Time to leave the corporate nest?

• startups

A little over five years ago now, my wife and I arrived back in Australia from a year over in the UK. It was a great year, and I’d enjoyed the work I’d being doing over there (coding at a smallish Biotech) as well as the ability to travel. Additionally, I’d left on good terms with my employer and had the opportunity to do some work with them from Australia. Great, I thought – an opportunity to get my own software development business started; which I guess has always been my dream.

While, I think the idea was good in practice, it wasn’t the right time. My current struggle is attempting to determine if now is the right time.

Learning and planning some personal growth
Back then, I realized pretty early on that I didn’t have all of the right pieces of the puzzle. I had no idea if I could scale effectively, whether I could effectively manage staff, or even which technologies to build my business around (I tend to be a bit of a jack of all trades). Oh, and my wife and I wanted to start thinking about having a family sometime soon also. So I decided to take an offer to move back as a permanent employee of the company I worked for before jetsetting off to the UK.

One of my key drivers for going back to full-time work (apart from the need for a stable income) was to address some of those questions that I had stumbled across in my six month small business “entree”. So at that stage, I set myself a very clear roadmap (not written down mind you…) to push myself in uncomfortable directions to get some answers. I needed to know if I could manage people and be effective in the business side of things in addition to being a good coder.

The plan was simple, and I followed my code of being open and honest. I communicated to my manager and executive manager that I had a strong desire to grow my business smarts so I could one day go back out and run my own business successfully. Through ongoing conversations, opportunities to explore and grow my business skills in that environment came about, and I would certainly have to say over the last five years, I have achieved far more than I ever would have thought back then.

My original goals once again beckon; however, and I again need to contemplate what to do.

When do you have enough to start out on your own?
Right now, I am trying to decide between:

1. Going out and starting up my own business; or
2. Joining another company doing similar things to what I have done before (stuff I actually really like doing).

Both options look reasonably solid; I’ve got work lined up if I start out on my own so I’m not too worried about initial cash flow (down the track it all gets a bit hazy). I do however have two young kids, and my wife and I made a conscious decision that she was going to be a full-time mum – so the family is dependent on my “bread winning” ability. Also the company that I have an offer from looks to be offering a position that I should find quite rewarding. Being a good logical person, I have put together a spreadsheet comparing the options against weighted categories. Alas the numbers do not reveal a clear and obvious winner.

Right now, I would love to hear some other people’s experiences about starting their own businesses (ideally in the IT space), or those who decided not to (but wanted to) and have continued on with rewarding careers working for others. Please – if you have a story to tell I would love to hear it. If you’ve written (or read) a post or article previously, just drop the link in here with any useful comments and I’ll have a read. Don’t worry I am not going to make my decision based on your story alone, but the more information I have now the more empowered I will feel to make a decision, and then to make that decision right.

My gut says do it, I guess it has been for as long as I can remember. I’ve also been preparing for quite a while, have most things ready to go, but am mindful that two little people and a loving wife are along for the ride.