Entrepreneurship (Business) vs Jobs Pros and Cons, Which is best?

Entrepreneurship (Business) and Jobs are different ways through which one could earn a living. You could decide to own your business as an Entrepreneur or work for someone else as an employee. What you decide determines what you become in life and each has its own pros and cons but it all depends on what you are going to choose. People often become confused as to what they really want to do in life. This will help you know the differences between Jobs and Entrepreneurship with their benefits; you could decide the best for you. Most times, those who are confused want the benefits of both without the associated disadvantages that come with it.

So when you ask should you own a business or have job? Well I will try not to be biased as the person writing this is an Entrepreneur. To answer this, I will give the advantages of each then their disadvantages before I conclude.

Why you should be an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is the only way that you could use to know your value. It is not biased and it helps you know how much you are worth. When you start a business, you get to know the skills you possessed and how much it is worth, your business produces products or services that people pay for it; when people like your service or product, the pay more and the buy often; when they hate the product or service, they will not buy it. This helps you to know your worth because it is not concealed or hidden and people cannot be manipulated to just buy what they do not need.

Pros of Entrepreneurship

1. Freedom: Entrepreneurship gives you freedom to go where you want to go anytime you want and do what you want without permission from anyone who may be your boss. You do not need to be controlled with rules and regulations of how you should behave or of what you need to do. No one forces you to wake up by 6am and dress up for work or come back home by 5pm. No one transfers you to another branch of the company in another place forcing you to live in a place you never wanted. You do not need to wait for approval from anybody before you do what is right for your business. Entrepreneurship gives you a choice, it gives you a voice and it gives you power to decide for yourself.
2. Age is not a determinant in Entrepreneurship: when you start a business, the business does not have eyes to see who is running or managing it. A child of 16 years can become a millionaire if he/she is an entrepreneur. A woman or man of 60 years can become an entrepreneur. Age does not affect you becoming an entrepreneur. This is an important factor in some jobs, that you become disqualified simply because of your age; Entrepreneurship takes away this problem for you.
3. You will know the value of money: In Entrepreneurship, your income is not fixed; this can be an advantage for you because it helps you spend money wisely. You do not spend on things that are not useful to the growth of your business. You only buy things that bring value to your business or that you really need because you do not know what amount your business may produce the next month. If as an Entrepreneur you decide to spend foolishly and by next month, you do not earn much, your business fails- which is one of the reasons why businesses fail. Entrepreneurship helps you to save and use money only for important reasons because you may earn less compared to previous month.
4. Entrepreneurship rewards your performance: the more efforts you put into work in your startup or business, the more the profit and the better the business becomes. This is an advantage in Entrepreneurship as there is no limit as to how much you could earn and you do not have to wait for years to become promoted; you get promoted in Entrepreneurship based on what number of hours you put into the business and in a matter of weeks or months, you get to earn what someone with a Job earns in a year. This is the beauty of Entrepreneurship.
5. You are more likely to get rich: because Entrepreneurship rewards your hard work and performance, as you get better every day, you tend to earn more money and because it has thought you the value of money by spending on valuable products and services, you will have a higher chance of becoming richer than someone with a Job even if that person earns more than what you get from your business. This is the reason why most billionaires and millionaires are Entrepreneurs.
6. You can transfer your Wealth: as an entrepreneur, your wealth can be transferred to your children when you die or when you resign or when you decide to retire. Even when your children have no experience, you can always get a manager to manage the business pending when the children grow and have the experience or even if they do not want to manage it, the manager can do that on their behalf and the wealth still becomes theirs.
7. Your effort is not in Vain: when you build a company to become successful, you remain the owner of it and can still be supervising the management even when you decide to retire and get someone to manage it for you. This is very important because you are not wasting the years you have spent building the company. Permit me to compare this with a Job here, when you work as an employee for 20 years, the company can decide to sack you and you have nothing to fall back on; after all the years you put into the company, when you are sacked or even when you retire, the amount you usually earn becomes greatly reduced in the form of pension or it becomes non-existent (because you were sacked).

