How many here run a business?

[Holering]

Anyone here have a business? Someone once told me, if you have a business the business owns you. I'm not sure what he meant by that. Maybe he was pissed off?

[geo]

It becomes your life. Its problems are your problems. Sure you can pay someone to deal with those problems, but its your money. 99 problems and a bitchness is all 99.

[Bucket]

You can work any hours you like!
...As long as there are 100 per week.

[Ralphis]

I've started and run several since I was young. Yes, if you don't sink your entire life into making it work - it will crush you. No more showing up to collect a paycheck. If you aren't balls to the wall - there's not going to be any checks at all and it's over.

[dg93]

I've never owned a business before, but I used to work with a cousin who had his own business online. Unfortunately, it had to come to an end when he passed away a couple years back. We sold and refurbished machine parts.

[durian]

My partner started her own company around 18 months ago, and yeah, it occupies a huge proportion of her time. But her jobs were doing that anyway, so it's not a major contrast to just being self-employed, as she was before. But obviously there's a new dimension of things to keep on top of - mostly financial stuff. It's doing well though - I think she wants to build it up over a few years and then sell.

[geo]

durian said:

My partner started her own company around 18 months ago, and yeah, it occupies a huge proportion of her time. But her jobs were doing that anyway, so it's not a major contrast to just being self-employed, as she was before. But obviously there's a new dimension of things to keep on top of - mostly financial stuff. It's doing well though - I think she wants to build it up over a few years and then sell.

I've had to work with a number of people that start businesses specifically to sell them.

[durian]

Yes it seems to be a thing that people do, very lucratively as far as I can tell.
I'm not entirely sure how it would work in my partner's case - I think the company would need to develop in a number of significant ways first before it was marketable, as right now she more or less is the company. I don't have a very firm grip on it though (although I have appointed myself as non-executive director) - it's all rather abstract.

[Kirby]

What Geo said. I work at a small company run by my boss and despite having an appropriate workforce for what we do he is constantly bombarded by phone calls, business discussions, and other follow ups. It eats into his personal time quite a bit, as he can sometimes spend all day answering calls ranging from clients who have a problem to clients who want to discuss what we can offer them. It essentially requires a lot of your own time to manage properly.

[40oz]

I hear you get taxed really heavily from the US government too. I remember a Facebook friend of mine who posted a status update around tax time while her working friends were cheering about having gotten close to a thousand dollars in tax refunds, talking about how the president is constantly talking about creating jobs, and here I am employing people just like what they want and I am the one who is getting punished.

I think I could only enjoy being a business owner if the work was something id enjoy doing even if I wasn't getting paid for it. Ive been offered management positions at my job, which means I get a fatter paycheck, and extra benefits, but it also comes with mandatory overtime, and a buttload of other responsibilities, and being on call to come it when people can't work, coworkers calling you on your days off to help fix problems going on at the branch or for questions or advice. I recently asked to have my hours cut so that I could attend college classes I can still pay my bills working 24 hours a week but can't pay for much else, but its worth it because I'm happier now than I've ever been working full time now that I have more free time for mapping and playing doom.

Investing is where its at. Very risky but sometimes you reap amazing rewards just for having good foresight. My brother told me he missed an amazing opportunity to invest in Netflix 7 years ago. They were about $6 a share and are worth so much more now. He could have been bathing in cash right about now. My dad knows a guy who makes a living in investing. All he does is spend a couple hours each week doing research and moving money around. The rest of the week he's playing golf and taking his family put to dinner. What a life to live!