Why in the world would I start a small business NOW?

For me the simple answer is this is when my Mom did it.  I remember being a young adult and working with Mom starting her own business.  Years later, we still view that time differently.  I believe she views it as an interesting, if failed, experiment.  I viewed it then and still view it now, as an unmitigated success.  I learned more watching my mother build a business from scratch than I have learned from any other process since.  So in very real terms, I am doing this now, because my mother did this when I was my kid’s age.  This is what you do to show your children how to succeed, even if the business doesn’t.

 

Money is a very good reason, with stability right behind it.  We can use the extra income. Kids are pricey, but teenagers are downright expensive!  The extra income is helpful, sometimes just in the timing.  I may spend as much as I make some weeks, but the money comes in between paychecks and that helps!  Stability in this market may seem a strange idea, but it’s like this:  My husband is in construction.  He builds signs.  If the economy goes to pot, people don’t buy signs.  But people will always need gifts, and someone will always have the money for a true antique.  So this is the back-up plan, albeit not one we want to use.

 Time is another reason.  I have more of it now, though it does seem to run a wee bit faster.  The kids are somewhat self sufficient, and occasionally helpful.  I don’t do laundry, I just throw mine in when the kids need to do theirs. I don’t clean, that’s their paid chore.  My husband took up cooking a few years ago, so I have time, and on the horizon I see myself having more of it.  The kids will go away and I’ve never been much of a putterer.  I need goals to keep me busy..or a heck of a lot of novels.  Goals are cheaper.

 Control.  I get to have control.  Swine Flu, hours at work, kids, the economy, it all doesn’t really matter to the store.  I put in the hours, the store gives back the money.  Not as much as I would like, hourly pay really does suck right now, but it does give back almost exactly what I put in.  I post – some percentage sells.  I don’t post – nothing new sells.  Instant results that I have control over.  Doesn’t sell, then I need to change something.  I change something and the sell happens, or I change something else.  No matter what else happens, I have control over a small portion of my world.  I like that.

 The final reason is that time is going to pass whether I start a business or not.  The hours I will spend working would be spent whether I built something during that time, or just watched time drift by.  I’ve chosen to build something.  The important part is that what I am choosing to build isn’t as transitory as a business can be.  What I am really building is a better me.  The business is just the classroom I am using to do so.