Interesting topic, pretty close to my heart. My story in short is that I took over a business my dad (successful lawyer) started as a side thing when the markets started tanking in the mid-late 90's. He and the accountant at the law firm ran it, with a (very) moderate degree of success. I graduated with a Master's degree in Music, which is and will always be my first love, but it doesn't pay the bills. (Won't even buy me a weekly coffee). My dad suggested I take over the business, I said sure, why not, and with a fair amount of hard work, found it was a pretty good money maker. The daily tasks are absolute crap (bookkeeping, calling deadbeat customers, etc) that I'd hate in any other job, but because it's my company, I enjoy it. Here are my answers to your questions:
- Where you live?
Hamilton, Ontario. Need to be involved in the Toronto music scene for my other job, but the cost of living in Toronto is way too high, so we bought a house here. (45 min west of downtown Toronto).
- What your/your business does?
Sub-prime (poor credit) used car financing. We finance used car leases for people who can't get credit anywhere else. Interest rates start at 24% APR.
- How long you have been doing it?
Took over my dad's company September 2002, found lots of problems (contracts with dealerships) so shut it down, incorporated my own Jan/03.
- Do you have a family and/or kids?
Married, no kids yet but plan on it in the next year
- How old are you?
29 for another 2 weeks.
- How much do you work?
Varies greatly - I'll go for stretches where I spend at least half the day on my music career, other times I'm in the office (home office) 8-9 hours a day. I rarely do office work more than 9 hrs/day or on weekends.
- Do you like it (seriously!)?
Love it. Like I said above, the daily tasks are *****, but because it's my own company, it's cool. I'd hate it if I were doing it for anyone else.
- What was the defining moment that made you strike out on your own?
I didn't have many other options. While doing graduate work in contemporary classical music was awesome and extremely valuable, it doesn't translate into a paying job.
- Are you accumulating wealth or just sustaining life?
Right now in between.
- Do you have a comfortable lifestyle (buy whatever you want? within reason? unlimted?)
Again, in between. Quite comfortable, but not buying whatever we want (that's why there's no 930 beside the T in the garage
)
- How much you make? (If you choose to answer, it can be any form: sales, net, X times what an exmployee would make doing the same job, etc.)
Varies greatly from year to year so far, from high 20's to low 60's, (Canadian $).
Even in low salary times, I wouldn't trade it for anything, unless my musical career allowed me to pay the bills. I love the freedom, the lack of a boss, and the satisfaction of looking at income statements that show I'm actually making it work.
One thing that's important to note is that the only way I was able to get this off the ground was with the financial backing of my dad. I think anyone can start a successful business, but you need startup funding, which can be really hard to get. I got lucky in that respect, and frankly I doubt I could have done it otherwise.
Chris