Cons of Entrepreneurship

1. Difficult to build a successful business: as sweet as Entrepreneurship may sound, it is very difficult to build a successful business as there are many variables you have to deal with before a business becomes successful such as changes in government policies, security, theft, competition, changes in technology, finance and payment of staff, market changes, consumer taste, legal issues, advertisement and many more. All these contribute to make life difficult for an Entrepreneur. You have to become highly skilled and careful to scale a startup to success.
2. Your income is not fixed: in Entrepreneurship, you may earn very high sometimes that you think it will continue as that only to be disappointed the next month as you even run at a loss. Your income continually varies every month.
3. Your business can fail: you may start a business and having used your money and time in trying to make it work and become successful, your business will still fail even when you have done everything right. This can make you depress and you could even become bankrupt. This is the reason why Entrepreneurship is term as risk taking, because there is no guarantee that you will succeed no matter how amazing your idea may be.
4. Lack of Freedom: I know you may think I am contradicting myself, but the truth is that, you will not have time most times for yourself, family or friends when you are trying to make a business successful. This is because before a business becomes successful, you must put in much time to mastering the art and out performing your competition. This becomes worst when you have multiple businesses or companies and the time simply becomes very important; this is why most millionaires and billionaires buy private jets, not because they just want to buy but because every minute counts; the more they try to save time, the more time they get with their families and personal life. But other freedom mentioned above still hold true.

Why you should have a Job

As amazing as Entrepreneurship may be as described above, not everyone has the ability or desire of being an Entrepreneur. Some people simply want to be employees and they are Ok with it. If everyone were to be an Entrepreneur, then who manages or works for the Entrepreneurs?

Pros of being an Employee

1. You have a fixed income: if you are paid a 100,000 naira, you know that will continue every month and so you can plan what you will do in advanced. The economy does not affect your income and you dont have to worry how much you may earn every month as the entrepreneur does. This gives you a sense of security because the owner of the company or management must source for money to pay even when the company runs at a loss.
2. You can use a Job to raise money: even if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need money to start a business. You can become an employee and save your money before becoming an entrepreneur. Hence your Jobs can be your source of capital even while starting your own company and making it successful before quitting the job.
3. You have time: as an employee, you do not have to worry over lack of time for your family as you know you are going home after 5pm and you have the rest of the day with your kids and spouse. You do not need to be flying from one country to another worrying over deals except you are the CEO or top in the management which comes with more responsibilities.
4. You can plan your day: you can easily plan what you can do every day because you are not looking for business opportunities as the entrepreneurs do worry about. You know the task you do every day and they remain as such.
5. You can change your Job easily: if you are not Ok with the current job, you can quit and change to a better paying job or more desirable job. Comparing this to an entrepreneur who having invested money and time would find it difficult to change and start all over again even when he/she does not enjoy the job anymore. An employee can decide to move to a higher position in a different company depending on his/her experience.

Cons of being an Employee

1. You can be sacked: no matter the effort you have put into a company, the company does not care and when things go wrong, they can decide to sack you without considering the years you have put in to work for the company.
2. You are underpaid: you are not always paid what you do, no matter how hard you work; you will still be paid the same salary every month. Your employer always earns more than you do whether he/she comes to work or not. You are trading your knowledge, time and efforts to make someone richer than you. When you become promoted or when you have an increase in allowance, it is because the company had gained tremendously from your efforts.
3. You have no Freedom: you may have to compromise to gain favor from those at the top of the management (you may have to bribe them, pretend, laugh even when you dont feel like because you want them to think they are funny, go on a date with them even when you dislike them, you may be abused or exploited etc). You must get to work before time and must not leave before time except with permission. You may be insulted and demoted for little mistakes. Your vacation comes once in a year, the company may sack you when you become sick for long.
4. Your certificates, skills and health status, etc determine your fate: as an employee, you must meet specific criteria before you can get a job. If you are not healthy, no one would want to help you. If you are having some kind of disease such as epilepsy, HIV, scars (for air hostess and some receptionist) etc, you will be stigmatized. Your height, your age, your grammar, your behavior, your dressing, your beauty and language all determine the level you may reach in your career as an employee. These factors set limitations for you even when some are not modifiable. In fact, you getting employed depend on what is in the mind of the Human resource team.
5. Your experience cannot be transferred: in a job, when you reach the peak of your career, you cannot transfer your experience to your children as inheritance because the experience is bounded by your certificates and it is personal. Your children cannot use your certificate and they cannot replace you at the place of your work and they have to pass through the same hardship you went through to even have the chance of getting to where you are.

These are the pros and cons of being an employee vs entrepreneur. You have seen what the difference between entrepreneur vs employee are with their pros and cons and it is left for you to decide. As for me, I am proudly an Entrepreneur!

(SUBSCRIBE to my YOUTUBE channel of Entrepreneurship and Business and learn about business)

So own business vs job?; Which is best: Start your own business or work for someone? My advice is to start a Business and become an Entrepreneur for the FREEDOM it offers but have a heart of absorbing whatever Risk comes of it.