Should I find a job or start my own business?

[Adgo]

I'm a 23 years old student from Belgium and I'll finally receive my Master in Management degree in October from one of the top 10 business school in Europe.

While most of my peers in class are applying for jobs in the best companies around the world, I'm not really interested in that alternative, thanks to my past entrepreneurial experience.

5 years ago, I hired an American freelancer who developed an Instagram bot for me for $150. I started selling it on some forums and I kept investing the money I was making back in the development of the bot, to improve its features and performances. A few months later, I had 5 working versions priced from $9.99 to $29.99 for sale on my own website. Everything was automated and all I had to do was to answer the customers’ emails and watch the money flow. I invested in SEO and was making between $2000 and $3500 a month while I was in my first year of college. My income eventually grew to $5200 in June 2014 when it started decreasing for several reasons. The bot needed adaptation, unfortunately, the developer stopped working as a freelancer and I had to hire someone to develop the 5 versions again. Then Instagram started to change their API to slowly reduce to efficiency of bots and my revenues dropped. I tried multiple costly alternatives to solve the problem, in vain.

I’ve also been replacing broken iPhone parts as my own “part time job” for 7 years now. I made approximately 35.000€ of turnover with a 50% margin.


These experiences made me realized that, no matter how small you start, money is not so hard to earn when you bring value to people. As a result, I don't really want to work 50 hours a week for someone else and get pay 2000€ a month when I was making twice as much as a student.

I know that I want to be self-employed as soon as possible but I’m not sure if I should first work for another company to “gain experience” as everybody say. For how long? Which company/job would provide me a better experience than the experience I will gain if I try to do it be myself?


I have a few business ideas but nothing I'm absolutely sure would be profitable.

For now, I don't have any bills to pay, that's why I think it might be a good time to give it a try.
I'm scared that getting a job will drastically restrict my future choices.

Any advice would be highly appreciated!

 

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[NVaz]

You've seemed to already made your decision and you're just looking for outside permission.

Sorry, But the Forum Can't Make Your Life Decisions For You!!

....even though if you would get one I would suggest something where you could sharp your selling skills.

 

[minivanman]

I think you can figure out if something is profitable or not. You seem like you are smart enough to do that. Use Google to your advantage.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Both.

 

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[GoGetter24]

[delete: probably went a bit heavy]

 

[WJK]

I'm a 23 years old student from Belgium and I'll finally receive my Master in Management degree in October from one of the top 10 business school in Europe.

While most of my peers in class are applying for jobs in the best companies around the world, I'm not really interested in that alternative, thanks to my past entrepreneurial experience.

5 years ago, I hired an American freelancer who developed an Instagram bot for me for $150. I started selling it on some forums and I kept investing the money I was making back in the development of the bot, to improve its features and performances. A few months later, I had 5 working versions priced from $9.99 to $29.99 for sale on my own website. Everything was automated and all I had to do was to answer the customers’ emails and watch the money flow. I invested in SEO and was making between $2000 and $3500 a month while I was in my first year of college. My income eventually grew to $5200 in June 2014 when it started decreasing for several reasons. The bot needed adaptation, unfortunately, the developer stopped working as a freelancer and I had to hire someone to develop the 5 versions again. Then Instagram started to change their API to slowly reduce to efficiency of bots and my revenues dropped. I tried multiple costly alternatives to solve the problem, in vain.

I’ve also been replacing broken iPhone parts as my own “part time job” for 7 years now. I made approximately 35.000€ of turnover with a 50% margin.


These experiences made me realized that, no matter how small you start, money is not so hard to earn when you bring value to people. As a result, I don't want to work 50 hours a week for someone else and get pay 2000€ a month when I was making twice as much as a student.

I know that I want to be self-employed as soon as possible, but I’m not sure if I should first work for another company to “gain experience” as everybody says. For how long? Which company/job would provide me a better experience than the experience I will gain if I try to do it be myself?


I have a few business ideas but nothing I'm absolutely sure would be profitable.

For now, I don't have any bills to pay, that's why I think it might be a good time to give it a try.
I'm scared that getting a job will drastically restrict my future choices.

Any advice would be highly appreciated!

If you did work for someone else, make sure you are acquiring a skill that you want. It will make worth your time. You can alway quit and move on to something else when you get that skill set under your belt. In the meantime, start putting your business ideas together and putting your big toe out there. The direction that you start won't be where you end up. Life tends to put us into places that we never dreamed possible.