Freestyle Blog: Do you really want to work part-time?

Friday, 14 December 2012

Do you really want to work part-time?

Alan Boyden offers his perspective on the world of entrepreneurship

Whenever I’m approached for advice by budding entrepreneurs, they often ask me what prompted me to set up in business? My answer is always the same – I wanted to work part-time (and now I do… any twelve hours of the day I choose here at Freestyle). In all seriousness, running your own business is never the easy option, especially during those tough early days when cash is not flowing as regularly as it was when you were employed. Even once you've got over the so called “five year trading hurdle” it is not always plain sailing. The challenges don’t go away; they just change as your business develops. Perhaps by this point you've hired or fired a number of staff? You've won (and lost) a few contracts and you’re starting to wonder if it is all worth the extra effort? It always is.

I've met very few entrepreneurs who having once tasted self employment, would not go back to being employed again. Many of course are forced back to employment for a period of time for financial survival, but often find themselves frustrated by the restrictions of corporate life. They long for the precarious (yet perhaps more fulfilling and exciting) world of entrepreneurship. So from my observations it seems that once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.

So, are entrepreneurs born or made? I still find it odd how universities can offer degrees in entrepreneurship, if the lecturers were so good why aren't they all multimillionaires? Maybe some of them are and just prefer academic life to sailing around the world on large yachts? Or are the very best entrepreneurs those who have graduated from the University of Life with a First in Business Common Sense?