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I started my own trucking company at age 30, and continued to run it for 35 years, after which I sold it to retire. I worked very hard to build that company. It provided me with a very good living while I owned it, and upon its sale, it was clear that we'd have no financial worries for the rest of our lives. I would agree with those who state that you cannot make any real money working for somebody else. The profit margins are just not there.
My own dad died at age 32, leaving my mom to raise my brother and myself, on nothing but the proceeds of a modest life insurance policy. That was back in 1944. Jobs for women didn't pay much back then, and I watched my mother struggle to raise us. I started working at the age of 12. I still work at my second company at age 71.
Of our 6 grandkids one of them, a young man of 17, has his own lawn care business. He bought his own pickup truck and trailer before he was old enough for his license. He started by fixing small engines he'd gotten for free - leaf blowers, chain saws, push mowers - and now repairs these tools for others. I'm watching this kid!
Yes, for about half my working life I owned a company with 21 employees at the high point.
Approaching 60 I knew I didn't want to own anymore, construction with performance and payment bonds etc is a risky part of the business, so I sold out and became an employee again.
I like being an employee better... I am a little on the tech side and I would rather do that than "run a company" which is one thing I never really liked doing.
I did good with some great years but if I had earned only half as much as my employees were sure I did I would have retired 10 years ago.
All in all I am happy with all the decisions I made.
We ran a surgical database business for about 10 years back in the 80s. It was handy because we were moving a lot, and it was a way to stay employed no matter what city we moved to. In some of the cities I had other jobs, in some I didn't, but I always had the database business. Also, at the time it was an unusual business, so there was room for small potatoes like us to make a decent amount of money at it.
Eventually the bigger potatoes arrived and it seemed like a smart time to sell out to one of them. Plus, we needed to find a job with the benefit plans you only get with large corporations. One good thing that happened was owning a company had taught me to network in the community, so I was able to land a pretty good job after that experience. Glad I had that business, but also very glad to get out of it.
I started a business where I had to pay for my biz cards with a credit card. I started out with 1 city magazine and kept expanding into other cities. I'm retired. I had a good run and I was always an entrepreneur
I think some people are just born entrepreneurs, I know I was.
At age 9 I was an "independent recycling professional" which means I rode my bike around looking for pop bottles to turn in for deposit.
Then it was a series of craft ventures I sold at boutiques. My most lucrative enterprise on an hourly basis was painting house numbers on curbs. I earned enough in a summer to pay for half of a new car. It helped that I had an assistant, but the days were not rigorous. We would work a bit in the morning then spend the afternoons resting or swimming at the quarry, back to work in the cool of the evening.
After college I got into the landlord business. I was trained for an office job and I did that as well but not as an entrepreneur. It helps to be working for someone else when you are looking to borrow money.
Eleven years ago I started a daycare. We had about 25 employees and just over 100 kids. I did leave after 5 years. My business partner was much younger and we didn't have the same ideals. And the stress was too much. It is still in business but I hear that employees don't always get paid on time.
Now I have a low stress job and I love it. I will stay until I retire.
What I find interesting about your statement is the "paltry retirement income " part.
My grandfather and his siblings ran their own business. He told me decades ago "you never get rich working for someone else." He also shared with me that while the business made a decent living their true wealth came from investing in the market, and real estate. Being a blue collar person I always thought the grass was greener on the self employed side.
"Paltry retirement" is because we were young and dumb and as someone else said, reinvested the $$ into the company, not putting it away for retirement. That was too far in the future!
Printing technology changed, so that company was not worth much when it came time to sell it. Back in the days of literal "cut and paste".
My dad, though affluent, put nothing away for retirement, working to the end. We were all shocked when he passed and he had....nothing. Except a million+ property I guess he thought he could mortgage, if he had to.
The only truly rich ones in the extended family were the dog-treat company (product still exists) and a nuts-and-bolts company, LOL.
The long answer would take pages. The game is similar, but the rules change both with regulations and technology. Larger businesses with more connection and clout have the edge, and are more likely to undermine efforts of potential competitors. Innovations, which have driven many start-ups in the past are now subject both to patent trolls and offshore copycat products that siphon off customers and often leave a sour taste with a shoddy version of the product. I had over a dozen ideas for products that I shelved because I knew that any profit would be so short-lived as to be worthless.
This is so true. There can be so many mitigating factors. Husband's solar design/installation biz foundered after federal incentives were ceased. And fewer people living off-grid.
My ex had applied for a patent to improve telephone audio and Bell Labs threatened to sue him, though they had nothing similar. So he gave up.
I was self employed for many years; owned comm./res. RE, laundromat, dry cleaners, coffee bar, Florist, and one of the first MA State Lottery Agents, sold every thing off in 86-87 and joined the IBEW, the best career move in my working world.
I'm curious why you say that. Isn't it the same game it always was, find a niche and fill it?
I started a consulting business that I had for over 25 years. It would be harder for someone to start the same business that I had because of the barriers to entry that larger companies have set up. We worked with large pharmaceutical companies in the IT and regulatory side. Back when I started, it was hard to find companies with IT and pharma experience so a small company could come in and fill that niche.
As time went on, the pharma companies wanted to deal with larger companies themselves. So in order to get on the "approved vendor" list you had to meet certains specifications. Companies such as mine were "grandfathered" in because we were already vendors.
The contracts became more onerous. One of my customers went from net 30 to net 90. A bunch more from net 30 to net 60. Now you have to have cash flow available to float the Fortune 100 pharma!
I don't think I would enter the same market today. It's nice when you get in, but you can do a lot of door knocking and head banging trying to get started.
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