Corporate Citizen or Entrepreneur

[dominican]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. I am a long time listener of FDR, and have been implementing philosophy into every facet of of my life. I am now at the point in my life where I am questioning if my work, where I spend half of my weekday hours, needs a dose of philosophy as well.

 

I guess the logical place to start is with what I am doing now. I am currently a manager in one of the big 4 accounting firms (PwC, Deloite, E&Y, KPMG), making a 6 figure income, managing the finances and staffing for a 160 million dollar piece of the audt business. My work week is easily 50 hours per week, and can get up to 70 to 80 hours per week 2-3 weeks per month. While I enjoy doing the work, and for the most part feel good when I bring a positive change to the business, it is very draining and mostly thankless.

 

What has been breweing in the back of my mind lately is the fact that I really want to work for myself. I have many business ideas (Computer consulting, HR consulting, local and international real estate, motorcycle development and sales) but I am afraid that the opportunity cost to pursuing one of these businesses is too great. I would be taking a HUGE pay cut, at least in the beginning, and I would work twice as hard. What I see as the positives is that the work would be on my terms, I would have ownership of my own work, and if I want to take a random wednesday off, I can.

 

The biggest reason for me to do this is because I feel like I can bring more to the world. I have a vision of starting my own motorcycle brand, and getting more acess to people that want to experience motorcycling.  I have a vision of owning large amounts of property in the caribbean and bringing affordable housing to those impovrished people, as well as bringing affordable but luxurious spots for someone to lay out on the beach. I have a vision of going to small and medium sized business and improving their employee morale and efficiency, to not only make the company or firm more profitable, but to also improve the lives of everyone working for said company or firm. I know these visions will take a lot of time, effort, and braincells to come to life, but I feel the drive to do it.

 

Can someone help me out in this decision? I'd like to know all opinions that you guys may have. I have socialized this, and so far the only good feedback I've heard was to start off small, and I have started a youtube channel for my motorcycle escapades, otherwise the feedback has all been "are you nuts? you have an awesome job, you'd be stupid to quit". The only other person that is supporting me is my lovely fiance. She has told me that she doesn't like me being drained by the work machine. There are times where I get home, and I have no energy to even eat.

 

Thanks in advance for your help/opinion.

[Carl Green]

Maybe try dipping your toes in the water by reducing the amount of income you use to that which you think would be available to you if you were to try the venture, and just save the rest of it. This will at least tell you if you're comfortable with such a pay cut. (though since the work load would still be so great, it might skew this perception)

[dominican]

Thanks for the reply Carl. I currently live well below my means, and can easily make half what I make now and still be able to save money. It's the fact that I won't be saving up as much as I would if I stayed working. What would you do in my situation?

[Carl Green]

I actually am in a somewhat similar situation but scaled down a good bit. I'm making good (not 6 digits good but decent) money right now but am working towards leaving the steady income gig to get into sculpting glass. I fortunately have the luxury of being able to work on the ideal career as I'm still at my current job but it sounds like this would be less of an option for you given how much time the current job takes up.

 

Sure you're current job is satisfying and all that, but if you're reasoning to stay would be because it's satisfying, and you're other venture would be more satisfying, than it's more obvious which path you should take.

 

So unless you have some other reasoning behind staying in the yolk of 'the board', drop that shit like two hot rocks as soon as reasonably possible. Just make sure that the market demand is on par with the amount of effort you'll need to put in.

[dominican]

I'm getting very close to taking the plunge. I've started my motorcycle brand by motovlogging on YouTube, and in the summer I'll be going to the Caribbean to look at properties.

 

I just want to make sure I'm not crazy for wanting to leave my current job and career...

[ManDudely]

Hello.

 

I've spent a lot of time lately studying successful people, taking aboard their advice and attempting to conclude any sort of pattern from their habits and beliefs. I'm also planning to start a business, but I am currently at the opposite end of the spectrum to you. I have no attatchments to whom I am responsible, nor do I currently have a job to consider leaving. Sure, it makes my decision of 'go for it or not' a hell of a lot easier, but makes actually starting the business harder as I lack the starter capital.

 

You presented a couple ideas. I'll try to summarise them below and you can either correct or elaborate on them.

 

Starting a motorcycle company.
Property rental.

