IAP Political Forum

Have you ever at any stage, started your own business? If so, how did it go?

It doesn't matter if it is big, medium or small, it is still interesting to learn how everyone enjoyed being self employed, and any lessons learnt during it.

I am a huge fan of people starting their own business at some point in time, even if it is part time and small. Besides being a great bridge towards wealth and financial security, it is a great development tool in the process of self reliance and self development. This is because you are in complete control with all decision making and assume total responsibility.

Anyway, interested to hear IAP posters experience in this subject  :)

I tried to run a smoothie stand when I was 10.

Pabs and I are actually in the process of growing our small home based business, we ship and receive large traction kites across North America.  We get them from the UK. 

we've been doing this for a couple of years now but the newest race kite is finally out and well it's a much anticipated product among the kiting community. 

I started one in college to pay for school.

What was it?

I imported exotic cars through the grey market, brought them up to CA pollution specs and then delivered them to clients.

It worked for about a year or so, and then they passed a law to close the grey market loophole.  So I made the company "Triatlantic Ventures" an "S" corp and then sold it to another firm looking for an easy way to go public.

It made some money for me then too.

Cool. My father, a business owner, told me everyday after work, "Did I ever tell you not to start your own business?". I have no desire to work for somebody else, though, so I guess it didn't work.

Wigs, just do what YOU want. Parents always give advice with the best intentions, but usually it is over protective and way way too conservative IMO.

Baldar, you work as a consultant now, so you are self employed and have your own business now, according to my line of thinking anyway.

Nope, I am just a school teacher.  I only consult now and then, it is not for real income or to maintain my family and lifestyle.  Consulting is more as a hobby than anything else.

Prior I was in business for someone else, and prior worked for myself in South America...

You might say I played the field.  Now I am just a government worker with a hell of a lot of time off.

Obviously. With 37 posts...

I am retired.

You should try it sometime, being in a position where you can choose to work, or not.

I hope you weren't talking to me. I'm just messing with you. You seem to have lived (and keep living) a fulfilling life.

Nah, just observing.

It is strange to suddenly realize that you don't have to work and what you do is totally self motivated without the need for survival and worry to the long term future (which is in the back of almost everyone's mind).

By the way, I have the absolutely highest respect for entrepreneurs, to me they are like the guys who play without a net.  It takes a tonne of guts.

where do you teach?

Or what educational level?

11 years owning my small construction business...learned ONE lesson:
No friends, no partners...EVER.
Nobody owns squat except you...If you want to work with your friends, then first of all, you're getting out of bed for the wrong reasons, and second, you should hire them for a percentage of profit. NO FRIENDS!

That said, it's much easier and cheaper than you might think to own a business, it's a great source of pride if not income and it only took a year or two to realize that I'll live destitute as a hermit in the mountains before I ever worked for somebody else ever again...best boss on Earth.

Really interesting reply SC.  :)

Congratulations regarding the construction business. What type of construction did you used to do?

I agree with your philosophy about working for yourself. I worked as an employee for 6 or so months and then took the plunge straight into business on my own, so I have that sort of entrepreneurial and risk taking mentality.

I also think that many of the x and y generation are similiar thinking in this regard. We have our seen our parents from the baby boomers generation work extremely hard as an employee only to see them being fired by new management, with a less than golden handshake. So we have thought "No way am I going to let this happen to me". It is amazing how what happens to our parents generation, affects our life philosophy.

Interested also to hear your philosophy and negative experiences of taking friends or partners into your business. I was lucky in a sense that I became business partners with a guy 15 years older with me(business partners only haha)for one business, and our different skill sets and experiences seemed to compliment each other. I didn't have any major negative experiences although I sold out my share to him a couple of years ago, and are still negotiating the payment date. Business partnerships are never peaches and cream all the time.

I teach American History, at an inner city magnate school in Santa Ana CA.  I get to see the best work their hardest to achieve beyond the means many of us have at our disposal.

