The Downsides of Entrepreneurship & Finding a Great Job

The key to a great job is finding one that perfectly aligns with your skills, passions and goals. But it typically takes years of experience before you can confidently make the switch from employee-to-entrepreneur – unfortunately this means lots of trial & error along the way.

The “10 disadvantages of entrepreneurship” is a list of facts that show the downsides of being an entrepreneur. Some of these are: the lack of stability, high risk, and the difficulty in finding a great job.

Vintage Black men working in office at desk with typewriter.

Being an entrepreneur — a business owner, a founder, or a founder — is hot right now. It’s considered as a profession with a lot of independence, flexibility, and autonomy, as well as a lot of money-making possibilities. Every millennial’s desire these days seems to be to build and operate a successful business. On Shark Tank, everyone aspires to be a CEO and pitch to rich investors.

Without a doubt, entrepreneurship is the finest approach to achieve a fantastic and happy job.

The disadvantages of being your own boss, on the other hand, are often overlooked in this image.

When you peel back the glitz and glam of entrepreneurship, you’ll find that it’s a demanding job that takes long hours, significant personal input (both time and money), and significantly more stress than your usual job. As CEO, you’re in charge of everything, including dealing with litigation, paying taxes, dismissing or laying off staff, filling in mundane administrative jobs, and so on. There isn’t much time to clock out. Ever. Especially at the beginning.

Nonetheless, even when individuals are aware of the disadvantages, they attempt to push themselves into pursuing that path. Even when their hearts aren’t in it — when they don’t want to put in the hours, when they don’t have a viable company concept, and when they’re constantly planning rather than executing – they beat themselves up over it.

Why? Because they are much more afraid of the alternative.

Many guys only perceive two professional options: 1) becoming their own boss, or 2) working for the man, slogging it out as an employee in some soul-sucking, soul-deadening job.

Fortunately, this is a complete fallacy.

While working for someone else, it is possible to have all of the ingredients for a great job plus the bulk of the perks of being an entrepreneur. As long as you can locate a job that includes the four P’s.

The Four P’s of a Happy Job

According to Noah Kagan, a multi-company founder who admits that “being a founder really sort of stinks,” being an employee may be just as enjoyable as being an entrepreneur if your work succeeds in four categories: product, purpose, pay, and people.

Product, in my opinion, may be subsumed into Purpose since the product or service you assist support via your job is intrinsically linked to its ultimate meaning. I also believe that another “P” might be used in its place: Position – the position you play and the tasks you do on a daily basis.  

I asked Noah for his thoughts on these categories in order to learn more about them. If you don’t think establishing your own business is for you, you may still find something that is just as fulfilling as entrepreneurship if you search for the following Ps:

You are concerned about the company’s product, service, and/or goal.

People are typically driven to beginning a company because the service or product is something they are passionate about. That’s OK, but you might also look for work with a firm that’s currently doing something you care about and has the infrastructure in place to keep doing it for many years. That’s a lot simpler than starting from the beginning. Noah informed me that he always searched for positions with companies that had a wonderful product or goal (and he worked for a lot of them! ), and that he only established his own businesses when he couldn’t find anybody who could give him what he needed.  

 

Recognize that just while a lot of people believe a firm or position is “cool,” it may not align with your particular interests and beliefs. When Noah worked in the Facebook games department, a part of him felt privileged to work for such a hip, “important,” well-known corporation. And the other members of the department liked their time there as well; they felt it was just enjoyable, and they appreciated putting smiles to people’s faces via games. Noah, on the other hand, despised it. Facebook games irritated him to no end, and his work was unfulfilling since the goal of his employment didn’t connect with him.

When you believe in what a firm is doing, it’s a lot simpler to come to work every day. It’s more pleasurable to work when you believe you’re contributing to something that makes people’s lives better, healthier, or simply more fun, even if it’s in tiny ways.

Position: You love the majority of your daily work and responsibilities.

So you’ve discovered a firm with a goal you believe in; do you also have a favorite job function? Do you find satisfaction in your daily tasks?

Many aspiring entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that being a founder is significantly more attractive than it is. The reality is a little more mundane than meeting with major prospects and conducting creative, big-picture envisioning and blueprinting. To some degree, you do those things, but the majority of your time is spent on administrative activities, legal business, accounting, and HR work, as well as responding emails and phone calls. It’s more like 80% busywork and 20% exciting, big-picture business development.

Being an employee with a more specialized title may better fit your abilities and interests while also increasing the amount of time you spend on responsibilities. Even if your title is more broad than a company owner’s — such as “Manager” — you still have a more defined framework for your daily and weekly obligations. You have a clearer sense of purpose and function. While no career will be 100 percent pleasurable or rewarding, you’ll be in excellent shape if the heart of what you do is enjoyable.

Rather from being deceived into believing that being an entrepreneur is all fun and games and day-to-day independence, look for positions that are more defined and that align with your abilities and interests.

Pay: You are compensated fairly.

Feeling like you’re getting paid what you’re worth and in accordance with what you contribute your employer is a big aspect of work happiness. This may seem trivial at first glance, yet it’s the reality. Money does, in fact, buy happiness, as Brett discovered from Jonathan Clements (up to a certain point, of course).

