My Entrepreneurial Path to FIRE
The corporate path to FIRE
My most recent post ended by asking the question of whether quitting our corporate jobs and heading into business ownership and self-employment was “worth it”. I answered yes, however, when looking at the two paths in the woods, the corporate job path is clearly marked with directional signs, the trail has been blazed for you. You’re kept in safety alongside babbling brooks, under shade from fruit trees. There are the occasional mud puddles you must navigate, or storm cloud, but overall you know where you are going and the surprises are few. Ultimately at the end of this path you haven’t gained much elevation, your view is not much different from where you started. When looking down the path of business ownership, you can’t see the end of the trail. You see tax auditors jumping out of the woods, employees coming and going, dark clouds over head with no clear direction to follow and a relentless climb upwards. It's entirely up to you to find your way to greater heights and grander vistas. The easier path would have been to keep our cozy corporate jobs.
Entrepreneurial Path to FIRE
Diving into a business that requires employees is incredibly difficult and rewarding at the same time. There are days where you get to hire a woman who has been undervalued her entire career and pay her 3 times the amount she was earning before. Then there are days where you terminate your second manager in as many months because they lack the ability to self-manage, let alone manage your company. In the month of December alone, I had to terminate 4 employees. These employee's behavior did not match the company’s culture. It was far better to remove them quickly from the company than to let them poison the fledgling culture we are trying to build with our other 16 employees. When working for the corporate world, any terminations I had to perform were because I was directed by a superior or consensus of management. As the owner of my business, there is no big bad “corporate” to blame for this employee's termination. I am the one who makes the call, and I am the one who delivers the message. It’s those days that are hard. But just like any relationship that is going poorly, the moment honesty is spoken, and the relationship is terminated, you feel better once you have removed the unhealthy person from your life.
It has been a rough road the past 18 months of business ownership and growth. On a particularly rough day, if asked, I would say I would have preferred to have kept my corporate job and simply squirreled away my money for early retirement like the rest of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) community.
After much thought, I know that I am better off for the challenges that the business has brought me. If you talk to my wife, she might think differently. I’ve learned so much about people, finances, work and its inherent value and about my capabilities as a person. Comfort leads to little growth. To all business owners who take the leap and hire staff to help you grow, I tip my hat to you. By far, staffing is the most challenging part of most businesses.
The business has still continued to allow for our personal net worth to grow. It is a vehicle that truly can catapult us to where we want to be financially. Below you will find an update to our net worth.
Personal net worth growth since the inception of our business in June 2018.
The stock market has been kind to us over the last 18 months. If you follow my rustic arrows on the bottom, you can see the jumps in net worth since we started the business. Our goal was to hit $1,000,000 net worth by the end of the year 2022. If the stock markets stay steady and our business continues to perform the way it has, we should be able to hit that goal. What makes us nervous is the percentage of our net worth wrapped up in our business (about 44%). We’d like to spread that out a bit more, however, the business is our primary financial driver right now so it will probably continue to be a large part of our net worth. We’ll continue to max out our Roth IRAs and contribute to our brokerage account as well. We are looking into purchasing a home and/or commercial property as our business is growing out of our temporary housing.
One of the many things that I’ve learned during this 18-month period of business ownership is that if you are focused and intentional in life, you will achieve most any goal. We set a lofty goal to hit a $1,000,000 net worth in 5 years, with a starting net worth of around $250,000. We have made more progress in two years than we ever made in the previous 20 years of our lives. That is because of INTENTIONALITY. I challenge you to be intentional in your life, and you’ll be amazed by the life you create for yourself.
