Life choices...

Cabicular

digitalscream said:

RandallFlagg said:

57Deluxe said:

...will be compromises with any decisions you take. But ultimately:

*  If you want better health, junk the stress - is a silent killer.

* If you want money then work, but you will have little time to do what you really want with it.

* If you want to support all your kids as Bank of Mum and Dad til they in their 30s. then  please sign your death warrant here...

I hear you. My 2 at home at 14 and 16 and are slowly bleeding me dry already

Mine's currently 22, and showing no signs of financial independence any time soon...

Wow
I was out working when I was 16 and out the house when I was 18!
My folks put my sister through Uni as there was only enough money to do one of us but even she was out the house when she was 18/19.
Probably helped that my Dad was a bit of a struggle though. Thats your problem.. too nice

Bork

Cabicular said:

Slowly is the answer
it was just me and another guy at the start
we paid ourselves a modest wage and did some contract work. We saved enough to employee someone and he instantly improved cash flow but still body shopping. So we paid him 50K but contracted him out at the same rate as us (450 a day) if you take 216 billing days in a year and do some quick sums you can see that as long as we keep the utilisation up we make nearly 50K profit
enough to hire someone else on 50K and get them to generate another 50K in profit
pretty soon you 10 of you costing 500K and generating a 1m (except it costs More to run so realistically 300k is closer to the mark)
You take that 300K and hire some developers and write some apps that you sell pretty soon you have 5 developers on board generating 500K of work

There is a point where this stops scaling. And it's round about the 2M mark
at that point you have to shift into doing fixed price delivery based projects
so expensive resources leading them, cheaper resources fulfilling them 
we also span up a managed services business doing support contracts around 100-200k p.a.
At this point I'm also very much leading the senior managers and doing next to no hands on work
As a consultant my potential is round about the 150K mark. As an MD (with the right people) I can spin up millions. So it's a case of doing what is sensible
we now turn over 7M plus employing 90 people.
still owned by me and the other guy, never borrowed a penny, no external funding, no bank facility and money in the bank.

cant say it was entirely plain sailing 2001 was a really bad year
2006 my wife died of cancer so I had to take time out of the business and 2007/2008 gave me more than a few sleepless nights. But by keeping my eye on the ball and always having a plan I've avoided having to make anyone redundant and pay people a very generous wage with really good perks. It is probably the best bit of it for me that nearly 100 people have a good job they enjoy because of me and by business partner.

I've been lucky and unlucky. The point is to hunker down and endure when the luck is bad but don't be afraid to take advantage of when the luck is good

I can't stress the endurance enough. The difference between people who succeed and people who don't is often a very small bit of endurance. If you hang on that little bit longer than everyone else the reward is disproportionately high

Endurance - this is the thing.  And luck. 

As a beginner entrepreneur, I've made a point of asking successful people over the years how they made their fortune.  People like Steve Jackson who started Games Workshop (I was in a band with him) and Julian Richer (Richer Sounds) are some of the better known individuals I've approached.  The two things they almost all had in common were luck and persistence.  

Steve Jackson didn't set out to be successful, he found himself in a situation where there was an overwhelming demand for the things he was selling.  Then when fashion moved on he had to consolidate and broaden out his markets.  Another guy I was in a band with set up his own software consultancy, let the other partner buy him out in exchange for some property in Brick Lane which allowed him to retire.  So he decided he wanted to become an actor, went to acting school and ended up finding more work for other people than for himself.  So he applied his software knowledge to some dating software and set up an subscription based automated casting agency which ended up becoming self supporting and let him retire a second time.  

Five years ago he set up an SEO consultancy and seems to be doing very well for himself for a third time with clients such as BBC and Cocoa Cola.  He just doesn't give up when he's onto a potential opportunity and he anticipates his customers very well.

I took the leap a couple of years ago and I'd love to say it's been successful but it hasn't.  It wasn't my fault so much as the naivety and arrogance of those actually making decisions in the companies I'd invested in.  I've lost my life savings but my inlaws have come to the rescue (given they were responsible) so not all lost.  We also have three business ideas to pursue in the future one of which is centered around applying a broad range of creative skills I've acquired over the years to teaching.  The ideas are unique and will be hard to replicate, I'm anticipating that endurance will be the main reason these businesses work.