I’m not Union but just went out on my own this year. I formed a LLC in August last year to pay proper taxes for taking on some side projects and as of December I’ve transitioned to full time self employed. It’s been a lot of work building the back end and learning all the reporting and compliance requirements. It’s also taken quite a bit of personal cash to get started with subscriptions and licensing, insurance, and payroll.

I’ve been an employee for private owners and family companies the past 10 years so I haven’t had the advantages of Union quality pay, benefits, or training. Because of that and always having to fight for a reasonable wage I am very employee focused and want to provide top tier pay and benefits for anyone working with me.

My ambition is to build a business that can give employees long term stable employment and the opportunity to buy a house, support their families, have hobbies, take vacations, and still be able to retire. Of course I’d also like to earn enough to pay myself well and continue to invest in the business but making a low stress workplace, controlling my schedule, and properly compensating staff are the biggest motivations for me being on my own.

I’ve hired my first employee and he’s being paid a $40/hourly rate with all his mileage reimbursed by me since I don’t have advanced incentives set up yet like pto and free healthcare. He gets paid more than me and I’m more than okay with that but I want to do more by the end of the year.

I like being the go to guy to fix problems from start to finish. I love the responsibility with choosing my own clients/jobs and owning the entire process. I’m to excited to take on new challenges and accept outcomes good and bad as learning opportunities.

It is rewarding to be building a business for myself now, not for someone else. I feel pride seeing my list of clients growing and trust that the energy and time I’m putting in now will pay dividends in the future.

It’s hard to stay on top of everything and tiring to wear all the hats but so far I’ve got great clients, plenty of work opportunities, and it’s a lot easier to keep everyone happy on the jobs I pick than to having to work with difficult jobs or clients I didn’t get a say about.

Building a business from scratch has been pretty challenging but each day I’m excited to do better and I keep pushing on with the hope to eventually have more freedom of my time and income for my family.

So I guess that my input would be that if you are interested in being a business owner more than just building or working and then spending your down time on yourself - go for it. If you aren’t into the headache and hassle, the risk or stress of being self employed then there’s nothing wrong with working for someone else and banging out quality projects to exchange your time for wages and benefits.