I certainly don't envy you. Running a construction company can be a pain in the ass sometimes. I like the idea of hiring for a percentage of profit. The crew probably needs less motivating that way.

BTW, I think you're right about partners and friends too. It's sad to say, but you should never hire anyone you're not willing to fire if you have to. I've also seen a lot more dysfunctional companies run by partners than functional ones.






Myself, I've never really started a business. I used to make and sell some instruments (mainly drums and didgereedoos). More for fun than money though, and I'm not sure how much of a business you could call it. I used to cut grass and shovel snow a lot as a kid, but that doesn't really qualify as a business (although I did make some business cards at one point).

My parents are on their own since the time they were fired back in the 90s. Not by a good reason, the country was in the middle of all sorts of crises. I remember they were buying spirit "Royal" in the West of Russia and selling it here. Then like many they made money on Chinese manufacturing boom. So called "shuttle-business". You go to China, buy products there and sell them here. Food, clothes, Chinese vodka etc. That was really wild times.
And I agree that friends are no friends if money is involved. Even your relatives are cheating you. Little post-Soviet shocking therapy.

With the help of my husband (we work 50/50), we have a thing on eBay. Though it's not an actual business, we run it like one and it's more lucrative than anything else I could be doing from home. Eventually we do want to start our own business, but it's going to be a while. I'm also a fan of business on the internet rather than owning an actual storefront location, because of the rent and the clientele. I often wonder how some mom and pop businesses make it when it looks like no one ever goes in, how do they pay the rent on their business let alone their own mortgage?

I often think this too. Especially for specialised stores such as gift stores, or the shaver shop or knife shop, in a major supermarket where the rents are huge.

BTW good luck with your and your husbands new business venture when you both start on it.  :) Any idea what type it is likely to be?

IHU, the good thing with you though, is that you have specialised skills and talents, that enable you to go solo and set up your business whenever you feel like it.  :) So, you always have the option to become self employed whenever you want. It is a big advantage.

BTW, it is interesting that you make digeredoo's. Can you play them? I love the sound they make, but never tried playing one.

Kind of. I have good control over the sound coming out of the didgeredoo (sp?), but I've only managed true circular breathing (playing uninterrupted through inhalation) a few times. TBH, it's been a while since I've made any or played one. I still can though (kind of). You should get one, they're fun to play.


As far as the mobility, not in the mapping field quite yet. I've still some dues to pay before considering myself anything close to an expert. Going at it without proper knowledge, experience and contacts would be folly.

If I get too restless though, there's always the old tool belt.

I went with the classic lemonade stand. It's perfect when you have a neighborhood garage sale going on :P.

On another note, my father has successfully created two businesses (sold one off and is on his second one).

Thats great Totino.  :)

What type are/were they, if I may ask?

Movies or technology dealing with the movie business.

Cool, you and your husband have a high knowledge of this with the ebay business, and you have a passion for it, so I am sure it will be successful  :)

My daughter who is 16 was looking to get a job.  Maybe a clerk at the CVS pharm.

Then she thought, I can paint anime, I can do websites, and I am learning from my animation class in school.  So she is going into business helping set up websites.

I've been self-employed for the past 7 years and it's getting tougher and tougher and is changing, literally, overnight because most of my market has been US-based.

When I started, the Canadian dollar was worth about 60 cents US. Now the Canandian dollar is worth more than the US dollar so I have to work that much harder. To offset the loss, we are now starting to import luxury goods from the US and selling to Canada. Time will tell what becomes more lucrative - exporting to the US or importing from US to Canada. My gut tell me the latter.

In high school a friend and i bought candy wholesale and sold it in class and has a eBay business on the side.

I think many self-employed people knew from a very early age that they wanted to be their own boss or own their own business. I know that was certainly true for me. But at the same time there is a huge difference between "wanting" to start your own business and actually being willing to take the risks and make the sacraficies necessary to make that desire a reality.

There is definitely an attractive security, albeit often a false security, of having a well-paying regular employment job. For the vast majority of people, even ones who greatly desire to start their own business, a consistent predictable paycheck is a security blanket they could never voluntarily walk away from.