If you believe that becoming an entrepreneur would earn you more money than working for someone else, you are mistaken. It might take years — in Noah’s case, a decade — to make more money as a freelancer than you would as an employee. You may have risen through the ranks to a high-paying managing or executive post during that decade. In reality, the average compensation for entrepreneurs is falling, and it is currently lower than the average wage for a middle management.

 

How can you tell whether you’re getting fairly compensated? Payscale.com, salary.com, and glassdoor.com all provide useful information on typical pay in different sectors and locales. While a New Yorker’s income may be greater than yours in the Midwest, the cost of living in NYC will be far higher. Another thing to think about is your benefit package. Vacation, health and other insurance, retirement contributions, and other perks might account for up to 30% of your annual compensation. So, if you earn $50,000 per year, your benefits will be about $15,000, bringing your total pay to $65,000. When comparing employment and the different benefits packages companies provide, keep those statistics in mind (if they offer benefits at all).

While there is no one amount that would fulfill everyone’s wage and lifestyle aspirations, research reveals that after you earn about $75,000 a year, your daily happiness and well-being plateaus. Keep that figure in mind when deciding which careers to pursue (also keep in mind that the number goes a lot further in Omaha than it does in San Francisco, so you’ll have to perform some cost of living calculations in that situation).

People: What’s up with your coworkers? Are they dedicated to their work? Kind?

If you’ve ever worked in a poisonous atmosphere or a nice one, you know how crucial the people you work with are to your job happiness. You spend more than 40 hours a week with your colleagues, and that’s just during work hours. When lunch breaks, networking events, and workplace social trips are factored in, many people spend more time with colleagues than with their own families. If your employees are rude, mean-spirited, lethargic, or just plain disagreeable, it may result for some fairly horrible days and weeks.

When you’re the boss, though, you get to choose who makes up your crew. Everyone you recruit will be not just hardworking and trustworthy, but also entertaining. Right?

If only it was that simple! It’s quite tough to hire employees. Someone may be a fantastic interviewee for an hour and then be a terrible employee. It’s also possible that someone who didn’t do well in their interview and didn’t receive the job was an amazing employee. The truth is that you won’t know how well your team works together until they’ve been together for a long.

You have some fundamental separation from your team as the boss. You can’t claim to be their buddy or peer (except in unique cultures, and sometimes very small operations). And, sadly, layoffs are typical in startups, which will fall on your shoulders.

When you’re an employee rather than a business owner, you may sympathize with colleagues and experience camaraderie on a different level. It’s similar to the distinction between military leaders and enlisted men: the latter are supposed to be friends with their comrades but not to get too close. They must maintain a certain amount of distance while the soldiers on the ground cut free and develop strong ties. At the top, it might be lonely.

 

While you may believe that being an entrepreneur is the only way to surround yourself with a solid team (since you’re in charge, dangit! ), this is simply not true. There are a lot of fantastic businesses out there with great individuals working for them. And the truth is that there will always be excellent and terrible apples no matter where you go. Even if you’re in command of the situation.

Using the 4 Ps in a Sensible and Nuanced Way

If you can locate a career that includes all four P’s, you’ll almost surely have secured a job that’s equally as wonderful (if not better) than being an entrepreneur. It’s essential to note, though, that you don’t have to have all of these things in place when you first start a job (and maybe ever).

To begin with, a certain P may take some time to come online after being on the job. Long you could discover a firm with a Purpose you’re passionate about, you might also find that you become enthusiastic about a work after you’ve been doing it for a while and have mastered it. You may not believe you’re interested in a certain subject at first, but you’ll find out later that you are. Even if you never get enamored with the profession as a whole, you may become enamored with doing a good job in it. You discover a purpose in your career that you weren’t aware of when you first began.

This is particularly true for occupations that aren’t quite “cool,” but may provide rewarding employment. A plumber, for example, may not like digging through other people’s garbage, but he will appreciate mastering his craft and developing an interest in fixing difficult situations for individuals and companies, as well as effectively diagnosing complicated challenges. Even if you don’t have “passion,” you may discover meaningful meaning.

Another thing to bear in mind is that if three of the four P’s are particularly strong, it may not matter if one is lacking, at least for a time. For example, you may not passionately believe in the company’s Purpose, but if you’re well rewarded and appreciate your colleagues, you may be pleased and even enjoy your job.

Finally, it’s conceivable for a job to have all four P’s at first, but lose some over time when your colleagues change, your duties move, or your satisfaction with your tasks ebbs. In reality, this is a very plausible possibility!

Many individuals will just resign and search for a new job or consider establishing their own company if they find themselves in this scenario. However, I would advise you to choose an alternative route. If you enjoy the business you work for and all of the other P’s are fulfilled, go to your boss or HR to see if your job title or duties may be expanded, or if you can switch titles and do something entirely different with new people. Internal rather than external efforts should always be prioritized; as Commander Whitehead accurately observed, “Sometimes a lateral shift gives the remedy.”

 

Popular culture would have you think that if you don’t start your own business, you’ll end up as a bored, unfulfilled, and underpaid worker drone. However, although starting a company may be a rewarding experience for individuals, it’s also possible to find a rewarding job working for someone else.

For much additional information, listen to our podcast with career coach Joseph Liu: 

 

 

 

The “pros and cons of entrepreneurship ppt” is a presentation that has the pros and cons of entrepreneurship. It is an excellent resource for people who are looking to start their own business or find a great job.

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