to leave my business or not?

movingawaynz

hi
I am in my mid twenties and am self employed with good wage for the last 3 years. I have been working since I'm 17. i set up my business at 22 and its going very very well and I'm happy with it.
My partner of 8 years who (is in his late twenties) i have lived with on and off due to his work,has been living/working as engineer in dublin over a year now and no sign of any work coming up back where i am living and where we both are from.
we only get to see each other for a few hours on sat night and sundays. its getting annoying and this situation is not changing in near future it seems.

since we are both quite young we feel we should move to dubai or new zealand or anywhere for more experience in both work and life in general. I love my business but if I stay running it for next 15 -20 years It will be too late to go travelling and I may regret not doing so. On the other hand I have good steady income so I feel greedy leaving it as I may not be able to set up again when Im back from travelling!
my partner has nothing to lose and is 100% about leaving ireland as he can gain much more experience abroad work wise.

What should I do?? its 50/50 situation. should i go while I'm young or would i be foolish to leave good job here in ireland?? everyone is saying go when ur young etc but I'm sick trying to decide what to do???

-we don't have a house- just renting
-we don't have kids

any advice?
thanks in advance!

wiz569

Take the advice of an oldish man and go, you will have plenty of years of hard slog ahead of you, so make the most of life while you are young enough to enjoy it,

If your business is successful now it still can be in the future,but that's for worrying about at a later time in your life

mfergus

Depends on what your business is & how successful it is. Too many variables to give advice on.

Edit: don't make this major life changing decision based on what anonymous people are telling you!

movingawaynz

ok its a hair salon and i earn about 40k a year from about 45hour week so it would be hard to give that up. but i never get time off i feel tired all the time and as the post said me and my partner only get to see each other for one whole day a week . he cant save anything in dublin as ur working just to pay rent up there and his situation isn't changing in near future. i could get someone to run salon for me and they could lose all my clients but thats the risk id be taking, its just hard to decide to sell it to someone or just have someone run it. thanks for advice, I'm pretty sure i will go and that way i won't always be thinking what if?.

drunkmonkey

You can do plenty of Travelling and a lot more luxuriously with money in your pocket.
You need to have a good second person to fill in for you and take the pressure off you at work. Don't be afraid to let go the reigns, if it goes pear shaped you just have to take back over again until the next person is competent enough.
It can be very hard to do when your self employed but it's a trick you must master.
At your age and after working for yourself you'll find the backpacker lifestyle in Australia or New Zeland a bit of a slog especially with no income or very little.
You sound like you have a life already, building a new one away from everybody will not be easy and i'm not convinced it's worth doing in your case.

Your the one at home with the steady job, if you enjoy what your do and make a good living out of it there's no reason you should just pack up and leave i'd be putting some pressure on him to take some job not so far away from you until something in his line of work comes up.

Make more of an effort to meet each other during the week, plan more holidays away.. take at least 1 or 2 days a week off yourself. Saturday is probably your busy day if it is make sure and take monday off and even tuesday morning, at least then you can head to Dublin saturday evening and drive home tuesday morning for work after lunch.

freeze4real

why don't you hire a manager or someone to manage your business.

See how it goes for a couple of years and if your situation changes.

hfallada

My friends mother owns a hair salon business and she says its something that you can only really do until you are in your mid forties. Its something you need to be young to do and after a while your back will kill you.

Unless your BF finds a secure and well paying job. I wont give yours. Having your own business in the middle east would be near impossible( its pretty much closed to foreigners) and wages are less in NZ. There is no guarantee moving half way around the world will be better for both of you. Would your BF consider going back to college and up skilling?

MouseTail

Someone who established their own business at 22, made a success of it, and works damn hard will succeed anywhere. I say go for it.

MagicMarker

Hire someone, let them look after half your clients. Get feedback from said clients. If everything is working out let them take over the business for you. If the feedback isn't good then move on to someone else.

Mrs OBumble

I'd say go for a trip, but don't expect to live over there - unless your BF has a skill that would get him a work visa. (See your other thread about qual-recognition and visas ... I don't think you're gonna like the answers). And on the basis of that, I'd suggest putting a manager into your business.

After that, if your BF cannot move closer to you, can you open a salon closer to Dublin? There are people with hair needing cut in most places, it should be a portable type of still.

mmm ... if you like, we could move this thread over to Entrepreneurship and Business Management - they may be able to give better advise about how to transition your business. Report this post if you'd like it moved and one of the mods will do it.

CatFromHue

Have you looked at the options of where you'd like to move to?

You can go to NZ on a 1 year working holiday visa but there's no guarantee of getting work with that.
You can go to Oz on a 1 year working holiday visa but will be restricted to working for only 6 months with any one employer, this visa can be extended for another year if you do 3 months regional work, again there is no guarantee of work and the 6 months duration does limit your employability to potential employers.
You can go to Canada for 2 years on an IEC visa (it's the same as a working holiday really and there are no restrictions on the duration you can work with any one employer).

I don't know about the middle east so can't help there.

After that you're looking at more long term visas like sponsorship and things like that which I don't know a huge amount about.

I know that what if feeling myself and it's an impossible one for a stranger to help you with. If you could look into getting someone else into help run your business when you're away that would be the best option.

What about promoting from within for example?