What is keeping you from starting your own business?

So I am guessing most of us here have thought at some point about the possibility of starting a business. Maybe some of you have, and others have ditched the idea (I am still in the middle of both groups, nothing serious though, just a side biz for pocket money).

For those of you in the second group, what has stopped you from starting up a new venture?

 

Don't have an idea I'm passionate enough about. Going out on your own sounds great, and I would love to do it, but if you don't have an idea your excited about the grind will destroy you.

 

Had to start a company for a business school project, and the passion behind the idea is what I lacked. I'm definitely open to going down that road again, but only once I'm confident I want to go all in.

 
Ruhm:

Had to start a company for a business school project, and the passion behind the idea is what I lacked. I'm definitely open to going down that road again, but only once I'm confident I want to go all in.

Interesting - what happened to it after the project was done?

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

I left since I did not feel ready to commit as much as my partners. They "bought me out" and continued developing our venture for a while, but I think they are slowly putting it on stand-by to focus on other projects. That was also an issue for others doing similar projects, everybody has other stuff going on - including other ventures - and few have what it takes to persevere.

It was a great learning opportunity, though.

 

It seems prohibitively costly and futile to start a website/app based company without a software engineering background. You could hire someone, but I think it would be pretty difficult to build a quality version of any of the ideas I've had through someone else. As far as starting a normal small business goes, it seems like in most cases you are just buying yourself a much lower paid job. This country kind of screws small businesses too. Healthcare is insanely expensive when you aren't on an employee plan.

 

Never understood why investment bankers and consultants don't start more businesses. You have insight into industrues no one else has access to. you know what works and the problems beforehand, it's like having a cheat sheet.

After realizing 90% of workers and most business owners don't have a true passion for the normal job/business. I'm less worried about what I really like and more open to just finding a lucrative niche.

 
aspiringchimp:

Golden handcuffs. After a few years, the opportunity cost of starting a business for bankers/consultants is way higher than that of more "regular" jobs

This and your cost of living goes up as you get used to a higher salary. Not many people would be willing to significantly decrease their spending habits in order to start a business.

 

This.

And if you think investment bankers magically have the insight that no one else has, you're pretty sorely mistaken. Investment bankers are typically smart and hard working, I'm not trying to knock them, but excel skills + networking does not automatically equal success starting a business.

I think the most successful startup founders (of traditional business at least) would be engineers with real world experience. Being able to literally build a better mousetrap is the way to go. I see this fairly frequently in the industry I'm in (which is Industrials, so that might have something to do with it).

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 
midwestbiggie:

Never understood why investment bankers and consultants don't start more businesses. You have insight into industrues no one else has access to. you know what works and the problems beforehand, it's like having a cheat sheet.

After realizing 90% of workers and most business owners don't have a true passion for the normal job/business. I'm less worried about what I really like and more open to just finding a lucrative niche.

"The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary" - Nassim Taleb

Also, I also would like to point out that not everyone is meant to be a founder. Some people simply aren't self-starters that would work with that hunger or fire & brimstone if they were their own boss. Even more so, I think a lot of people don't have the risk appetite to have their own business, where there's really no guarantee that you'll have more money in the bank at the end of the month than when you started and it's eat-what-you-kill.

In tech, for example, some of them are meant to be employee number 1 or 2 of a startup, rather than part of the founding team. Especially the MBA guys, it's a running joke in VC that you should "hire the MBA guy last", followed by a variety of reasons like "he'll slow down growth", "he'll kill innovation", etc. Even for lifestyle businesses, I find that a lot of people are too caught up in analysis paralysis and would rather stay in the safety of their jobs where they get a deposit into their bank accounts every month, whether they did great or not. When I started my own business (which now pays me, and my partners proper salaries, mind you) everyone was telling us it'd never work, someone will come in and eat our lunch, or we'd never get it off the ground. Especially since only one of us is full time in that business, with me, and one of my other partners working "part-time" (but really more like devoting every non-work hour to the business) . 2 years and lots of sleepless nights (and weekends) later, we're probably the most profitable in the space which we operate (albeit it's a small industry). Suddenly, the same people are coming out of the woodwork asking if they can invest or partner with us, etc. I think that founders have to think "what-can-go-right", which is very difficult, considering a lot of our training in finance (especially in the discipline of Investment Management) is to do sensitivity analysis for what-can-go-wrong.

