Denis O’Brien [0:37]
Welcome to Episode 175 pros and cons of entrepreneurship. Hey Money Clan, a very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth podcast. I’m your host, Denis O’Brien.
Katie Welsh [0:49]
And I’m Katie Welsh.
Denis O’Brien [0:50]
So Katie, quite an interesting topic today today all about whether you should be considering opening up your own business.
Katie Welsh [0:57]
You know, then I think a lot of people who do want to be entrepreneurs. First, let me back up. You either have the entrepreneur bug, or you don’t.
Denis O’Brien [1:5]
I agree with that.
Katie Welsh [1:8]
And I think that the people who do have the bug, eventually we’ll get there because it is like an urge that they cannot shake.
Denis O’Brien [1:15]
Yeah, I agree with that. But I also think that there are a lot of people that are very curious about entrepreneurship, they want to sort of chopped off and stuff, but they’re just, they’re not sure if it’s right for them. And in today’s episode, I think we really want to try and address both sides of the coin and really talk to you know, what are some of the things you should be considering if you’re interested in entrepreneurship?
Katie Welsh [1:37]
Sure. Yeah. Well, it’s a big commitment and a big step to make.
Denis O’Brien [1:40]
Definitely is so before we dive on it if you guys haven’t already, we’d love to join our Facebook community. Head on over to chainofwealth.com/group, join our community and come and tell us about your money story. Alright, Kate are you ready to dive on in?
Katie Welsh [1:55]
Yes!
Denis O’Brien [1:56]
Fantastic. Let do it!
All right, so chatting all about entrepreneurship and today’s episode, we’re focusing a lot on the pros and cons and today I think it’d be fun to start on the cons]solike what’s bad about on entrepreneuship what grates you if you’re considering this all if you’re in that lifestyle.
Katie Welsh [2:29]
First thing that comes to my mind is the unpredictability aspect and not really having that set-ness.
Denis O’Brien [2:39]
Like a set work schedule?
Katie Welsh [2:41]
Set, work schedule, set, pay period, just that comfortable background that you get when you go to your nine to five job. Knowing that basically no matter what happens, you are going to get a paycheck at the end of your two weeks.
Denis O’Brien [2:55]
Right and with that fixed schedule, you know, like there’s someone telling you what to do, you know, you have stuff that you’re already responsible for, and it’s small bite sized chunk tasks normally, and you know, you have to deliver x by whenever whether it’s an hour whether it’s in two weeks, depending on the nature of your work will obviously dictate when stuffs due, but you have some kind of a fixed schedule that you’re working with and you have deadlines and you know, like stuff is very rigid.
Katie Welsh [3:25]
Yeah. And when you are off doing your own thing. It tends to be much more flexible. And it takes a certain kind of person to be able to run on their own clock and be able to be active and productive and everything like that when you don’t have basically like an accountability partner when they want to think about.
Denis O’Brien [3:48]
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think sort of speaking about your brother a little bit, you know, like, say, he’s kind of ventured off into doing his own thing. And he’s in the process of starting up a bank. One of the things that he mentioned when I was chatting to him about it is he didn’t realize like how much admin there is, for lack of a better word. You know, like every task is your task so all of a sudden, you know, you hire someone new, your IT and your HR and your everything, at least initially. You know, and it is sort of aspect that you don’t really consider that these tasks take a lot of time and energy.
Katie Welsh [4:27]
Yeah, well on my brother, basically, he has been, I feel like the top dog at work for a long time, he moved up very quickly through the ranks. And he always has just seemed like he is the boss. And now he has ventured out. He’s, like you said, starting up a bank. And he’s never had to be IT and HR and the hiring person and the problem solver and the computer setup person, and all that, and I think it has been a real learning experience for him. And don’t get me wrong. I’m really proud of my brother. But it’s also a little bit satisfying for me to watch the struggle.
Bec ause I’m gonna preface I have struggled through so many things in my life and it’s like my brother has just been smooth sailing his whole life. So I have a lot of respect for him. But it’s also kind of nice to watch the struggle from afar.
Denis O’Brien [5:29]
Yeah, I totally agree and speaking about the struggle, like when you are a solopreneur, especially in the early stages of like setting up a business, I think there’s a certain element of loneliness that really takes people and you know, it can almost like create a bit of a depression even.
Katie Welsh [5:46]
Well, yeah, most definitely. And I will speak to that point a little bit because I wasn’t like a super entrepreneur. But I did spend some time when I first moved up to Virginia, and I didn’t jump right back into teaching I, you know, tested the waters a bit with a few other things. And historically, I enjoy going to work because I always try to make at least a handful of friends at work so it’s not so only me so you have people to talk to eat lunch with, maybe go out for coffee with afterwards and you know, even sometimes hang out on the weekends. And when you are working by yourself all the time.
