Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career?

As your business grows and develops, so too do your business aims, objectives, priorities and strategies– and that's why an awareness of what stage of the business life cycle you are currently. By Sharon Michaels Flickr Photo by ImagesofMoney Also by Sharon Michaels: 15 Ways to Start a Side Business Have you been job hunting but, haven’t found an ideal job that showcases your talents.

  1. Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career Position
  2. Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career Opportunities
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
  1. Due to current restrictions and Covid-19, gambling may become a primarily online event. As more states look into legalization, the market is going to grow in 2021.
  2. And some quit a job to start their own business, which to me is the best reason of all. (Keep in mind there are compelling reasons to hang on to your full-time job as long as you can while you get.
  3. 'Any' job is often better than no job, but not necessarily. Measure 'filler' jobs against your overall career plan. Be wary of any side gig that holds the power to hamstring you into a permanent sideline position. Our career paths are rarely straight lines. Sometimes the route to a coveted sales position goes through the mailroom.

Most people don’t start out as entrepreneurs. They choose to start their own business only after some level of work experience.

It could be because they don’t like the idea of having a boss and want to step out as their own. It could be because they learned critical skills that enable them to be a leader in their own right. It could even be because they came up with a great idea in the normal course of working.

Of these three motivations stemming from an existing job (and of course, there are always more), only one stems from the job being intolerable. In the other cases, the job is fine, but entrepreneurship serves as a valuable alternative.

Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career Position

Related: 5 Tips for Keeping Your Day Job While Launching Your Own Business

Because stepping out as an entrepreneur is risky and staying with your current job is safe, many potential entrepreneurs consider the idea of starting their own business while maintaining their full-time jobs. This approach doesn’t work for everyone, as it has some critical limitations, but it also has some key appeals.

The benefits

Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career?

First, and most important, is the security factor. Leaving your current full-time job to start your own business can be risky. You’ll be abandoning your post, investing your own capital and potentially running on zero income for the foreseeable future. If your business collapses or fails to generate any meaningful momentum, you’ll be low on cash and without a job.

Keeping your job while starting your own business is a way of hedging your bets, granting you some guaranteed income as you work to develop your business on the side. If you keep your job, you can quit at any time. If you quit your job, it’s going to be difficult to get it back.

Keeping your existing job also allows you to take advantage of company resources for the benefit of your new enterprise. Obviously, you can’t take office supplies or tangible goods, but you can talk with your bosses, co-workers and colleagues to get advice or partner with them to develop certain areas of the business. You can even engage in professional networking to start building contacts for your new business.

The drawbacks

The most obvious drawback is time. If you’re working full time, you won’t have much time left over to pursue your own business. You’ll have to force all your work in the company to weeknights and weekends, which are typically harder times to do business. This means it will take a longer time for you to get your business up and running, and you won’t be able to give it your all for as long as you stay employed.

Second, you’ll naturally consider your startup more of a hobby than a living, and you’ll be less motivated to nurture it to fruition. Rather than being motivated by the sink-or-swim nature of sole entrepreneurship, your safety net will keep you from fully mentally investing in your enterprise.

Related: 5 Tips to Chase Your Entrepreneurial Pursuit While Working a Full-Time Job

Working on your startup can also have a negative impact on your performance at your full-time job. If you find yourself distracted with new ideas or staying up all night to complete work on some facet of the business, you won’t be able to give your full attention to your job.

Eventually, your employers will notice, and you could wind up losing your safety net altogether. Or, if you can juggle both entrepreneurship and a full-time job, your family and personal lives may suffer. After all, if your only time to work on your side business is on weeknights and weekends, when will you spend time with friends and family? It’s a major burden to take on both at once.

Conclusion

There are clear advantages and disadvantages to starting a business while employed. But as long as you can reasonably manage both, I would have to give the slight edge to retaining employment while starting a business.

There is a study that suggests entrepreneurs who start a business while still employed tend to do better than those that don’t, but these results might be suggestive of a hidden variable, such as risk aversion, that leads both to this decision and to entrepreneurial success. Personally, I went the route of starting my business on the side while still working as a full-time employee elsewhere. It’s difficult, but doable.

If you do proceed to start a business under your current employer, be sure to adhere to the following best practices:

  • Don’t do any entrepreneurial work on company time. This could burn a major bridge and leave you without a job.
  • Be open about your intentions with your supervisors. The last thing you want is for them to find out by happenstance.
  • Don’t sabotage yourself. If your business demands more work, either quit your job and go full time, or find additional help.
  • Keep it balanced. Don’t burn yourself out, and don’t allow your performance to slip.

Remember, there’s always time to change your mind! For help taking the plunge, grab my ebook, The Modern Entrepreneur: How to Build a Successful Startup, from Beginning to End.

Related: You Have the P.O.W.E.R. to Start a Business While Working Your Day Job

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, your gender may impact what you expect to get out of your career.

What does gender have to do with dreaming big?

Men are from Mars; women are from Venus? According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, your gender may affect what you expect to get out of your career. Men and women tend to hold widely different views on what level of job and annual salary they will reach during their lifetime.

Is Starting A Business A Safer Bet Than Your Current Career Opportunities

'That's Mr. Boss Man to you.'

Men are more likely than women to expect higher job levels during their career. Men aspire to reach every leadership position at a higher rate than women, more than doubling women's expectations to be a company owner and a vice president. Women's expectations tend to be much lower – over 22 percent of women expect to remain in an entry-level role, compared to only 10 percent of men.

Job level expected to reached

Men

Women

Company owner

9%

4%

Senior management (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.)

6%

4%

Vice president

5%

2%

Director

10%

8%

Manager

29%

27%

Professional/technical role

31%

32%

Entry level/administrative/clerical

10%

22%

Men also tend to believe they have a career instead of just a job (54 percent) compared to women (47 percent), and they are more content with career advancement (42 percent) than women (36 percent).

Satisfied with the status quo?

Today, over a third of women (34 percent) do not believe they earn the same pay as men with comparable experience in their organizations. Men are not as convinced about the wage gap; 82 percent say there is pay equality in their organization.

Despite differing career expectations and uncertainty around equal pay, women (63 percent) and men (64 percent) are similarly satisfied with their jobs overall.

Who expects the big bucks?

While salary isn't everything, it can be an indicator of how much responsibility workers have within their organization – and everyone needs to pay their bills.

When asked to estimate the salary they would ultimately reach in their careers, men were much more likely than women to report they expect to earn $100,000 or more. Forty-four percent of men say they expect to reach a six figure salary compared to 20 percent of women. On average, the highest salary men say they expect to reach during their careers is around $137,000. Women anticipate reaching around $79,000.

Men are more likely to get a pay increase (64 percent compared to 61 percent for women). Bonuses are also given more frequently to men (39 percent) than women (34 percent).

Asking for a raise or promotion

Regardless of your gender, asking for more money or a bigger title can be stressful. Here are some tips for having a successful conversation.

  • Research how your company handles raises and promotions. Sometimes companies only give them at a certain time of the year, after a specific amount of time.
  • Be prepared to defend your case. Arm yourself with evidence to support why you think you deserve this. It is better to be over-prepared, so don't be afraid to practice your pitch.
  • If the answer is no, stay calm! Ask your manager for concrete steps on what you have to do to get to the next level, and agree on an action plan.

For more tips, check out this helpful video.