So you have gone through years of education, got yourself a job, put in a few years with your boss, made money and feel settled. What next? Choices are broadly only two for anyone who wants to be occupied: Either to continue climbing the corporate hierarchy or to START-UP! Each choice has its own pros and cons. The question here is which activity is worthwhile!   

Choosing to be employed with someone else is relatively less laborious since it means clearing a few rounds of interview and being likable on the job. Moreover, you enjoy the liberty of quitting the job when you want which is not the case when it comes to your own business. At hindsight, being employed feels comfortable. But, is it actually so? If it were, you wouldn’t have complained or even thought about an alternative career option.

The higher ideals to starting up with one’s own venture are the satisfaction of doing one’s own thing or the feeling of being your own boss and the associated pride of creating employment for others and in-turn impacting the society. In addition to all these, there are plenty of small advantages that come with entrepreneurship. A few are listed here-

1. Job search ends here
2. Long waits for promotions and increased income are no more. One can earn as much as one wants to at whatever age with no age bar to retirement
3. “Qualifications” and “experience” are what you learn on the way
4. Exponential growth is possible. Fixed salary slabs are no more a constraint
5. Relatively less man hours per day as business progresses and stabilizes; contradictory to ever increasing work load and man hours per day with increasing responsibilities at the work-place/employment and enslavement
6. Limitless diversifying and de-routing options

These are a few things which you already might have recognized. Yet, there is something stopping you from going the entrepreneurial way! What is it??

I call it the “Comfort Cushion”. After being habituated to a hurried early morning breakfast, reaching on time at the office, punching your card, a subtle greeting to colleagues and the coffee machine gossip; we come to accept targets n reports as the way our lives were meant to be and have grown comfortable on this cushion which gives a regular paycheck. Walking the tougher path with only your beliefs and motives as companions feels uncomfortable subconsciously! And this subconscious discomfort gives rise to a whole bag of reasons as to why one shouldn’t venture out for eg; I don’t have enough financial back-up, I will start-up once my children are settled, What if my start-up fails?... are just a few common ones.

Breaking off from this mindset and pushing oneself into doing what one feels right and believes in needs strong reasoning and a dash of practicality helps the cause.

For this purpose, one must look at trends and what direction one may float towards in keeping up with the current trend. Following the trend in recruitment policy of companies in the last couple of years, we see, there is a shift towards lower costs and improved productivity. In the human resource context, this means more and more talent will be hired at lower wages over the coming years. Hence, as days pass compensation packages will tend to shrink rather than ballooning for the average employee.  To ascertain the facts, I urge the reader to take a hard look at the industry he/she is working in and think on these lines.

As a rough example of what I am trying to say, let us compare financials of employed earnings vis-à-vis enterprise earnings. Again, the reader will have to fine-tune this exercise according to their present situation.

An average employee may reach an earning potential of Rs. 50000/- a month in a course of 5 years, whereas, an average business gives a potential of earning that amount in just about 3 years (considering a nominally well-placed job and equally interesting business). The amount of wealth amassed over a period of 20 yrs running one’s own business is a direct multiple of that saved from salaries. I am saving the discussions about the various outcomes and factors that may make or break an employment or business for another time since there is equal possibility of success or failure in both these type of engagements. My point is, such practical calculations help to strengthen the perspective and from there emerges the “will” to move out of one’s “Comfort Cushion”. Looks like it really does make sense to Start-up!

Think about this and I shall be glad to hear your thoughts / read your comments.