What to do next.....

[mat]

My career has been a bit different to the norm. I was actually self employed with online stuff from a teenager, but when it came to loading myself up with a mortgage and getting serious in life I panicked a bit and got a job for a few years. Having family and friends who have never been the entrepreneurial types, put the feeling of "it will all end in tears" in the back of my mind as much as I loved it!

Anyway, it turned out that I could save every penny I made from this job for the few years I was there. I lived off my online earnings and put the rest into a large mortgage deposit and savings. At this point I also had over 1 years worth of buffer savings in the bank to go back to fully self employed. Although I treat myself and enjoy life I live frugal with no loans or finance so even if my earnings were to drop to £0 overnight I would be OK. This really helps me to sleep at night!

As it stands I have been back fully self employed now for 4 years and it is the BEST thing I ever did. I do actually work less hours than the job I had, with a mix of about 90% my own sites, 10% clients. I have enough of a buffer in the bank now to keep me going for a good couple of years with no income and I am paying the mortgage off as quickly as possible while I have the opportunity.

As said by others, the small things in life like freedom to just pop out for a walk, or see your family are the best part. Even if I was only making minimum wage doing this, I would still pick it over a job!

 

[Adam H]

I love this thread, its fantastic to see people with the same kind of mindset and out of the brick and mortar, 9 - 5 lifestyle.

Having family and friends who have never been the entrepreneurial types, put the feeling of "it wall all end in tears" in the back of my mind as much as I loved it!

I can relate to that, for years I had people telling me I was dreaming, which only drove me harder. Lost friends along the way too because they didnt understand. As Will Smith said "If you're absent during my struggle, don't expect to be present during my success"

 

[KarlM]

I have been working online since 2004 self employed, At age 19 i dropped out of university to concentrate on my online work. It was scary at the time but living at home at the start made it easier for me. Have never looked back, could not imagine ever having a boss now haha.

 

[jbworldwide]

I think this follows the view that I have that most people do not value their time correctly and don't consider how work can 'work for them' (I sound like a Tory). I was contracting and had a fun time doing it. I moved back into a permie role so I can complete some education and then I will probably break out again when that is complete... itchy feet already but with wife, kids and mortgage I know they are looking for some security but I think me being around more with a similar level of income is the best situation to be in.

 

[aZooZa]

I've seen a lot of people come and go here over the years. Those with the intelligence, tenacity of purpose and common sense obviously survive best. Much sage advice has already been offered in this thread; there's little more that I can add. If you're a real entrepreneur, it's in your blood and ergo constantly courses through your veins.

Congrats on taking bold steps!

 

[wonder_lander]

Cheers guys, I know I'm doing the right thing and am really looking forward to the new challenges, and freedoms it brings!

 

[monaghan]

Keep your head on straight, keep some reserves and spend wisely and you should be OK, whether you make a lot of money or just enough to survive it's what you gain non-financially that is the real reward.

 

[donton]

The only job I have ever worked was at McDonald's during uni. In my second year I setup my ecommerce business, then left McDonald's in my third year of uni to concentrate on my own business and my final year.

For a while I ran a couple of online businesses, one supplying beauty products and one offering content writing services. The former took off far beyond anything I imagined and I sold the content writing business as I no longer had time for it. At various stages I made a little money on domains, but I found it difficult to scale sustainably.

In hindsight uni was a big waste of time and I wish I had gone into business as soon as I left sixth form.

Like everyone else on here I love being my own boss - but perhaps unlike others I don't really enjoy being the boss. I now have eight employees and crikey, it's hard work looking after them all.

I do enjoy being able to clock off whenever I like, and it was particularly handy when my son was born because I had the ultimate flexibility to be at the birth, stay up all night every night when he had colic etc.

I cannot imagine ever working for anyone else again. I really do love what I do, the sense of freedom - both financial and in terms of how I live my life - is immense.

 

[Murray]

one supplying beauty products

Id be interested to hear more about that if you're happy to talk about it?

