Would you rather own a small business or be better paid working for someone else?
 

The choice is clear:

Would you rather own a small business that yields $40K a year in income (before taxes) OR work for someone else, making $75K a year (before taxes)?

do you always think in black and white?

it would honestly depend on what job made me happy. i'm assuming since it would be my buisness it would be something i would find fufilling, so i would say small buisness.

its no contest. one requrires clothing and boredom.

Fuck that.

I had to make that same choice this weekend.


Guess who will be sleeping in tomorrow morning if he decides he wants to.

LOL, amen.

There may be gray areas and seeming compromises... but when everything is distilled...it's always black and white. Always Yes or No. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either in denial, insane, drunk, confused, or all four.

hehehehe nice

Its a choice thats constantly looming in my mind. I have had my own mainstream company for 4 years now, and I am adding porn more and more as a side thing, but often enough I feel the lemmings calling me to go to a 9-5 job that you don't have to even THINK about after you leave for the night.

Stress is a bitch sometimes.

But freedom is worth a hell of a lot.

I hope you're joking... there are so many variations it's literally like comparing black and white (your two options up there) to full color.

I would choose neither of those, because both are too limiting.

:thumbsup

Not necessarily... I chose both for about a year while I built prototype products in the garage at night and got angel investors lined up, then I jumped out of my '9-5' job into my own company.

Now I find myself doing the same thing again with a second company and my first company....

Its never black and white in my life.

Well if my small business was only making 40k/year, I would probebly shoot myself.. BUT it would be just about the same as making 75k/yr as an employee, concidering I would write off all my taxes... so really, the choice is...
do you want to drive to work and wear clothes and deal with morons?
or work at home and do whatever the hell you want?

Good point...

I've noticed that everyone in this thread values working without clothes on very highly in their lives... :1orglaugh

Dude, we are cut from the same cloth. When you think about it, the stress and the fear is what drives small business people forward. If anything, it pushes us to do more with less, to be creative, to tap our inner wells of inspiration.

If anything...it is this same fear that thins out competition... LEAVING MORE FOR US! :)

A lot of variables to consider. I havent worked for anyone in a long time but if I was limited to 40k before taxes with a home business I would have to bail and take the 75k working with someone else.

On the other hand your own business doesnt have to have a 40k ceiling. Think bigger..

Amen brother.

I agree but I put the numbers out there to tease out the contrast in this scenario. Obviously, there's a cycle to small business...

if you like what you do and are passionate, you do a better job and your clients refer you to more clients, etc etc

I just put the numbers out there to sharpen the contrast

At first I THRIVED on that stress and excitement, but lately it has been really wearing me down. I think its bec. of the 2 new babies in my life... D'OH!

But thats okay, I love it... The only thing that would take me back to a 'regular job' would be some _very_ cool and challenging R&D type job that I couldn't possibly have the same technical and intellectual high elsewhere.

one thing I've learned in recent years is linear thinking gets you nowhere. Black & white choices suck. Diversity is King. You can have your own business, work for someone else, have other businesses, investments, properties, interests, etc.... and that's still small time. Think 3 dimensional and spread those damn eggs out. :winkwink:

my own business.

Take it easy, Siddharta. Its just a poll. No need to explain yourself.

lol

well i love my job, i used to be a graphic designer working on my own. Then just branched off from there. Now my business partner and I throw big parties in Hollywood and vegas with strippers, and some pornstars (well you know the starlette ones, the ones that will do anything to get to jenna jameson's level LOL). All thrown in huge hotel suites, booze, food, you name it. Now i can't say i could find that kind of job working for someone else.

The only thing that really sucks is having to deal with all this Visa and american gov. bullshit when it comes to porn. Give me a break George... we know you spank off, and you'd love to be at one of my parties! i wonder if he bangs his wife like he does speeches.. LOL think about it.. he says three words, has a brain fart, then speaks three more words, and so on........

anyways off topic here.. yeah my job is fun, i still love designing graphics, but they are for me, i occasionally hire for stuff to get done but yeah its all good i guess... well until tax time comes LOL. But owning your own corporation, even if its a small one, hell mine only consists of 2 people. But i still get to write things off tax wise, and what have you.

This is what I'm _trying_ to do recently... up till now I have just been so focused on making the companies a success while having a family that I haven't done much in the way of diversifying, building a realestate portfolio, etc...