You don’t have that camaraderie where even if your job is not that great at least now you have a friend. Not that I want to say. I like watching other people be miserable. But I at least want to be a little bit justified in my unhappiness or somebody to talk to and something exciting going on or even just the heae like what you’re doing during the weekends or if you’re new to an area where cool places are to check out.
If you’re working by yourself you don’t have anybody to have that conversation with typically.
Denis O’Brien [7:2]
Yeah, totally agree and also thing Kate because you all sort of you know, smaller doing it on your own competition is real because you don’t have the resources to sort of outbid your competitors. If you’re, if you open up like a jewelry store, and you’re not competing with the other jewelry store down the road and they could like go into a price war with you or whatever the case is and, you know, sort of trying to stay competitive. Especially if you’re a small business, I think it’s quite challenging.
Katie Welsh [7:31]
Yeah, I feel like you might have a story with that competition thing?
Denis O’Brien [7:35]
Why cuz I have some family in the jewelry business?
Katie Welsh [7:37]
Seeing how you grew up in the jewelry business.
Denis O’Brien [7:40]
Yeah, I mean, you know, like my parents on the jewelry business in South Africa. And, you know, like over a long period of time, they’ve been there for 27 years. But essentially, a lot of other companies came and went. And you know, it’s just sort of interesting seeing why certain companies stayed why certain companies ended up failing. And but it comes down to the small business and the competition.
If you have something unique to offer, like my parents were running a manufacturing jeweler, so they were able to make up people’s jewelry, like they’re in there and like in house, and a lot of like, maybe there’s someone that’s a little bit newer that comes in, they don’t have that facility and customers go towards the thing that’s going to give them the most marginal utility.
Katie Welsh [8:19]
Biggest bang for their buck.
Denis O’Brien [8:21]
Exactly. So yeah, I think that definitely competition does play a major role in running a small business and trying to compete and
Katie Welsh [8:58]
Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing initially. Okay, so let’s do a quick recap with all this debbie downer. So the cons basically is, you know, you’re wearing all the hat. So you are IT you are problem solver. You are this person, that person and every other person in between. You have to worry about the competition. It can be a bit lonely, and it’s not as fixed with your salary with your schedule, and stuff like that.
Denis O’Brien [8:58]
Yeah. So just before we dive on into the pros, we’re going to take a quick break and say thanks to our sponsor.
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Alright Kate, so moving into the pros of being an entrepreneur, and a lot of people will really get excited speaking about this especially if they’re into entrepreneurship. But I would say one of the biggest aspects that people sort of tend to gravitate towards is control.
Katie Welsh [10:1]
Oh, yes, definitely.
Denis O’Brien [10:2]
People like to be in control. And, you know, you often hear people saying, Oh, I’m gonna quit my job cuz I don’t want to be told what to do. You know. And as an entrepreneur, you have that ability to decide what you want to do. And when you want to do it and you want to schedule and you don’t report to a boss. It’s like the age old Spider Man quote goes. With great power comes great responsibility. You have to be able to know how to like manage that. But it’s in your control, you have that ability to drive change, which, if you are in a salary job, you may feel restricted that you actually don’t have much power over anything.
Katie Welsh [10:36]
Yeah, I think that you’re right it can be one of the most frustrating parts of having a set job is that you don’t really get to make a lot of the decisions and you don’t have a lot of control over things that you are doing and even say, if you need to take your child to, like a doctor’s appointment. A lot of times even something so small, yet important, can really turn into quite a hassle.
Denis O’Brien [11:6]
Yeah, I totally agree. And speaking about something else, you do have a bit more control over your salary. Now, I know we said earlier that the salary is a big block point where you can say oh, well, you don’t have a fixed salary.
Katie Welsh [11:20]
What if I make no money, I think that’s everybody’s fear.
Denis O’Brien [11:23]
Right? Hundred percent. Look, it’s a completely valid fear. But what you also get is typically, the harder you work, the more you can earn. Whereas in a salary position, you can work yourself to the bone, you’re probably earning any get your regular salary. And you might get a little bit of a bonus if you’re lucky.
But typically, the more work you put in, the higher your income is going to be. And also, there really is no limits to how much you could earn. You know, if you keep growing and growing, and you start growing exponentially, and you start, you know, leveraging your business and bringing on employees and stuff like that, you can literally be at the top and remain at the top. And, you know, like you can literally earn whatever you want. So you can earn a lot of money and as an entrepreneur. Yeah, but I think it’s a little bit more difficult to break into the sort of neck where you can say, Okay, I’m now going to be earning enough money to overtake what I would be earning in my fixed nine to five job.
