"I work for myself now" success stories (employees, jobs, career)

[tailsock]

I used to work for a huge corporation in sales with great pay but awful hours. Vacation? Forget about it. You were looked down upon if you took a week off. The new members of management became younger and younger and it seemed that tenure was also frown upon. Once my first kid was born it was clear I had to make a change.

I studied website design in college and did side jobs for extra money so after discussing with my wife I decided to pursue this full time. The wife was extremely nervous as was I. The first few months after my final commissions from the old company were slow. very slow. The jobs were low paying as I tried to eek out enough customers to put together a portfolio. One month my wife had to lend ME money and gave me a pass on the bills for that month. I'm grateful she stuck by me because the business slowly grew. The first year we took a loss. Kind of expected that. 3 months into the next year it looked like we'd take another loss until I landed a huge job for a subsidiary of Coca Cola. This was the boost of confidence I needed to affirm that I was in fact, on the right path to success. As time went on I had more clients, charged them more money, and had lots of time for other things. Today it will be about 5 years since I left that job in sales. I rake in about 80% of what I did with that company. Although I miss my old coworkers (still keep in touch, w/ some of them) I don't miss the BS that came along with it: office politics, management freaking out when corporate was visiting, 7am Saturday morning meetings, having to work through Christmas, etc. I get to spend time with my kid now and get to go to birthday parties. Vacations are no longer an obstacle. I do yard work to break up my day and occasionally go to the pool after finishing a big gig. Today I watched Pulp Fiction after breakfast and did lunch with one of my sales buddies. It's such a rewarding change from the corporate hell I was in before.

I'd like to hear about others that quit a toxic career and went on to start their own business.

[macrodome2]

I left sales to start my own business and it was slow going the first few years, but like you things improved. Enjoy it. I got more work and had to hire employees. Although the company made more money, I wasn't happier and at the end of my 25 years, I went back to doing the work myself. Employees are a royal pain in the @ss. Had 30 of them at one point, but was happiest the last few years with just a couple of other people.