Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
blog.matthewgoldman.com
Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#2I get what the OP is getting at, but I still think being able to be your own boss is a good reason to start a company. The investor/founder relationship isn't the same as a boss/employee relationship. You get to choose how you interact with an investor ahead of time. For instance, you should have already thought through and set up the conditions under which you can get fired so that the investor has to live with those rules. When you have a boss, you're interacting with them on their terms.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#3Being your own boss is great...
...if YOU are good at being a boss!
If you allow your employees (ie YOU) to slack, then that's not being a good boss.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#4The key difference is choice. If any of the things the author mentioned control me, it's because I allow them to. Whereas it might even be partly accurate to say that the definition of having a boss is that don't have that choice.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#5There is actually a lot to be had to start your own compnay and not to have a silly boss. I have and am doing exactly this for several years now.
Being your own boss means: I get credit when credit is due. I get to choose my customers. I get to choose people I work with. I get to influence the product in any way that makes sense. I work with tools and in places that work best for me.
And so much more.
I think its all word play and its hard to ha e debate with what's been said in the post. I agree with post but disagree with ttiitle and conclusion
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#6The key difference is choice. If any of the things the author mentioned control me, it's because I allow them to. Whereas it might even be partly accurate to say that the definition of having a boss is that don't have that choice.
You always have a choice; it's the same choice you have with investors and clients, the option to stop (either by quitting or getting fired). Mentally, you might not see a job that way, but it's the same basic choice. If you have a single investor, or a single client, it's the same as a boss. Running the company might let you diversify towards multiple clients or multiple investors, but then you've just traded one boss with a lot of influence for many bosses with proportionally less influence. The choice, with each one, is the same.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#7I'm considering stopping my day job to work as a contractor. My goal isn't to avoid stupid grunt work--I just hope that being entirely responsible for my upkeep and well-being will make the stupid grunt work seem more urgent and important. When I see posts like this (especially when, as in this case, the author claims to like his situation), something about them seems a bit condescending. It sounds like he's saying that if you don't like having a boss you're not cut out for running a business. When I look at successful small business people, though, they all seem like the ones who don't like being bossed around. They work crazy hard for their clients, yes, they make big sacrifices, yes, but they're not motivated by the kind of petty dread that the pointy-haired boss types engender.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#8The word boss has a pretty specific connotation and your clients and customers aren't that. Yes, if you work for yourself you're responsible for delivering work to your customers and they have some control over you due to that but it's incredibly different from the relationship between a salaried employee and his singular supervisor.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#9There is actually a lot to be had to start your own compnay and not to have a silly boss. I have and am doing exactly this for several years now. Being your own boss means: I get credit when credit is due. I get to choose my customers. I get to choose people I work with. I get to influence the product in any way that makes sense. I work with tools and in places that work best for me. And so much more. I think its all…
I do run my own company, unfortunately, my boss is still pretty silly.
Re: Don't Start a Company to Be Your Own Boss
#10Being your own boss is great... ...if YOU are good at being a boss! If you allow your employees (ie YOU) to slack, then that's not being a good boss.
I've had my boss sacked many times, but the replacement boss turns out to be exactly the same.