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Work for yourself - the good life

In my recent discussion titled: "Is Structure Good", I pondered aloud about what type of company I should be working with today in order that I stitch up a lucrative position with Microsoft in 10 years time. 

The use of "Big company vs Small comany" and "Microsoft" were - I assure you - completely academic to the whole initial point of my pondering.  The question, for me at least is, what can I do today to make sure that I'm where I need to be in 10 years time, and, I can guarantee that that's a better argument otherwise the question wouldn't even be valid for people that work for Microsoft today... would it?

As a few people have pointed out, I omitted a major point for comparison in my model of "A vs B"; what about the third option: working for yourself?  In short, this is not a model that I favour at all.  To me it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense -- although, granted, someone has to do it, right? :-)

I kind of look at it like this:

Pro's

Con's

  • no sharing of costs
  • broader, less focussed skillset
  • so many more tasks ( accounting, Hr, legal etc. )

Don't get me wrong, I do think about going it alone, and, I believe - in the short term especially - that I could do pretty well at it.  But, as an e-mail signature that I saw this morning said: "We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves"; I think that you need to be honest with yourself about what picture you are looking at when you envisage a life of self-employment. 

  • I know that there will undoubtedly be people reading this that think my logic is completely screwed but, if you are looking for a reality check about it, do this: 

    • ring the first 4 successful, self-employed persons that enter your mind
    • ask them if they set up their platform for success during the 4 year period when the Nasdaq climbed from 800 to 5000
    • ask them a bit about the sort of work they do to determine how much variety they get

    In summary, I'm not sure whether it will be "A or B" that does it for me, but, I still feel that my biggest chance to "win big" is to be with either "A" or "B" and show *them* how to be highly successful as opposed to the (what I perceive to be) higher risk option of "C".

    • 3 Comments

    • Biggest downer I have found is the stress of getting money out of clients who think that it might be a fun idea to put you at the bottom of their list of people to pay. As an independent, you have very little leverage when dealing with an accounting department who turns 30 days into 45. Or the small business owner who says "Mate, I'm owed 30 grand right now, as soon as I get paid I'll sort you out."



      I've also found I don't want to let myself take any "time off whenever I want" because I'm always stressing about finding more work. This is from a perspective of someone in the relatively early stages of independance though, things may change over time.

    • Agreed - plus as a rule of thumb you will need to spend half an hour a day doing business administration stuff. (Filling out tax forms, dealing with the revenue, accountants, auditors etc...I suppose this would vary a great deal by jurisdiction)

    • The worst part of the "job" of being self employed for me is scaring up work when the need arises. I have some pretty reliable clients, but every now and again, there is a shift in what they need (or can afford) and so I have to either pick up an additional client or convince an existing client that they have more work for me. I have been *very* fortunate over the last couple of years, in spite of the general downturn.



      I am fortunate that I have developed a cusion for the cash flow problems that clients can impose upon you, and I have one good client that pays within a week or so to balance the other major client that takes 60-90 days.

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