Will i quit work?

kikililly

I am starting a small business just me making furniture items and i work full time. I am a qualified accountant but due to recession i am still on training money and i've always wanted to work for myself.

My job has gone seriously downhill and i work for a nasty crowd so want to get out asap. I teach some classes at night so i have pocket money so to speak even if i don't get any money in the short term from my business venture. I would however be still short a couple of hundred a week in terms of salary this wouldn't bother me too much really but what does bother me is that if it all goes belly up with my little venture and i look for another job down the line do you think it will look terrible that i left this place to try out my idea?

My ideal would be to get a job 3 days a week and concentrate on the furniture and generating sales the rest of the time but my job here won't accomodate that.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

infamous

Hi Kikililly,
What kind of hours are you working at the minute, I would start off evenings wknds with your venture until you establish if their is a market their for your products, if there was I would jack the job and go at it fulltime. As for a gap in the cv working for yourself I wouldn see as a problem. If your business idea is good enough you wont have to worry about looking for another job

Outkast_IRE

I think it would actually reflect positively on you , at least it shows you had the guts to try and make a go of something in the current envrionment , if its brought up in an interview it would be very easy to see it as a positive .

Mozart1986

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Go for it! Minimise the risk by any means possible, but commit and don't look back. You may fail, but you won't regret it.

MrMatisse

Give it a bash.

rubberdiddies

Is there any chance you could take unpaid leave for a few months? Would give you a chance to try out your new venture

kikililly

Thanks everybody, i love that one, 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. There is plenty of fear alright. I just feel like if i got another job now on a better salary i wouldn't be able to walk away from it so easy so maybe its meant to be that i do leave work now and make a go of it.

I'm working 8-5 monday to friday and i teach a couple of hours each evening monday to wednesday so all thats left is weekends really and a few hours during the week here and there. Also my supplier is in dublin along with most of my family so i'm up there every couple of weeks cutting my time down even further to be working on the pieces.

To be honest i'm also just at the stage with my job that i want to walk they are so ridiculous, whatever about the recessions making it an employers market my employer has taken it to mean they can go back to the dark ages and ignore all employment rights and sack or intimidate anybody who disagree. (ok rant over:rolleyes:)

unklerosco

I'm in a similar situation.. Have a business with the missus up and running but as I work full time I haven't been able to commit to it fully to develop it further. Crowd I work for do my head in, although in fairness if it wasn't for the flexibility of my job I'd never have been able to setup my own business (I work alone in a remote office for a UK company).. Not that they've been flexible, I've just been flexible with my hours ;-). They've become a pain to work for and are convinced they own me due to the recession, lack of jobs etc. so they make me bend over backwards to run the office...

So it's at the stage now where I either bit the bullet and go out on my own and I'm thinking the time is right. Plan to leave in the next month or so and become the worlds greatest boss..



If you can afford to do it and it's what you wanna do, go for it... My theory is that I've way more passion and drive to run my own business so it will (hopefully) go further than my career as an employee ever would...

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Yes you should do it... but step back and be smart about it before you rush in head first.

You've a great head start having a accounting qualification so your miles ahead of many entrepreneurs, but being about to count the numbers doesn't always translate into running a business. The furniture business is a hard one, its crowded and you've got everyone from the artists in china to IKEA to complete against.

The question i'd put to you is have you ever sold your work to a complete stranger and if so what sort of profit per hour did you get? At that profit per hour can you give yourself a reasonable salary to cover your cost of living AND enough to invest in facilitates, staff and their over heads. If you cant afford to grow the business as well as getting out a reasonable cost of living then your running your own job and not a business. Not that that's a bad thing, but its a big distinction.

My advice is take a month or two and commit 4 hours a night and your weekends (because thats what starting a business takes on top of the 9-5) to making as much furniture as you can and selling it. It's not enough to ask someone would they buy it, because they'll nearly always say oh sure just to please you. If you don't believe me the next time you ask people would they buy something and they say yes, tell them you have a few in the van outside and watch to see how many get a panicked look on their faces.. Visit trade shows or get a stand in the ideal homes exhibition and take orders, then doing the math to see if the venture is viable.

Once you've proven your concept then by all means fire your boss and start living the dream.

kikililly

Thank you all for your advice.

I have sold a few pieces at arms lenght and for the time put in I made a reasonable profit. I have yet to do any marketing or sales exercises as such, just an ad online. I did contact several specialised furniture stores who where positive as you say they would be but they are waiting for me to show a number of samples, I'm in the process of making those. I'll know when i get those done what the response will be.

I really want to go to an ideal homes exhibition or one of those type of places but i'm not ready for that yet. Need to have a larger catologue of pieces.

There is no chance of unpaid leave in my place so that isn't an option. Would love a 3 day week that would be my ideal scenario....oh i can dream:cool:

I know what you mean about running your own job or running a business, i plan on starting with the former and building on that. Time will tell, isn't it funny how you get biased by your own ideas? I do be thinking what a fab idea it is and i'd buy from me but its hard to tell how it will go. The best i can do is work on my designs and have quality built in with reasonable prices and hope its what the customers want!!

KED

Hi kikililly ...... i very much understand your situation ... I too am a qualifed accountant and am desparately wanting to leave my job for a self employment opportunity. Set a target date for myself of March 2011.

I think the answers to the below questions will tell the real story;

1. Do you like your job : NO
2. Do you have any debts like mortgage etc
3. Do you have any cash savings to cover living costs for 6 - 12 months
4. Do you have a family
5. Are you passion about your furniture business

Business questions;

1. Have you established a distribution platform
2. How many customers / shops was confirmed they will place an order
3. Have you a compamy structure in place (bank accounts)
4. is there growth potential in this furniture business

I think you should definitely QUIT your job BUT only when you confident your business has a platform to start trading on day 1.

Take Ronan's advice ... this is v good

Best of luck