Why should I start my own business ?

Some popular entrepreneurs

The obvious answer to that question would be to make money and be happy, but there's more to it than that, it would help us quit the "rat-race". The normal "life-routine" or "rat-race" that most of us live as described by Robert Kiyosaki in his book "Rich dad, Poor dad" is this:

"If you look at the life of the average-educated, hard-working person, there is a similar path. The child is born and goes to school. The proud parents are excited because the child excels, gets fair to good grades, and is accepted into a college. The child graduates, maybe goes on to graduate school and then does exactly as programmed: looks for a safe, secure job or career. The child finds that job, maybe as a doctor or a lawyer, or joins the Army or works for the government. Generally, the child begins to make money, credit cards start to arrive in mass, and the shopping begins, if it already hasn't."Having money to burn, the child goes to places where other young people just like them hang out, and they meet people, they date, and sometimes they get married. Life is wonderful now, because today, both men and women work. Two incomes are bliss. They feel successful, their future is bright, and they decide to buy a house, a car, a television, take vacations and have children. The happy bundle arrives. The demand for cash is enormous. The happy couple decides that their careers are vitally important and begin to work harder, seeking promotions and raises. The raises come, and so does another child and the need for a bigger house. They work harder, become better employees, even more dedicated. They go back to school to get more specialised skills so they can earn more money. Maybe they take a second job. Their incomes go up, but so does the tax bracket they're in and the real estate taxes on their new large home, and their Social Security taxes, and all the other taxes. They get their large paycheck and wonder where all the money went. They buy some mutual funds and buy groceries with their credit card. The children reach 5 or 6 years of age, and the need to save for college increases as well as the need to save for their retirement. ."That happy couple, born 35 years ago, is now trapped in the Rat Race for the rest of their working days. They work for the owners of their company, for the government paying taxes, and for the bank paying off a mortgage and credit cards. Then, they advise their own children to `study hard, get good grades, and find a safe job or career.' They learn nothing about money, except from those who profit from their naivete, and work hard all their lives. The process repeats into another hard-working generation. This is the `Rat Race'."

I'm quite sure that most of you are somewhere along the "rat-race", studying so hard so you can end up working for this company or that company. When students talk to me about their plans for the future, they always say things like:

 "I want to get my degree in Computer science and then get an MBA and work at somewhere like Apple or Microsoft." 

"I heard they pay well at Shell, I'd love to work there someday."

Working for a company is not a bad plan for the future but, in most cases its not the best plan either. I think people should focus more on starting their own businesses. To most people it seems like a HUGE deal to start a business, but in reality its not. When you hear "start a business", you see yourself starting a company like; Sony, Coca-cola, IKEA or Apple and you think its so impossible. Its not impossible to own a company as big as those companies, they all started small and have grown to become what they are today. IKEA for example, was founded by Ingvar Kamprad when he was just 17 years old, he started by selling matches to his neighbours on a bicycle and then he started selling fishes, pens and pencils also, with steady expansion and proper business strategy his company now makes an average of 3 Billion US Dollars annually. Another successful entrepreneur is Raymond Lei, he started his online clothe-customisation business: ooShirts, while he was in High school. Its a web-based company where customers can design clothes online, the company then transforms these designs into actual clothes and ships them to the customers at a fixed price. In the year 2010 his company generated a total revenue of 2.2 Million US Dollars, at that time he was a student at the University of California-Berkeley, but unlike most of his mates, he had left the "rat-race". Under normal circumstances, people like this would not have to worry about the pensions or if their bosses would allow them to go on a holiday next summer.

Raymond Lei

Many other people like Frederick W. Smith, Steve Jobs and so on, decided to start their own businesses and have succeeded. You can start your own business too! You're not too old or too young to start one. Life becomes very interesting and comfortable when you are in control of your business, nearly all the difficulties faced by people in the "rat-race", are strange to you. In a few years time, I'd like to see you on Wikipedia as the founder of this company and that company, but first, there are a lot things you have to learn. I'll be uploading more posts on this blog, to help you know what to do and what to avoid when you're running your own business. 

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