NFIB

There's Only One Real Reason to Start a New Business
04/ 01/ 2002

Almost any book or article you read about starting a home-based business begins with a list of practical benefits you'll experience, including tax breaks and increased income potential. These benefits and others often mentioned are, indeed, tangible. But they should not be the "real" reason you start your own business. Jeffrey Moses explains in today's Workshop.

The list of potential benefits for starting a new home-based business include the following, among countless others:

1. Just by cutting out a 30-minute commute, you can effectively gain an additional 6.25 weeks of work every year -- more than a month and a half of additional work time. Benefits also include reduced cost of gas and wear-and-tear on your car.

2. By working at home, you'll avoid office interruptions and be able to accomplish much more every day. (And in the process eliminate most of the office politics that can be so stressful.)

3. You'll be able to deduct from your income for tax purposes a certain percentage of your rent/mortgage, household insurance, utilities and property tax depending on the percentage of the area of your home that is used for business.

4. Stress potential is reduced because you can take breaks when you need to -- and you can be there for the children when they need you.

5. Your income potential becomes unlimited when you work for yourself. You're held down only by your own creativity, energy and persistence.

However, even when taken as a whole, these and other tangible benefits and advantages should not be the determining factors in whether or not you start your own business.

So what is the final, ultimate factor? Simply put: You should start your own business when it will allow you to make your living doing what you truly love, and probably already are doing as a part-time, non-paying hobby.

Why is this the ultimate criteria? First, because you'll be spending all your time involved in your work -- including days, evenings and weekends during your business' start-up period. There's an enormous difference between doing something as a hobby on the weekends and diving into it 40-60 hours a week or more. If you don't love what you do, basing your income on it will quickly drive you crazy.

Second, if you don't truly love doing something, you'll be more likely to give up when the customers are few and far between, when cash flow is temporarily slow, when your friends say you were nuts to leave your real job, or when a new and "better" idea for a business strikes your fancy.

Third, if you don't love what you do you won't take the time to continue learning everything you can in the field. Every business advances over time. Those who don't advance with it lose out to the competition.

No matter how much you love what you do, it quickly becomes "work" when you base a business on it. In a way, of course, that has advantages. When your income depends on doing something expertly and with a businesslike precision, you gain a professionalism and proficiency that seldom can be attained from a mere hobby. As professionalism grows, so does a person's sense of satisfaction. That's the real reason a person starts a small business: personal growth and fulfillment.

Decreased commute time, improved income potential and more time with family aren't so bad, either. They will prove to be benefits, but only when you're working in a field that deeply interests you.

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