On Your Own

Today, I listened to a presentation from a company that my employer is thinking about contracting to do some design work for a site we’re rewriting and possibly a new CMS implementation for corporate stuff. When the presenter talked about how he had founded the company three years ago after building a very successful previous business and then selling it. Even though the company is still very new, it has contracts with some of the biggest companies in our area (which includes one of the biggest companies in the world).

I thought to myself, “This guy really knows how to make it on his own.” The more I think about it, the more I think I’d like to own my own business. Sure, there’s some risk involved, and you don’t have that security blanket that goes with a job in corporate America, but I think being in control of your own destiny is enough to swing me in the other direction. I think it’s also the desire to build that I’ve written about previously, the drive to create. I don’t think I’m anywhere close to having the kind of experience I need to be out on my own. Of course, I could probably use that excuse for my whole career. And I bet the hard part about it isn’t technical, but being able to build a customer base. What do you think about being on your own versus working for somebody else?