Then of course there's the whole privilege discussion where sometimes people's circumstances in life don't allow them to go all-in and risk it all to start a business. For example, someone who comes from a poor family but managed to get into investment banking might make bank and earn a nice chunk of change at a young age but has to send a younger brother/sister to school or maybe help the parents out with bills. It also wouldn't be prudent for a single mom with two kids to leave a stable finance job to strike it out on her own, at least until her kids are done with school. One of the Jr. Partners at our firm for example, I think would make a great startup founder. However, her older sister is currently in the ICU due to multiple organ failures and has been battling cancer for a few years already, and she has to help her retired parents with the hospital bills. She also has 2 young kids.

"Be the Disruptor, not the Disrupted" - Clayton Christensen
 

Am a former investment banker, and I started a business. I moved down market post 3rd year analyst from a BB to a small tech boutique to work on earlier stage tech deals so I could learn more about what makes a successful founder. The answer most often tends to be right place, right time and luck. That said, I made the jump to founder 5 years ago. It's been way harder than I ever expected, but we're growing and currently raising our series A. We're up to 20 employees, several big customers, have raised $5.5M to date in seed funding and have ~$3.5M in run rate revenue.

I'm ultimately glad I did it, but it's probably taken years off my life due to stress. Being a monkey at a BB in IB working around the clock was way easier and less stressful for me. Granted, I never minded being an analyst all that much and stayed in banking through to VP.

 

Nice, congrats! You may have not minded banking, but it's still more satisfactory to work for yourself, isn't it?

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

I can tell you from a lot of experience in founding and running companies that no its not. You might gain more satisfaction knowing you are building your own thing, however the amount of stress that comes from being responsible for other people crushes any self worth upside by orders of magnitude. Starting a company isn't all going to work in shorts and flip flops. I have made multi million dollar acquisitions that felt incredibly stressful at the time, but once I started buying companies and were responsible for other peoples livelihoods that stress of spending millions of dollars felt like spending a few dollars on a coffee. People constantly stress about money thinking its some huge thing, money is just some replaceable widget when compared to holding the destiny of peoples future in your hands.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

It's opposite the saying, but when it comes to giving up my livelihood and pouring my savings into something, I'd take good over lucky. What I mean, is that I have yet to see / think of an opportunity where I would be substantially more valuable (or my idea would create substantially more value) than the people / products already in the marketplace. I'd like to think that if that situation were reversed, that I wouldn't find myself paralyzed by the same thoughts already expressed in this thread (golden handcuffs, risk taking, etc).

Just my .02

 

I used to be an entrepreneur, in fact that's how i paid for most of my necessities growing up. After getting my first internship and the constant cashflow, it was comfortable and i got complacent. That being said I'm currently selling products that change depending on current trends and it has been a lucrative side business.

What concert costs 45 cents? 50 Cent feat. Nickelback.
 

Capital, simple as that. I really don't give a fk if it is a cupcake shop or a cyber security company, the moment I have enough $ I'm leaving the 9-5 to become a full time entrepreneur.

Array
 

I doubt it, unless you have a very specific business in mind that requires X amount of capital for licensing and regulatory fees capital isn't a constraint on starting a business.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

You guys really need to think simply. People in finance generally have a solid rolodex. Open up a head hunting shop. Zero capital and all it really takes is a computer, a network and LinkedIn. Get it going while you work.

Or, once you're a seasoned Banker, help funds raise capital. Or open an advisory shop.

 

This. You don't need to be the next Zuckerburg. Used to work with someone (junior to mid-level finance career) who did exactly what you described above and loves it. Not terribly glamorous (or the area of finance where most of us work) but I have another friend who quit their job in accounting and does out-sourced accounting for small businesses. Not going to sell the business for a billion, but makes better money than they were working for someone else and has complete control over who they work with, how much they work and what they work on. Pretty great lifestyle.

 

The fact that 95% of small businesses fail within 5 years, and 50% fail within one year. Remember, most people have significant survivorship bias when they think about opening a small business. Unless you have a really good idea, your venture is likely doomed to fail. Not a huge issue if you invested minimal capital, but not great either.

"There's nothing you can do if you're too scared to try." - Nickel Creek
 

Probably a gross oversimplification, but I have found there are generally two types of people in this world, the people who make problems to be solved or rather expose a problem (entrepreneurial-types), and the people who solve problems/create solutions (analysts-types). Or a perhaps a better way to describe it would be abstract vs. structured thinkers

I look at an Elon Musk who was able to think, "i want to make space travel affordable," or "make solar energy/electric cars for the masses". His vision sets the perimeters, and his engineers/scientists/analysts make it happen. For me personally, it's very hard to visualize on such a grand scale to formulate an idea, but with the addition of those minimal direction and perimeters, i could absolutely entrench myself in another persons idea and work toward a goal.

