounts, hiring employees, learning new things, keeping up with technology, making sales and so forth. You’ll work 100 times harder than employees.
3. Everything depends on you.
All decisions are made by you. If you make a bad decision, you lose money. If you make a good decision, you make money. It’s that simple. If you’re an employee, if you make a bad decision, you get paid, if you make a good decision, you get paid.
4. You meet incredible frustration and rejection.
Very true. When you start your journey as an entrepreneur, it will NEVER be a walk in the park. You’ll come across problems, frustrations, obstacles and financial pressure. There’ll be 100 problems you’ll need to solve and more. It’s frustrating working hard and making money and spending it on advertising that flops. It’s frustrating working months on a project and watching it crash and burn. Another day at the office and part of the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
So should you be an entrepreneur?
In my humble opinion. If you still feel like entrepreneurship is the best path to go, I say, do it! Early in my life, I figured out that nearly 70% of your life will be spent working, if you are in a job that you hate, imagine if you stayed in that job for the rest of your life. Imagine if you turned your life around and spent 70% of your life doing something you’ve always wanted?
In my experience, being an entrepreneur was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’ve lost money and made even more money and it was incredibly worth it. Another good idea is to also go entrepreneur mode part time. You can always work part time at your job and work part time on your fortunes. That way your bills are covered while you’re building an empire that will eventually take care of you and your family.
If you would like more information about how to transform your life as an entrepreneur, please check out
It’s a great book for anyone who is getting started and it will change your mindset about building a business and help you navigate what entrepreneurs must go through in order to achieve your goals.
Please comment on this article and share your thoughts of whether entrepreneurship is going well for you or if you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur.