Property development.
Business & Management Consultant.

 

Obviously you can't start doing all of them at the same time. And remember that most startup businesses fail.

 

The safest idea you presented here is probably the property rental and development. It would probably be the easiest too, allowing for a large degree of time to spend at home with your fiancee, while providing a dependable return on investment over time, provided you buy the right property, or can manage the process of developing them. Consider that you don't yet have relationships with the local contractors you might have to rely on, so at the moment you have no real way to gauge their quality should you need their services.

 

After that there's the Business Consultant. I would imagine you have the knowledge and experience to do this, but a consultant is a freelancer. You'd be stepping into the world of unreliable income. I have no idea what rates you could feasibly charge, and the hours you have to dedicate would probably vary from business to business, but your prime concern in this field becomes marketing yourself to potential customers to either grow or at the very least provide a sustainable level of income. It would help if there was a business or two that you knew needed help. Even if they're small, local businesses. Offer them your expertise at a cut rate, perhaps, to prove your expertise. You prove you actually can help a failing business, then you grow your consultancy from that success.

 

The wildcard is the motorcycle business, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on that. You didn't drop a Youtube link to your motovlog so I can't go look, but are you envisioning like a repair garage? Or do you have a design in mind for a whole new vehicle?

[Romulox]

I have also found myself in a similar situation, as I have been working as an engineer at a nuclear power plant for the past 7 years.  The pay is approaching 6 figures, and it's as secure of a job as anyone can hope for, but I can't relinquish myself to the cubicle life for the next 30 years.

 

The biggest difference in my situation is that I don't have that dream career picked out quite yet.  While I am trying figure out what exactly that dream job is (which I only hope can be at least half as cool as glass sculptor or inventing my own motorcycle brand!), As a start, I've looked into alternate sources of income in order to lessen my dependence on my current job; in this case, I took the real estate investing path. 

 

I took a fairly in-depth class about a year and a half ago and bought my first rental property, a small duplex about 30 minutes away, in January 2014.  Though it cash flows less than 10% of my current income, getting that check in the mail is just so liberating; going to work becomes so much easier when you know that you don't need that job to survive.  Though I don't have a long term career plan, it doesn't really bother me anymore; if I can acquire a few more properties, I can try any number of things while still maintaining my standard of living while having that safety net in place if things don't work out as planned. 

 

Do you currently have any properties or experience in the real estate field?  If this is your first go, I would consider keeping those first properties within driving distance until you get your feet wet, and perhaps taking a class or two to get the basics down.  While RE investing can be immensely profitable, there are plenty of ways to get yourself in trouble, and I imagine having to deal with those problems in another country for the first time would make them exponentially worse.  But if this isn't your first rodeo, the Caribbean plan sounds fantastic!  Writing off beach trips to the Caribbean as business expenses can be part of anyone's dream.

[dominican]

Let me address some questions to the responses so far, piece by piece:
 
"The safest idea you presented here is probably the property rental and development. It would probably be the easiest too, allowing for a large degree of time to spend at home with your fiancee, while providing a dependable return on investment over time, provided you buy the right property, or can manage the process of developing them. Consider that you don't yet have relationships with the local contractors you might have to rely on, so at the moment you have no real way to gauge their quality should you need their services."

 

This is the safest idea, and the one I am most likely to do, no matter what. Through High School, and halfway through college, I worked with a contractor, building kitchens, putting down flooring, doing electrical, plumbing, and all the rest. While I would, of course, get help from some contractors I know, I can pull my own weight when it comes to home improvement. 

 

"After that there's the Business Consultant. I would imagine you have the knowledge and experience to do this, but a consultant is a freelancer. You'd be stepping into the world of unreliable income. I have no idea what rates you could feasibly charge, and the hours you have to dedicate would probably vary from business to business, but your prime concern in this field becomes marketing yourself to potential customers to either grow or at the very least provide a sustainable level of income. It would help if there was a business or two that you knew needed help. Even if they're small, local businesses. Offer them your expertise at a cut rate, perhaps, to prove your expertise. You prove you actually can help a failing business, then you grow your consultancy from that success."

