While becoming your own boss can be an intimidating path, it provides numerous benefits that can accelerate your career and enable you to take control of your life. Programs like Beta Bowl’s Entrepreneurship Program prepare you to tackle the challenges of being your own boss head-on and succeed in your endeavors. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the upsides and downsides of exploring entrepreneurship and becoming your own boss.
Related: Top 5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneurial Spirit
Pros of Being Your Own Boss
Given how popular being one’s own boss is nowadays, it’s evident that there are many pros to such a career path. In this section, we’ll discuss the upside of working for yourself, rather than a larger corporation.
You make the decisions
The most common reason for someone to want to become their own boss is the ability to make their own decisions. If you control your work through entrepreneurship or a flexible career path like freelancing, you’re in complete control of your career. That means you make all company decisions, from what direction to work into what jobs to accept. While this can be intimidating, it allows you to pursue your passion and exercise your decision-making skills and ultimately makes you a more effective worker.
Setting your own hours
A highly appreciated part of being your own boss is the ability to choose when you work. This can be important for health or productivity reasons – for those who prefer working at night, an independently owned company will allow you to work when you see fit. This can help you with logistical planning, such as managing work alongside raising a child or other personal duties. Most of all, setting your own hours affords you a new level of freedom to work whenever you feel the most motivated – you can schedule around other pursuits such that you work only when it’s most efficient for you.
No one can fire you
A common worry when working for a larger company is that you can always be fired. While this may temporarily keep your productivity up, it guarantees that you will always be on edge and worry about producing less-than-excellent work. However, a stressful environment like that is counterproductive to efficiency and innovation. If you work for yourself, you can always be content and motivated with the knowledge that there is no one there to fire you. This also means that you can choose your own working style, hours, and preferences without the fear of upsetting a manager for changing projects or ideas.
If you are looking for help in your entrepreneurial endeavours, Book A Call with Beta-Bowl today.
There is No Limit to Your Creativity
When working for a company, you may feel constrained by your manager’s limits set on you. Projects are often given with strict deadlines and requirements, forcing you to work within a tightly confined set of instructions. As an independent worker, you’re the one that sets these rules. Even if you are creating a consumer-facing product with individual specifications, it’s up to you to decide how to achieve this desired result and what approach should be used.
You Can Come Up with Your Own Culture/Routine at Your Workplace
A common complaint of working for a large company is a poor culture fit between the employee and employer. Given how intangible workplace culture is, many employees are unsatisfied after joining a company, even if they enjoy the work or appreciate the company itself. As a result, picking your own workplace culture is an understated yet highly important part of being your own boss. As a decider of corporate culture, you decide the mood and the tempo of work and what you focus on, and how you interact with others.
Related: How to Increase Your Creativity in High School
Cons of Being Your Own Boss
However, being your own boss isn’t for everyone. Some certain risks and worries are inherent to such a career, and this lifestyle may be more terrifying than enjoyable. In this section, we’ll explore several of the downsides of becoming your own boss.
Income Isn’t Guaranteed
Financial anxiety is one of the chief concerns associated with becoming your own boss. Because you manage your income source, generating money is purely dependent on how much time and effort you put into your new job. If you are a motivated hard worker, this won’t be a worry in the long run. However, with income not guaranteed and your salary volatile, there can be a lot of anxiety along the way.
Your customers or clients are your boss
Calling yourself your own boss is somewhat of a misnomer – when you’re getting money from an external source, you always work for someone. This can take the form of a direct customer, in which you must tailor your product to fit their needs. Alternatively, if your product is business-facing or a business invests in you, that means meeting a client’s demands. Either way, even independent workers are often under the discretion of some ruling body.
Related: Entrepreneurial Mindset: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
Everything depends on you
One of the most terrifying things about being your own boss is that there is no boss above you to make sure you are doing everything right or taking the correct path. Rather, every decision you make is your own. As a result, while you are responsible for any successes, you’re equally responsible for failure. This can be intimidating, but it is important to remember that being (strategically) risky works to your benefit and will benefit you in the long run.
You Do Almost All the Work in the Beginning
When you first become your own boss, there’s typically a large overhead. If you’re a freelancer, this means gaining coverage and finding clients (typically of any project when you desperately need work). If you’re a business owner, this can mean setting up the entire product, and sales funnel to manage its sales. Either way, there can be a lot of initial work to set up your business before you’re able to take a more hands-off approach.
You spend your own money
Spending your own money while being your own boss can be a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, since the money is your own and you owe no one for spending it, you can take risks without the fear of hurting others. However, any risks you take that don’t pay off will harm you directly. While this may seem scary at first, spending your own money requires you to be strategic, so you do more due diligence before taking risks. As a result, using personal assets will keep you in line and focused on your business.
Searching for that extra push to advance and apply your entrepreneurial skills? Enroll with Beta Bowl for professional hands-on development!
Conclusion
Everyone has the capacity to be their own boss, but you should ensure to evaluate the pros and cons of doing so before you go through with such a decision. While becoming your own boss can seem scary at first, you’ll soon find there are many reasons that such a decision can benefit your professional and personal life. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend you consider every facet of such a decision and how it can potentially impact you.