 

[wonder_lander]

How are you getting on so far?

Not started too much, my notice expires ends on the 23rd April so I'm planning to start tackling my future from the end of February!

 

[monaghan]

Are they making you work your notice or are you free to do as you wish at the moment?

 

[wonder_lander]

Are they making you work your notice or are you free to do as you wish at the moment?

Need to work it! Working in the payroll/accountancy business means Jan - April are very busy times!

 

[monaghan]

That's a pain, I've had to work a 3 month notice period when changing jobs in the past and can feel your pain, I fortunately was able to work from home for my notice period (again 3 months) when I got made redundant and (naturally) didn't get any assignments as all of the projects were longer than my notice period.

 

[wonder_lander]

The big problem is nobody to handover to so I'm spending my days writing up articles from my 12 years of business knowledge!

 

[scottmccloud]

The big problem is nobody to handover to so I'm spending my days writing up articles from my 12 years of business knowledge!

Slow down. You're doing yourself out of extortionate consultancy fees when they're desperate for your 12 years of insight and knowledge

 

[wonder_lander]

Slow down. You're doing yourself out of extortionate consultancy fees when they're desperate for your 12 years of insight and knowledge

Oh don't worry on that score, they'll be getting my new business number and day rate when I leave

 

[monaghan]

The big problem is nobody to handover to so I'm spending my days writing up articles from my 12 years of business knowledge!

Hmm, bad practice leaving the documentation until someone hands in their notice

 

[donton]

Id be interested to hear more about that if you're happy to talk about it?

Sure, I mean I don't want to go into the absolute specifics because competition becomes more and more fierce each week. But I'm happy to discuss ecommerce in general and the logistics behind it all, which are not easy! We have some big plans for the short to medium term, too, with a new website going live at the end of February.

We run on Shopify Plus and recently got an email to say the base fee is going up 100% then there will be a further 0.15% transaction fee on top (at the moment we just pay $1k/ month - soon to be $2k/month plus transaction fees). It works out at around a 120% price increase when it's all totted up. Pretty outrageous really, but just one of those things you have to deal with.

Just when you think you've got everything in order and things are going great, you get a load of curve balls to keep you on your feet!

 

[ian]

We run on Shopify Plus and recently got an email to say the base fee is going up 100% then there will be a further 0.15% transaction fee on top (at the moment we just pay $1k/ month - soon to be $2k/month plus transaction fees). It works out at around a 120% price increase when it's all totted up. Pretty outrageous really, but just one of those things you have to deal with.

With that scale of company, you should go bespoke; Shopify really only suits small businesses that don't want to put in place servers, ecommerce solutions and payment gateways. With your own solution, you'd only pay around 1% cc charges and pence on debit cards.

 

[donton]

With that scale of company, you should go bespoke; Shopify really only suits small businesses that don't want to put in place servers, ecommerce solutions and payment gateways. With your own solution, you'd only pay around 1% cc charges and pence on debit cards.

Shopify Plus is an enterprise solution for companies who don't want their own in house CMS developers. Or companies who don't want the headache of designing a system from the ground up (like me). They have some big merchants on the platform: Kylie Cosmetics, Yeezy Supply and Morphe Brushes, to name a few. Some bigger merchants were discussed on a private Plus forum not long ago, there are quite a few doing over $15million/month, which is quite something.

Going bespoke is just a headache I don't really need. I started out on the $79/month plan and Shopify grew with the business. It's just their new Plus rates are... well, insane.

We have really low merchant fees, in the last few weeks I have played Worldpay and Global Payments off against each other and ended up saving about £2800/month, which is really cool. We have a none rate card rate with PP too which was difficult to get, but worth it, we save a few hundred extra each month there.

If Shopify remained at $1k/month I would be glad to pay it, just for the easy life. But with such a steep increase I will look elsewhere or take the plunge and go bespoke like you say.

Although it's not as flexible as a custom solution, we still negotiate our own payment gateways etc.