…and not the full time entrepreneurship experience
Writing an entrepreneurship blog gives me the chance to express my personal beliefs rather than a “by the book theory”. So, in my opinion, people choose to be (just) a part time entrepreneur for one of the following:
- Fear
- Lack of investment funds
- Doing it just for fun
- Extra income
- Pride and self accomplishment
Let’s take them one by one. FEAR. Entrepreneurs are usually regarded as people who have put the fear aside and started taking risks by opening a business. You hear something like: “he had the courage to take his life in his own hands (fearless) and work for himself. Now he’s a rich guy”. You usually hear this, because failures are sometimes taken in obscurity as nobody really wants to let other people know that they have failed. So you guess that entrepreneurship means fearless. Wrong.
Entrepreneurs are like sales guys, because they actually have to sell their ideas (goods or services) to have a running business. And just because they are like sales guys, their biggest fear is to be refused.
That’s why part time entrepreneurship is an opportunity to keep the fear away. Even if you fail, you only half failing.
Lack of investment funds. It takes a lot of time from having a business idea to actually make a profit. It could take a year or more. So if you don’t have enough funds to sustain the business grow (or your own spending) during the start-up time, part time entrepreneurship is the path to be taken. You cover the basic spending from your regular income, and even if you fail, you can recover from your regular job.
Doing it for fun. I always hear: I’ve taken a wrong job. I don’t really want to be a doctor, I always wanted to be a business man. Everybody has a hobby. If you do it, and you are doing it well enough, it might be a good opportunity to make it a business. Maybe you like to repair cars and you have already repaired all that could be repaired, including your family or friends cars. Ok, then you could have a business to repair strangers cars.
Extra cash. You might need some extra cash. Some people open a business in the evening for extra cash. That’s a fact.
Pride and self accomplishment. You know you can do more than you’re doing at your regular job. Your ideas are refused, or you have an impossible boss that don’t want to let the business grow. Or you want to be more that a regular guy. You want to feel special and above your regular colleague. So you take the part time entrepreneurship path.