I think that's why i enjoy finance at least in the middle market space (as much as anyone truly can enjoy work anyway, and maybe BC our sales people are hot garbage), it's basically here is a company; make the financing work for them, figure out a way to structure this buyout/refinance/purchase, frame it so that if we are in competition you beat the other people or at least make it close enough that our relationship can put us over the top. ......Damn that got really introspective really fast lol.

 
SF_G:

Oh please. If Elon Musk and his companies weren't corporate welfare whores they'd all be bankrupt in a nanosecond. What are their earnings? Exactly.

I don't think they would be bankrupt, but your point of contention is a reasonable one.

Keep in mind that renewables are not the most heavily subsidised industry -- coal is. I can't remember the entirety of the research conducted on energy subsidies, but we did discuss it in a previous thread.

 

I've been part of small businesses before, and I think the most important part, in any idea that you have, is to have a strong team to build your business with. It might sound cliché, but it really is the people. An idea is great, but executing it and then successfully taking it where you're comfortable really just relies on relationships. I've heard so many entrepreneurs say it, but when you see it, it really shows itself when people make small mistakes and don't have anyone to support them, or when there's hard times and the difficulties become overwhelming, they have setbacks that short their progress.

For me, I would want to build my relationships first. This is to make sure I have reliable sources of cash for liquidity purposes. But more importantly, so that I can know that my product will be able to take off into a nice underdrift once the concept is complete and ready. I don't know that I would ever want to be a full-time entrepreneur, but I would want a nice business or portfolio of businesses on the side to be a part of. So, definitely want strong relationships to start to reduce the upfront time investment and commitment.

 

Don't know why you had MS thrown at you... this is spot on. Ideas are honestly a dime a dozen. Wall Street is bad at idea generation so everyone on WSO are likely to think that great ideas are the hard part. Having a cofounding team of talented, fully committed people is the most important thing to a startups' success. Talented people work with other talented people and congregate around other talented people, so that's why you see entrepreneurs (or teams of them) who can hit it out of the park with startups in radically different industries.

 

I've been part of small businesses before, and I think the most important part, in any idea that you have, is to have a strong team to build your business with. It might sound cliché, but it really is the people. An idea is great, but executing it and then successfully taking it where you're comfortable really just relies on relationships. I've heard so many entrepreneurs say it, but when you see it, it really shows itself when people make small mistakes and don't have anyone to support them, or when there's hard times and the difficulties become overwhelming, they have setbacks that short their progress.

For me, I would want to build my relationships first. This is to make sure I have reliable sources of cash for liquidity purposes. But more importantly, so that I can know that my product will be able to take off into a nice lift once the concept is complete and ready. I don't know that I would ever want to be a full-time entrepreneur, but I would want a nice business or portfolio of businesses on the side to be a part of. So, definitely want strong relationships to start to reduce the upfront time investment and commitment.

 

I'm working on it. I'm a student in college at the moment but just passed my NMLS exam so I should be able to originate mortgages starting in the next week or two. I'll be working with/ for a family friend that knows my plans.

I don't plan on that for a career path though, as the mortgage broker business is likely to get more and more eroded by big banks and tech companies (quicken, etc which are not really tech persay).

 

Guy here who has had moderate success in this area, and interviewing at BB.

Once you start looking at actual businesses you realize how vicious the competition and how complex running a business can actually get. Global competition is absolutely insane.

Sure you can have a great idea, amazing team, phenomenal marketing, and money behind you. But the one thing that everything forgets about is timing. It has to hit the world at just the right time or else everything else means jackshit.

Running a business requires you to make decisions that aren't binary, but actually have hundreds of different angles they can be approached from. At the start of your career, spending your time on a new venture is probably the most risky thing you can do.

Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
 

I thought you were going to be a cop. When did you get bitten by the entrepreneurial bug?

GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
 

A copper's a full time job. Rounding up n*ggers, shooting them before they see ya, hauling illegals for minor traffic DUIs, beating up protesters.... EDIT:- Seems I riled up too many five-O wannabes here. But hey, I just presented the truth as it is. Though I respect them men in uniform, you butthurts ought to check out the report of the Chicago PD.

GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
 

Call it a search fund call it

People tend to think life is a race with other people. They don't realize that every moment they spend sprinting towards the finish line is a moment they lose permanently, and a moment closer to their death.
 

