Читать книгу Single. Women. Entrepreneurs. Second Edition - Erin Albert - Страница 55

I am full-time. I’m not sure how people do it part-time, because it seeps into all aspects of your life. I’ve had a couple ventures, and even this business, which I first started intending them to be part- time. I’ll give you an example from my life: I started a part-time gift basket business. What happens when you’re only doing it on the side is that you start doing it 4 hours a day. But, something will arise when you need to start putting in 6 hours per day. When work creep happens, something else in your life must give. Usually, it is your children, your spouse, or something that you intended to give your full and undivided attention. Then, you have increasing frustration between doing “what you need to do” and letting someone else down. In that case someone is always neglected. Either way, you can’t win. I’d make my gift baskets when people needed them. Then, I had more orders for corporate gift baskets for a company, so I had to hire a nanny. Then the corporate orders for one company turned into 3 companies. Then, 80 boxes were being delivered to my house and I had 4 weeks of full-time work to do, and it was NO LONGER part-time. It was no longer fun, either, and not planned. That is the temptation of a part-time business; when you work part-time and you get these great opportunities, you don’t want to turn them down. Then, there arrives a tipping point. You need to either do this full-time, or not. You can’t do it part-time anymore.

So, I opened a store and sold gift baskets for 3 years. When the economy started turning bad, we sold the business. My point is this: when you’re creating a business full-time, you’re creating expectations with your clients and family. When I create something, I’m creating it because I have long-term goals, vision, retirement plans, and an exit strategy. I can’t get to that with part-time work. That doesn’t mean that eventually I wouldn’t like to work part-time and have 50 people under me. But I also realize that won’t happen immediately when first building a business.

Besides, in my soul, I’m definitely 100% an entrepreneur. I was speaking to a recruiter friend recently and shared with her that I don’t know what I’d do if I actually had to go back to work. She replied that I would be tough to find a job for—because although I’m bright and I’m good at what I do, I need continual challenge. There would be no issue on finding a job; but instead, the issue would be finding a place to stay. I need a constant challenge while moving forward and asking myself what’s next. Sitting at a desk and watching someone’s financials, for example, I’d end up leaving in six months. I’d need to find a dynamic entrepreneurial company to work for, if I could find one.