That's where I was a little luckier than some. In 2003, the mortgage lender I was working for as a Branch Manager suddenly went bankrupt. With no warning whatsoever, I showed up for work one morning and found out I no longer had a job. Not only that, but I also discovered I wasn't going to receive my last full month's paycheck or my yearly bonus (combined about $15,000).

That's when I realized the very thing preventing me from starting my own business - the "security" of a regular paycheck - was a complete farse. Something truly did change in me that day. I vowed I would never again put the well-being of myself and my family in someone else's hands. While working at this company I would often talk to the founder and CEO and think to myself "Christ this guy is a total idiot! Not only could I do his job, I could do it a million times better". I'm sure it was just youthful arrogance, but after losing my job and having no other immediate options, there was no question in my mind that I was going to start my own mortgage company.

The next month I had 2 employees, 3 desks, 3 phones, 3 computers, $25,000 charged on my credit cards, and the world's smallest mortgage company. To this day I look back and think to myself "what in the hell were you thinking?". Those first several months I lost a lot of sleep. I quickly discovered I had a lot to learn about running my own business. I made so many stupid mistakes I honestly cannot believe we didn't go bust instantly.

But we didn't and we eventually moved into a bigger office and added more employees. Luckily, my learning curve in owning my own business occurred during the exceptionally strong housing market of 2004-2006. There was enough money to buy my way out of my early mistakes and bad decisions.

Like all companies connected to real estate right now we have seen our share of highs and lows. But I just couldn't imagine ever going back to working a regular job. I just can't. I may not always own a mortgage company but I will always - until my death - be self-employed. I could never go back. Not to sound crass, but the best way I can explain it is like never having had sex without a condom and then one day pulling the condom off. Going back is never the same. :-)

For me, I would rather run my own business that's a failure then have a successful job working for someone else.

A printing company... He did all of the selling.

He keeps trying to get me into sales so I can make the bucks like him. But I have no desire to get involved in that type of work.

Absolutely! For years, Generation-Xer's like myself watched as our parents gulped down the Kool-Aid their corporate employers were selling them. Job security, pensions, 401k's, healthcare, etc. From Kindergarten to 12th grade, I watched my middle-management father suffer through 4 different "no-fault" job terminations. Each time he neither caused, nor could have prevented, being fired. And each time I watched my mother and father suffer through the terror, panic, depression, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness that comes with sudden job loss.    


Although not a "partner" in the traditional sense, I did agree to a venture capital investment once from a private individual. Worst experience of my life. It got so bad I eventually took 90% of my cash and assets so that I could pay him off and get out from underneath the agreement. This was one of those early collosal "bad decisions" I described in the other post. Personally, I would never again get involved with a partner or investor. From what I have heard from other businessowners, successful partnerships seem to be the exception and not the rule.  

It isn't unlike marriage; just because you've had a bad one doesn't necessarily mean you are destined to never be married.  The one thing I have never seen work, are guys who go into business with friends.  It isn't good for the business and kills the friendship.  I believe we rarely have realistic business expectations of personal friends, and often don't know their weakpoints.

If you can find people you can really do business with, there is much to be said for having help in sharing headaches and getting the benefit of views other than your own.

Fantastic story Ryan. Congratulations  :)

You remind me of myself in many ways. Similar attitudes towards self employment, employers, risk, perserverence, self reliance etc. I really enjoyed reading your post.

What you wrote about the security of a pay check is the same thoughts that I had. It does also vary though with the generation and with the way people were brought up.

When I left a job to start my own business, I would get the same lecture from my parents every time I saw them. "You have no security, what if your business fails, where is your work insurances, where is your superannuation" blah blah.

But I always knew, even if I had no revenue or profit from business, I could always work at nights washing dishes, telemarketing etc. I always had a fall back plan. But when you are young and starting your own business, you don't care about security. It is just the adventure and drive that keeps you going.