I think it's important to talk about what stops us to launch a business, and what will probably makes us fail (or most common business errors). Most people I know (young people) usually don't launch a business for 2 reasons:

  • Access to capital. I had for example several business ideas in Seoul and Bangkok that required a large amount of capital (i.e >$1M).
  • Fear of failure. What If I fail ? What if I lose my investors's money ?

And here is why most business entrepreneurs fail (in my experience and opinion):

  • People do not understand the market/demand/customers's current needs or needs they are not aware of (basically marketing).
  • Poor financial management. I come from France and more than half of business failures there are due to that.
  • Understand the business culture. I speak Thai and Korean,and some of friends tried to launch businesses in Thailand or Korea without speaking the language. It's really hard because learning a language will also help to understand the business culture (especially Korea).

However I launched successful gyms in Thailand (7 gyms). I found investors thanks to my network. I used my proprietary trading track record to be able to convince these investors that I have skills and I'm a serious person (which is dammn important).

I hope you guys become successful as well, either if it's in your current job or if you want to launch a business.

 

On a lower level, it's because every time I look into it I come to the conclusion "wait... running this would probably suck as much if not more than holding a job, so forget it".

At a higher level, I think we're at a point in economic development where there's very, VERY few opportunities left for a little guy to compete without an entrenched interest of a "big" guy who could crush you at any point through bought influence, economies of scale, etc.

 

There is risk in US Treasury bonds, but we call them risk-free simply because they are the least risky on the market relative to every other type of bond. Let's say, then, that your job is similar to a Treasury note. We know that we will never become rich from investing in only government-issued securities. We diversify our portfolio with equities, derivatives, and alternative assets to maximize our exposure to profit-making potential and, in turn, risk.

Why, then, would we not diversify our time the same way? Should we not take the cash flow from our zero-risk investment and pour it into higher-yield vehicles? Surely it's better to earn $80k / year as a 9:15-4:45PM paper-pusher, with several side-hustles yielding $150k, than it is to earn $125k/year, hoping for a $75k bonus, working 8AM-8PM.

The former has potential to grow into a business you own and make a lot of money from on a dollar/hour basis, while the latter will always follow a linear progression. As a business owner, your opportunities for development are limited only by your taste in school, learning, travel. As an employee, you're just going to business school (and maybe taking the CFA exams).

Does this come down simply to risk appetite? Have I stumbled upon the realization that finance isn't for me?

 

Risk appetite is about 95% of it and 5% is lacking the product to sell. Part if the risk is knowing that the odds of anyone making fuck you money are lower in their own pursuit than sticking the course in this industry. However, odds are not impossibilities.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

Focus on the tall brunette in marketing.

The answer to your question is mostly common sense and somewhat risk aversion. The statistical risks of entrepreneurship are far greater than that of Russian Roulette - though lower consequences for sure. No rational person would ever start a restaurant, ever. Look at the odds. But,,, if you can mitigate risk ... then it's worth looking at. So really, the answer is that most people lack the cunning to offload risk.

Global buyer of highly distressed industrial companies. Pays Finder Fees Criteria = $50 - $500M revenues. Highly distressed industrial. Limited Reps and Warranties. Can close in 1-2 weeks.
 

No one will even give me a job as an equity analyst now, there's no way they'd give me the capital to start my own fund. Not that I don't hope to one day.

Hoping for hedge life.
 

While an investment in a small business CAN be good, it is also way more risky than buying a large company or even buying a stock.

There are enormous issues with doing diligence, looking at the books, etc. with small businesses and you never know what you're getting.

The other issue is that if you buy a retail business/store/anything that sells physical goods, it's going to be very tough to run it with "no effort" and lawyer/banker types have no time for any of this.

If you do want to go this route, I would strongly recommend buying an online business where it's actually possible to outsource a lot/avoid real employees/not deal with inventory etc.

Bottom line, though, is that it still takes effort and if you don't have any time it's better to invest in the stock market rather than other businesses.

 

I started the traditional middle school/high school lawn business. Originally began in 8th grade with an old lawn mower. In HS I joined up with my best friend who did it in his neighborhood. We continued to do it every summer because we simply did not want to work for anyone. Now in my 3rd year of college and we did about $60,000 in sales last summer. We now do commercial businesses, own 3 industrial lawn mowers at ($13k-18k a piece) and just purchased a pickup.