Katie Welsh [12:17]
Yeah, well, we’ve talked to dozens of people who are entrepreneurs on the podcast. And the one thing that I’ve really taken away if you do want to make substantial money, then entrepreneurship is most of the time your best route because you have all those streams of income coming in. And we’ve talked about, you know, the average millionaire has something like seven different income streams coming in. And if you are an entrepreneur and let’s say you have a flower shop, right. And you have all these big accounts coming in, you know, you have I don’t know why the first thing that came to my mind is like a funeral home.
Denis O’Brien [13:2]
Yeah, bit of a morbid client. But yeah!
Katie Welsh [13:6]
But funeral homes are, you know, they’re everywhere, and they need flowers regularly. And then you have another, you know, We’ll think of something happier..
Denis O’Brien [13:17]
Flowers for a wedding!
Katie Welsh [13:18]
A florists or wedding you read my mind. And, you know, a couple of different accounts like that. Well, each one of the accounts is a different stream. So like, say You know, funeral shop A close down while you still have funeral shop B, C and D.
Denis O’Brien [13:37]
Yeah. So essentially, by being your own boss and having all these different clients, you’re actually diversifying your income. Because let’s be honest, if you got sacked from your nine to five, for most people, that’s awesome. That’s it, you know, that’s it, like, you only have one income. So in many respects, it could be considered less risky, being an entrepreneur, because you do have, you know, more more accounts and more income streams,
Katie Welsh [14:3]
Right.
Denis O’Brien [14:4]
Yeah. So I think a lot of something else that we do see it with a lot of entrepreneurs, especially a lot of the ones that we’ve interviewed, is the sense of excitement, Kate. They love talking about what they’re doing and what impact they’re having and what they do on a daily basis. And it’s something that we seem to see mostly in entrepreneurs.
Katie Welsh [14:24]
Well, it’s, it goes back to unfortunately a lot of people when they go to their nine to five, how many people have you personally known that hate their job?
Denis O’Brien [14:36]
Yeah. But people get stuck into positions doing stuff they don’t want to do.
Katie Welsh [14:39]
And it’s such a shame because you spend so much of your life working so much of your, you know, healthy younger years at your job. That’s a long time to be unhappy. And the people who do break out of that and start their own thing, you have to work so hard typically to get it up and running, that it is something that you are passionate about to begin with. So then that passion and then if it starts doing well, it adds to that excitement.
Denis O’Brien [15:11]
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. So just to sum up a lot of the pros that we’ve just gone through now. So I would say the most important thing, well, not the most important, but that freedom that a lot of people get when they become an entrepreneur, they’re moving on to a salary that’s starting to proportionate to how hard you work. Typically, there’s also this great sense of control, you know, you’re owning what you’re doing, you are calling the shots, you’re doing your own thing. And I think also the excitement of that comes that as well.
It’s something new, it’s something fresh, something that you’re passionate about. So I must say like, you know, they definitely are a lot of pros and cons. And depending on your personality type, you’ll fall into a bucket that either this appeals to you. Either you love it, either your hate it, maybe it scares you to death, maybe it’s something you want to do, but it’s definitely something you should be considering, you know, and I think that everyone, in some respects, thinks themselves, oh, what if I opened up my own shop doing x?
Katie Welsh [16:11]
Right
Denis O’Brien [17:10]
I think everyone’s had that thought at one point or another. So sort of understanding the pros and cons that go along with that as well. Kate, something else we didn’t really touch on but I’d like to bring it up is you know, it depends on your family circumstances as well.
Katie Welsh [16:27]
I wanted to bring that up too.
Denis O’Brien [16:27]
Maybe you have your family of four that’s reliant on you and you’re the sole breadwinner. You know, maybe quitting that nine to five is not a great idea.
Katie Welsh [16:36]
Especially just, you know, you wake up on Tuesday and you’re like, I’m not going I quit.
Denis O’Brien [17:10]
Yeah, exactly.
Katie Welsh [17:10]
Probably not the best idea. But if you and your significant other, talk about it, plan for it, save up have, you know, a plan A and a plan B, and probably even a plan C.
Denis O’Brien [16:57]
Yeah, then it’s a lot more doable.
Katie Welsh [16:59]
And we’ve talked to lots of people who said, you know, you have your set amount that you think that you are going to need, and you should actually in reality, like, what was the triple that amount?
Denis O’Brien [17:10]
Yeah, triple.
Katie Welsh [17:40]
Because there’s always going to be those unforeseen costs that you know, the computer breaks or the rent is more expensive or something happens.
Denis O’Brien [17:20]
Yeah, totally agree. Well, guys, we have absolutely loved hanging out today. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, we’d love as you can leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. We read every review good and bad and thank you for your kind words. We absolutely love you guys and we will catch you again on another episode of Chain of Wealth.
Katie Welsh [17:40]
have a good day.
