Running a small business can be fascinating to some of us with a drive to succeed—but let us face it, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Before you venture out into business, you should consider the pros and cons of having one or the pros and cons of being an employee. Would you want to own a small business, which makes you the boss of your own, or would you want to work with an employer which boss thing out?
Talking about freedom in business, when you own a business, you get to be the boss of your own because basically speaking you are the business owner. Am I making sense? This comes with advantages; you tend to have independence and flexibility to make time for your family, friends, hobbies or other activities that draw you from your business or entrepreneurial life. You also get the chance to boss around with your employees, if you’ll have, in a good manner, because of course, it is your business anyway; you would not want to fail, right? But aside from having the freedom of having your own, there is also freedom in being an employee yourself. Being employed gives you certain amount of freedom because you don’t have to stress out every aspect of the company, you don’t have the fear of failing your own business and put everything to waste, and of course you can have vacation or enjoy the weekend or holiday, which might depend on what type of work are you in.
One of the huge difference between being a business owner and an employee is that employees receive regular paychecks, and some jobs might offer you different benefits like insurance and stuff. As an employee, you know how much you going to get paid and can budget accordingly. On the other hand, being the owner of the business or company, your income can vary from month to month basis and year to year as well. This could really be hard for you to plan for your future as you can never be certain of your financial resources; unless you run a big company, right?
When you are an employee, you are entitled to vacation time, rest day and may even receive paid sick leave or maternity leave. Many employees, I mean most employees receive health benefits from their employers and may also have hundreds of thousands worth of savings plan. As a business owner, aside from losing revenue for each day that your employee is sick or on leave, you will need to provide health benefits and savings plan of your own, which makes it more expensive and more hassle.
To become a business owner, you must have the resources to start up with your business. You must have access to financial capital that you can invest in the start-up. This creates a higher barrier to becoming a business owner than to simply taking a job of being someone’s employee. You may need to pour all your savings into the business that you want, the time and effort must be invested as well, not just at the beginning of starting up but for the whole lifetime of having that certain business. Having a business will eat you all up while being an employee simply provides you with an income with slight risk, except losing your job and income stream.
In this article, I am not discouraging you to be a business owner nor to simply be an employee and just take someone’s work. I want you to think about things and weigh it accordingly. Weigh the situation first, develop a strategy and implement it. After all, you are the captain of your own ship.
