7 Risks Worth Taking To Start Your Own Business

7 Risks Worth Taking To Start Your Own Business

Starting a business puts you in control of your talent, your resources, and your future. Long gone are the days of lifetime employment with a single company. In a fast-moving, ever-changing economy, the only person that you can depend to earn a living is yourself. I discovered this truth for myself several years ago when the large company I worked for went bankrupt, and I found myself out of a job.

It is tempting to hang on to the steady employment that usually comes with working for an established company. But as my experience proved there is no such thing as surety in today?s economy. To be clear, you take on more risks by becoming an entrepreneur than you would by working for someone else?s company. However, the rewards are greater if you succeed. And if you acknowledge the risks before starting the venture then you will develop the right attitude towards them.

Here is a great article in Entrepreneur on some of the risks that every entrepreneur should be prepared to take.

The article hit home with me in a big way. Here is one piece of advice I found particularly pertinent:

5. Trusting a key employee.

When you first start a business, you won?t have a full team of employees working for you. Instead, you?ll probably have a small, tight-knit group of people working tirelessly together in an effort to get things up and running. You?ll have to put an overwhelming amount of trust in them, especially if they have special skills that are hard to find and are willing to start work at a lower salary than the industry standard.

For example, if you hire a single, experienced lead developer to work on your product over the course of a few months, you?ll need to have absolute trust in their ability to get the job done on time. Otherwise, your timeline (and your product) could be fatally compromised.

You can read about the other 6 points of advice here. They are all quite sound. I can personally state that starting a business is not easy, but once you start thinking like an entrepreneur you will begin approaching every day challenges with a modicum of calm.

Bonus: One other thing I thought I?d mention. Starting a business and building it up may put you out of the job market for a number of years. When you can, you should always seek to maintain your network of friends and former colleagues in case you should ever seek to return.