While I am going into banking this summer, will continue to help the business as much as possible and keep the side cashflow coming in. Basically, just an advisory role now because we hired some kids to help cut but if it contintues to grow, might just focus on that.

Didn't need too much money to start.

 

Thanks for the replies! yeah im thinking now owning a real store might be a bit much if you have a full-time job or coursework, unless i have a huge initial capital. i would definitely consider stocks, but it requires a lot of research(reading) and also some serious initial capital because you pay for transaction fees and taxes.. so it might take years before i feel comfortable with that. as for internet business, i know very little about that. say you sell computer equipment online, it is true you can stash all your inventory in your basement but your online buyers are also unwilling to pay as much as people in real stores. they use websites like "cheap deals" or whatever to get the lowest prices. so if you try to buy cheap on ebay or from a wholesale retailer your profit per item will still be much less. and you would probably need 1 employee who would make sure to ship and to accept purchases whenever you're busy. i havent seen many online stores for sale but i figure it's easier to just hire a programmer to build one for me. but i did see a porno website for sale and i hope it was a joke because i doubt anybody would pay for it. lawn mowers and payday loans are great ideas but definitely not for me. another one im thinking of is escort service. i think i have the most original idea for that. but i think in terms of risk it is probably better to get something like an online computer store first, just so i could handle running a business in general.

 

The #1 thing which will cause a small business to fail is the owner not being there. The best way to lose alot of money is to start a business and hand it over to someone to run for you. Alot of ppl have the fantasy of owning a bunch(or even one) business(es) and paying people to run them. The only ppl who successfully do that are the ones who cannot possibly run all those businesses themselves and they usually have partners and still lose alot of money to theft and bogus partners.

Ive seen hole in the wall businesses still being able to turn a profit because they have no employees and the owner runs it him/herself. Similarly Ive seen incredibly profitable businesses run into the ground because the owner leaves employees to pad their pockets.

 

Started my own investment advisory firm right post Associate level. Lined up a few friends: 2 Senior Associates at pretty good PE funds, 3 VPs from major investment banks, 1 corporate lawyer from a major US law firm, and 1 fortune 500 executive. Was supposed to setup a country fund for an emerging market. I closed down the shop after 6 months then went to join a corporate strategy department at a major bank. Wanted to share a few things that I learned from starting my own fund.

  1. Not everyone is risk adverse. In the end, only one business partner stuck with me till the very end.
  2. Good friends does not mean they will be good business partners. Sometimes when everyone is being too nice, it is counterproductive to getting things done.
  3. When you start your own firm, you are "the platform". You will start to appreciate the strong network, the financial backing and the information that were being made available to you by working for a big firm.
  4. Cash burns a lot faster than you think it would.
  5. Good associate or manager does not translate to being a good business owner. They are total different things.
  6. Clients: when you start your firm, you are the firm. And getting a stable flow of good client is harder than you think.
 

What is this small business? If it's running something manually, you'll find it real hard at a large bank. If it's something online, you can probably find time.

Bit of advice - don't ask, just do. Don't let your financial wellbeing be in the control of an industry that works you to the bone doing busy work and has serious ebbs and flow. You'll find your life being much happier if you have side income that allows you to say no to someone if things get too crazy.

 
TNA:

What is this small business? If it's running something manually, you'll find it real hard at a large bank. If it's something online, you can probably find time.

Bit of advice - don't ask, just do. Don't let your financial wellbeing be in the control of an industry that works you to the bone doing busy work and has serious ebbs and flow. You'll find your life being much happier if you have side income that allows you to say no to someone if things get too crazy.

I have scores of friends both in banking, big law, and engineering have side businesses that they are passionate about. Some have quit their full time roles to pursue it once the income stabilized. It is doable, just tough to adjust to for the first few weeks.

 

Hello friend, not conform that. It may be possible or not. The bank always needs verification, various documents for that. It is a very difficult process. 2 years ago when I faced financial problems, I had contacted a well known financial company. They were helped me in a short time,

 

za - I thought $50k sounded extremely low too, but he swore that's what the guy said.

Doing a quick search (in the US) it seems like nice, but used models can be had ~$100k and new fully loaded models are a few hundred thousand.

This is older, but this 7 series sold for $30k: http://www.worldwidearmor.com/for_sale_186.html

2004 Expedition 34k miles sold for $36k: http://www.worldwidearmor.com/for_sale_176.html

jk - I'm not saying I have everything figured out. However, I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to lay low and market yourself to Int'l companies with facilities in Brazil and F500 companies.

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

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twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

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success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”