Entrepreneurship can sounds scary to some, especially those with a stable, steady job. After all, what can a potentially riskier profession offer someone who’s already employed? The answer is: quite a lot.
Freedom
Entrepreneurship is primarily about freedom and self-reliance. Derived from the French “entreprendre,” meaning “to undertake,” the word itself paints a good picture of the reason many people switch to self-ownership.
Fundamentally, entrepreneurship is about being able to be free. But this isn’t the kind of freedom that lets you sleep all day or lounge around doing nothing. Instead, it’s the freedom to pursue the goals and do the work that you’ve wanted to all along. Working in traditional companies, many people feel like their entire workload is contributing to someone else’s goal instead of their own.
Not only does being an entrepreneur enable the freedom to work towards one’s own goals, but practical freedoms come with it. Nine-to-five jobs can be draining and difficult just through sheer monotony. Running a business yourself may lead to more hours total, but it can also lead to taking your own days off, being able to take a family vacation, and a general flexibility that doesn’t exist in the typical workforce.
Credit and Ownership
Another big draw of entrepreneurship is the idea of becoming a creator.
As a designer in a firm, a coder in a startup, or even a sales lead in a standard business, any good ideas you have might earn you a compliment or even a raise. But the ideas and the work no longer are yours to keep, own, and be proud of. Instead, the company absorbs them, and often even takes credit.
As an entrepreneur, you take full ownership of your decisions, both good and bad. To many people, this is a worrying prospect, but to those who see its potential, entrepreneurship offers a way to take ownership of their business acumen and creative ideas.
Taking ownership here is not just a figure of speech. Through domains intellectual property law such as patents and copyrights, entrepreneurs can own their inventions and concepts and are rewarded for their innovations.
J.D. Houvener of Bold Patents stresses the importance of patent protection in entrepreneurship. “Having a good grip on patent and IP law is what makes something like entrepreneurship so lucrative and satisfying. By being able to file patents for inventive ideas, innovators can claim their work as their own, and stop anyone else from stealing their concepts. These IP protections are a way to give yourself a leg up in the market long enough to bring a product to fruition and benefit from what you’ve created.”
This brings us to our last point.
Financial Prospects
Yes, entrepreneurship can be risky. But in the words of (ostensibly) Thomas Jefferson: with great risk comes great reward.
It may seem daunting to let go of a regular hourly salary to pursue a sole leadership role, sometimes investing a lot of personal money into a venture and convincing others to do the same. But there’s a reason the head of your company may make many times what you do; they chose the entrepreneurship path.
The potential financial benefits of going after entrepreneurship are immense. Even on a smaller level, people with a sense of leadership and drive get rewarded: just look at those who make the switch to running a local franchise instead of continuing in a standard employee position. Sure, those leadership positions are more demanding, but they make up for it in pay and in emotional reward.
Of course, no entrepreneur has a guarantee of success. It is not an easy profession to be in, and not everyone is cut out for it. But the potential upsides are too significant to ignore.
In Summary
People make the switch to entrepreneurship for many reasons. The freedom to determine your own hours, set your own goals, and work towards your own passions are all huge influencing factors. The sense of self-ownership and responsibility for one’s work is another crucial aspect, letting entrepreneurs take credit for the innovative ideas they put out into the world. Finally, although entrepreneurship Is a tough and risky business, the potential financial benefits are incomparable. To learn more about opportunities in the field, schedule a time to chat with Tom here!
Guest Blog Written By: Katherine Lutz
