The pros and cons of being an entrepreneur

The pros and cons of being an entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is someone who starts their own business. As with everything else in life, having your own business comes with pros and cons. Think of it like a coin, on the one side you have the pros (the good things) and on the other, the cons (the not so good things).

Before you decide to start your own business, you should weigh up the pros and cons of going out on your own so that you don’t make a premature decision that you will end up regretting. It is one of the biggest decisions you can make in your career.

To help you consider whether entrepreneurship is right for you, here is a list of pros and cons of being your own boss:

1. You’re your own boss: You determine how much work you do, no one is going to push you to work harder or do more. This will be a pro for you if you’re a diligent worker because you’ll push yourself to full capacity anyway. But if you need someone to set deadlines for you because you work best under pressure, this will be a con for you.
2. You write your own pay cheques: The harder you work, the more money you can make. That’s a pro. But, there are certain risks that you wouldn’t normally have to worry about if you were employed. Some of these cons include customers not paying you on time, or at all (it does happen). If you don’t have enough resources or the right ones in place, you will be limited in terms of how much you can achieve. And, sometimes, work comes in drips and drabs, but you still have to cover your overhead costs (fixed costs like salaries and rent) in that period, and then there are times when you get more orders than you can handle and may end up having to turn business away.
3. You have more freedom: You don’t have to ask for permission to take a day off or sleep in. That’s a great pro if you’re not particularly keen on rules and policies! The con side of the coin is that every hour you’re not working, you’re probably not making money so you’ll more likely end up working even when you’re sick because you don’t want let your clients down and ultimately lose them.
4. You make all the decisions. One of the pros to having your own business is that you don’t have to please anyone or try to get their buy-in on anything. There’s no one to argue with, every decision is yours. This is great if you’re sure of yourself, know what you’re doing and you’re able to tap into internal or external resources for advice. The con presents itself when you’re not a confident person and find making major decisions difficult.
5. You don’t report to anyone, people report to you. If you have a good team working for you, this can be a great pro. You feel successful – like you’ve ‘made it’ in your career. But if you don’t hire the right people and you’re not a natural leader, this is a definite con. You will have to solve the problems they create, spend hours coaching them and wasting a lot of time, money and energy doing their jobs for them. Plus, remember, staff have to be paid, so no matter what happens in your business, you are responsible to them and their families in terms of paying them on time and what you agreed to pay them.
6. You don’t need to work with anyone else. If you like working independently, this is a pro. You can just get on with your work and not have to deal with different personalities. Working on your own can also be a con because you could feel isolated and lonely at times.
7. The fact that you don’t need a degree to run your own business is a pro: Going into the job market and hoping someone will hire you or studying for years to make yourself more employable isn’t an issue if you want to start your business. But if it’s learning that you don’t like, this is a real con. When you have your own business, you will be reading and researching a lot of subjects because you are ultimately responsible for everything that happens in your business. From accounting, to tax, to law, to personnel issues, you will never stop learning.
8. You decide who you want to work with. The pro of running a business is that you can cut off any client or supplier that you don’t like working with. The con is that you could be turning away good money if that is how you run your business. Sometimes you just have to be nice to horrible people because it’s best for your business.
9. You determine your success! This pro is true most of the time but entrepreneurs don’t live in a bubble. The economy, customers, competition and politics all have an impact on your business. There are risks everywhere and you need to learn risks are worth taking and which aren’t, and sometimes you’ll make mistakes… Costly mistakes.
10. You have so much flexibility. This is a great pro, but you also have a lot of stress too. It’s important that you manage your stress well otherwise you will burn out and hate what you do, possibly even lose your business.

These are the major pros and cons of being an entrepreneur. As you can see, there are always two sides to the coin. If you can learn to balance the pros and the cons, you will be a successful business owner.