For background, I am a 25 year old Software Engineer who works the corporate life. My company is moving to force engineers to work in person and I just do not want to keep working my life away. The pay is very high and benefits are great, but I know in the end, I want the flexibility of working for myself.

I have opened up some businesses in the past with mixed success. I want to open up a startup that can generate passive income, be a secure investment, and not require too much overhead. I have tried some eCommerce businesses in the past and even worked on a B2B marketplace like Alibaba in Asia.

I really have very little personal expenses since my house and cars are paid off. I have about 100k in savings that I can use for the startup.

I am facing a few issues:

Between long commutes and 8 hour work days, I have very little energy to work on a startup in my free time. Weekends and Off days are always just reserved for running errands and I have absolutely no time on weekdays. Should I quit my job?

The second issue I am facing is that there are so many different places to start. A physical laundromat business, a physical car wash, an online store, or a good old fashioned Computer Science startup. Any Advice on what to start would be greatly appreciated.

Lastly, finding a good business partner to help take some overhead is always a big problem that has caused me some headache in the past.

  • planetofthemapes15@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You’re concerned about losing the extra 1-2 hours per day by returning to office, which I can understand. But the conclusion you’re making is that you should switch to working for yourself to be more free.

    That… isn’t how this works. I’ve been a tech CEO at it for 10 years. Right now it’s 12:12AM and I just finished my workday. I started at 9:45am. It’s a Saturday. This is normal. I haven’t had a weekend off for over 12 years. My long time friends all are married and have families. I have this business.

    You’re vastly underestimating what this takes and the reality of the entrepreneurial endeavor. At least I’d advise you to meet with and talk to people in the businesses you are considering starting, and see how their work-life balance looks, how much capital the businesses require to start up, and whether you can learn the mistakes from them.

    Don’t make a rash decision based on wantrapreneuer influencers who sell you the dream of a 4 hour workday packaged in a $997.95 12 hour course. Expect to spend at least 5 years working 80+ hour weeks, earning half of what you’re earning now, before you can begin to ease off the gas.