Like yourself, my first year or so were less than glorious. But you hang in there, and it all works out in the end  :)

Cool :) How is the ebay business going?

Well thank you. I appreciate that. It doesn't surprise me that we share a lot of the same personality traits. Like I said earlier, I think people are really "born" wanting to be self-employed. There's a certain combination of chacteristics, like you mention above, that all businessowners share - whether they own a billion dollar corporation or a small engine repair shop.


Boy, that's one thing I'm not sure I could have dealt with. It's hard enough dealing with your own self-doubts and insecurities when first venturing out on your own business endeavor - it sure doesn't help hearing them from your family as well.

My own parents were very supportive, so in that way I guess I lucked out again. My dad particularly - I think much like an atheletic father lives vicariously through their son's sports activities, I think my father did - and still does - the same thing on a business level. He always wanted to own his own business, but never had the money, opportunity, and/or "balls" to just do it. I can tell that's something he's always regreted. Now he's getting a second opportunity through me I suppose.

That said, there's always plenty of people (including sometimes close friends) who can't wait to see you fail. Over the years I've noticed a very consistent trend where the more successful you are the more people resent you. To give you an example, when I was 29, my wife and I built our dream home. Its a large home, its very nice, and its in an upscale and desireable neighborhood. For my 30th birthday, my wife and I decided to have a big birthday party at our new house. When I called my lifelong best friend to invite him he said "Sounds more like an excuse to show off your house than a birthday party". He eventually did show up to the party, but he just kept making these snide little comments the entire time and was so obviously enraged with jealously it basically ruined the party for my wife and I. He's been like a brother to me for as long as I can remember. In high school we used to daydream together about owning our own businesses and getting rich. We both did end up starting our own businesses. So far, mine has done better than his and sadly its basically ruined our friendship.

And that's just one of a million examples. A lot of people out there who aren't happy in their jobs or with their lives or who always wanted to own their own businesses too genuinely want people like me to fail and genuinely enjoy it when it happens. It gives them some sort of affirmation that plugging away at their miserable job is the right thing to do and taking a chance to have something better like me is the wrong thing I guess.   



Absolutely. You've got to be willing to do whatever it takes. You know, I tell this to my employees all the time - everyone in the world wants to make a bunch of money, but only a tiny fraction of people are actually willing to do the work to make it. Given the choice between being broke but not having to work very hard, and being wealthy but having to work your ass - a shockingly large number of people would rather be broke.

Great posts, Ryan. Applaud.

I'm in the process of a startup business right now. I've tried a few times before but lost interest because I spread myself too thin.

My advice -- get a few people to help with unique knowledge/specialty...that will make things move quicker.

What type of business Chovy?

i'm handling the online store, is all I can say at this point.

;;==


what's your web site address? I just took my kite out today with the dogs :)

My parents are really good honest hard working people but ultra ultra conservative and terrified of risk. So the thought of their only child leaving a well paid job, after working for only 6 months, and starting a new business with no collateral behind him was not something they could really relate to. For them it was too risky that it would end in failure. But I took the opposite view, that for me not to try and give it a go, would be a failure. Different philosophies on life, neither wrong nor right.


Thats terrible that you lost friendships because of it. Envy is a terrible thing. I think many people judge themselves on how they compare with others. It is an insecurity thing. They feel happier about themselves if they are better off than someone, and feel jealous if the other person is better off. It is a terrible judgemental thing, that is inaccurate because so many different things make up a persons life, not just material possessions. I am always happy for people who are happy in life, no matter what they do.


I always find that people who are nasty about others or wish others failure, are unhappy with their own life. It is a form of expression of how dissatisfied they are with their life or life choices. Thus, I never take these comments or opinions personally.   



This is so true. The only difference between a person's position now and in 5 years time, is the actions they take. If nothing changes in their life, then their circumstances won't change.This applies to all components of life. I can be a procrastinator at times, but sometimes you just have to push yourself to get out of your comfort zone and take action.It can be hard but the experiences are worthwhile  :)

Does anyone here have any experience running an online store to sell their products?