 

This idea I have only recently toyed with. I have over 6  years experience managing large groups of resources, optimizing utilization, morale, and revenue, both known and future, with hiring goals and resource placement. It came to me that having this expertise, and then wasting it, would be somewhat of a shame no? It would take quite a lot of cold calling and marketing to get into that market. The only thing I can think of is offering my services for free, and turning a business or two around, then using that as a selling point for future business. I also don't know how much I would enjoy traveling around for business, since I really do enjoy being around my loved ones a lot, and work/life balance has been a the sore point in my current career.

 

"The wildcard is the motorcycle business, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on that. You didn't drop a Youtube link to your motovlog so I can't go look, but are you envisioning like a repair garage? Or do you have a design in mind for a whole new vehicle?"

 

Here's where I start getting really interested. I have been into motorcycles, and frankly into anything that I can travel on (horse, bicycle, car, plane, helicopter) since I was a toddler. I'm very much into motorcycles now, and I feel there is a void, especially in NY state, of alternative motorcycle brands. In NYC, you can get any brand you like, but if you venture out, even 20 miles outside of NYC, you see that you really have limited shopping options. I bought my motorcycle at a place I wish never existed. Bad pricing, bad service, overall bad experience. If I was a casual rider, I would have taken my business elsewhere, maybe get a boat or a jet ski. I think that through this under served market, there is an opportunity to import Chinese motorcycles that are great, but inexpensive. I have a potential business partner, already in China, that is also a designer, and is currently busy designing furniture in China. I would love to go with him to a chinese manufacturer, or two, get some designs in front of them, import a couple of bikes, test them, use my engineering background (I took 3 years of mech engineering) and mechanical experience to improve the bikes in terms of quality, build a small steel warehouse to house some parts (for warranty and service) and start selling motorcycles. This idea is what I am most excited about, and my fiance would definitely back me, but it just seems to me like it is the most far fetched. Then again, the guys over at Cleveland CycleWerks did the exact same thing, and they are doing pretty well, so proof of business is already in existence. Here is my young Youtube Channel: FlyinGato and my Book Face page: https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkGato.

[dominican]

I have also found myself in a similar situation, as I have been working as an engineer at a nuclear power plant for the past 7 years.  The pay is approaching 6 figures, and it's as secure of a job as anyone can hope for, but I can't relinquish myself to the cubicle life for the next 30 years.

 

The biggest difference in my situation is that I don't have that dream career picked out quite yet.  While I am trying figure out what exactly that dream job is (which I only hope can be at least half as cool as glass sculptor or inventing my own motorcycle brand!), As a start, I've looked into alternate sources of income in order to lessen my dependence on my current job; in this case, I took the real estate investing path. 

 

I took a fairly in-depth class about a year and a half ago and bought my first rental property, a small duplex about 30 minutes away, in January 2014.  Though it cash flows less than 10% of my current income, getting that check in the mail is just so liberating; going to work becomes so much easier when you know that you don't need that job to survive.  Though I don't have a long term career plan, it doesn't really bother me anymore; if I can acquire a few more properties, I can try any number of things while still maintaining my standard of living while having that safety net in place if things don't work out as planned. 

 

Do you currently have any properties or experience in the real estate field?  If this is your first go, I would consider keeping those first properties within driving distance until you get your feet wet, and perhaps taking a class or two to get the basics down.  While RE investing can be immensely profitable, there are plenty of ways to get yourself in trouble, and I imagine having to deal with those problems in another country for the first time would make them exponentially worse.  But if this isn't your first rodeo, the Caribbean plan sounds fantastic!  Writing off beach trips to the Caribbean as business expenses can be part of anyone's dream.

 

 

My reason for looking at the caribbean is that I am from there, and I have family already living there that have already agreed to help me with property management. I also have a cousin that, as an engineer, has built 4 subway stations and has also helped build the largest hotel in the capital, Santo Domingo. He has all of the building connections and contractors needed to build, and labor is much cheaper there, as well as no property taxes, makes everything so much sweeter. I also would love it if I could spend 4-5 months out of the year in caribbean, and not in this hell hole we call a city in the winter.

[Romulox]

Wow that's great; the Caribbean real estate plan sounds like a great supplement and/or backup plan to motorcycle brand development.  By all means get out of this arctic hell and enjoy your new winters in paradise!!

 

(Paradise not just because of the weather, but for being a magical place without property taxes)