I think I might actually pay a financial advisor this year to optimize all my shit.. taxes, investments, etc.

i like running my own thing.

Remember-
If you're not the Lead Dog, the view is always the same-

Thats the best thing I have heard all night :thumbsup

The Dog and the Wolf

A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by. "Ah, Cousin," said the Dog. "I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food regularly given to you?"

"I would have no objection," said the Wolf, "if I could only get a place."

"I will easily arrange that for you," said the Dog; "come with me to my master and you shall share my work."

So the Wolf and the Dog went towards the town together. On the way there the Wolf noticed that the hair on a certain part of the Dog's neck was very much worn away, so he asked him how that had come about.

"Oh, it is nothing," said the Dog. "That is only the place where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up; it chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it."

"Is that all?" said the Wolf. "Then good-bye to you, Master Dog."

Better starve free than be a fat slave.

I did my own thing for years.
It's only recently t hat I decided to get a hamburger flipper career.
I like my "job" ...
when I walk out - the day is done.

Being the "A Type" person I am (never gives up) ...
I find that this last year has been good - not money wise - but good for me - and my son.

Do the police know that you have a kid?

Yep ...
I am a volunteer for the Calgary Police ...
(not currently)

With my recent work load ...
I haven't volunteered anywhere for about 9 months actually.

Actually - today I tried to work off a traffic ticket by volunteering to the Calgary Police force ... my traffic tickets were "yellow" and not "pink" - what ever that means.

So they said NO - you can not work them off by volunteering.
grrrrrrr

Damn, that's pungent. But true for some people.... myself included.

AFN ... yep I agree.
I sleep well at night.

I do the right thing - at any cost - and it gives purpose to life.
I'm okay with that.

I guess it depends upon the circumstances.

I enjoy the freedom of working at home...in my boxers..watching the news or listening to music.

However I have growing fears about the future of my nieces and if something were to happen to me tomorrow.

Running your own business is a struggle as we all know and sometimes it can be feast or famine in this biz or any biz.

So at times I would rather have that nice steady pay check and just work 9-5 and go home and forget about everything and not ever log onto the net again...LOL

Weekends and holidays off...evenings spent with family instead of in front of a computer screen.

Now on my own..fuck it all. I would rather be my own boss.

Hell if I didn't have the kids here I would probably buy me an RV and travel the country and just work off of a laptop.

Would be kind of sweet working on projects with the grand canyon within view, or the pacific ocean one week and the atlantic the next :thumbsup

Dude, I already do that. I have WiFi from T-Mobile that uses Starbucks hot spots. There's a starbucks in Malibu with a kick ass view of the ocean. I just work there, enjoy the wind in my hair, talk to the surfer bunny chicks, and enjoy the freedom.

Sure, one day may be leaner than the next, but that's the fun. That's what pushes us all further and higher.

Having sampled freedom, like the wolf in Twistyneck's allegory above, I'd rather be the starving wolf than the fat dog. Of course, that's just my situation. Everybody else's different.

I hear you there bud ...
cash + equity = business value

stay true to the truth ...
and eventually it shoud catch up (in a perfect world)

I have infinite patience.

Personally ...
for the SexEducation.com suite of master domains ..

I figure another 10 years ...
and then I will be bought out.

Dude I've been the starving wolf on many occassions...if I didn't have 2 kids that relied upon me my decisions would be much different...right now I work on my own been self employed for about 31/2-4 years now...was just saying that while I've got the kids I wouldn't mind a steady higher paycheck :)

I'm not fucking starving ... nor do I want for money.
I choose my lifestyle.

Don't test my skills.
You will lose.

I vote 2...

Everyone's situation is different. But for myself, Self-Employment is cool. I can explore ideas and whims. I'm the type of person who gets excited about ideas and executing them--the money's just a way to keep score/assess if I'm on the right track.

Either way, whether you are self-employed or employed by someone else, I wish the best to you! :thumbsup

Here in the UK you get lots of perks if you work for your own company.

You get to pay yourself below minimum wage (but take home fat dividend checks which have a higher taxable rate ceilling)

Another perk is you don't pay child maintenence on dividends which is sweet.

And before anyone starts flaming about I should look after my kids - stfu you don't know me - my children want for nothing - period...........