So I moved to Chicago to be an actress and a writer. I started here in the big city as a temp. A rare sort of temp, who was versed in Mac rather than PC. So I got more fun, creative jobs than your basic data entry because I knew Quark and Illustrator and Pagemaker and blab blah blah.
One of my temp jobs became the job I have now. And that was…six years ago. I am a very well paid assistant in a very tiny company with a casual dress code, a fantastic, generous boss, and I get to go home at 3:00 every day and I get four weeks of vacation a year.
WHAT? AND YOU HAVE THE GALL TO SAY YOU DON’T LIKE IT?
I know. I know…but I just…can’t do it anymore. Today my boss gave me a report I did yesterday with a note on it that said “I rewrote this…let’s try again”. He’s neurotic about commas, he’s scatterbrained…he ‘doesn’t like’ italics…he only wants to use blue in all of his presentations…he asks me why our website doesn’t work as well as the AMERICAN AIRLINES website, disregarding completely that it’s a multinational, billion dollar company and we’re a three person operation. He refers to fonts as OPTICS. He drops his cellphone in Diet Coke and wonders why it doesn’t work.
I just started crying today for no reason. I can’t do it anymore. It never changes and it’s never GOING to change because
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Real Estate Investment Trusts
and
I don’t WANT to work here for the rest of my life.
So I’ve been doing research into starting a small personal chef/catering company and have been interviewing other caterers and chefs…researching loans…marketing. I have a lot of great connections, particularly in the theatre and film world that could get me started. It really inspires me and makes me happy just to think about it. It energizes me.
But I’m real scared. What if I flop? What if I don’t make a dime? What if I drag my husband down into poverty since I’m the primary bread winner? What if someone gets sick on chicken salad and I’m sued and thrown in debtor’s prison?
Am I dolt to think I can start a business? I don’t know math, I don’t know book keeping or taxes…all I know is that i’m a great cook and people are always asking me to cook FOR them…so why not make a few bucks doing it.
I’m torn today…I think it may be PMS, but I’d really like some advice.
I hear you. I switched from programming to architecture to satisfy my internal need. It sure wasn’t for the money. Thankfully my wife makes mucho dinero, so that helps.
One of my favorite books (can’t remember the author just now) is Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow The premise is that you’re happy and loving your work, you’ll do it well. Find it. Read it.
Of course it won’t be easy. It will require much planning and some consideration for contingencies, but the rewards will be great. How much better can life be than to be doing the work you love? If it pays the bills with some left over, that’s icing on the cake.
If you don’t do it, you’ll be miserable and always wondering “what if?”
If you do it and it doesn’t work out, you’ll know that you tried and then be able to go on to other things without that “what if?” nagging at you.
If you do it with care and planning, understanding the risks and sacrifices that will be necessary to get started, you’ll most likely be successful.
Consult a good lawyer to find the best way to limit your legal liability.
You’re a careful, conscientious person who won’t cut the corners that would make someone sick on the chicken salad. You’ll follow the regs choose your suppliers carefully. Your food will be safe and delicious.
BIG QUESTION: Will your husband support this? If not, your chances of success are diminished. If he does, you’ve caught the brass ring.
Hmm. I’m not sure how valuable my advice can be, but I’ll just throw out a few things that came to mind.
First off, if you end up doing this, my hat’s off to you. I’m a pretty conservative person by nature, and would never have the balls to strike out on my own. Basically for the fears you’ve stated - failure, poverty, etc. I’m definitely not a big risk taker.
Since you know you’re not into the business side of things (taxes, accounting, etc.), it might help if you can find someone you trust who can help you out. Heaven only knows where you can find that if you don’t already know someone, but I think having that kind of know-how is essential. I worked at a job for 3 months a few years back - great concept, but the guy was inept at running a business. I left because 3 paychecks in a row were late due to insufficient cash. It’s probably pretty easy to run a business into the ground if you don’t manage it well.
I think the personal chef industry is probably on the upswing right now. Certainly has crossed my mind to try and find one to give it a shot. So if anything, the market for this kind of thing could only get better.
I’m kinda sorta going through a similar “life examination” right now. I too have a decent job that pays well and has decent benefits (not 4 weeks vacation, but hell, I don’t use what I get anyway!). But I’m not sure it’s what I really want to do for the rest of my life. Unfortunately what I really want to do is work full time as a Weight Watcher leader. That pay sucks ass, the hours and locations are scattered around the county, and the benefits are spotty at best. Will I have the gall to suck it up and do what I love? Or will I remain in accounting cubicle hell? Only time will tell…
Good luck on this, it’s a real tough thing to figure out what you really want out of life and how to make it happen.
Any major change is pretty frikking scarey. I was terrified when Mr’zania started his own business. I was terrified when I decided to give up my secure income and go work with him. I was terrified when we closed our Austin location and moved the shop out here.
Hell, I still have days when I wonder if I’ve lost my mind and I still don’t know what next week will bring.
However, I do know what would’ve happened if we hadn’t gone this route:
He’d be stuck in a job that he hated.
I’d be stuck in a job I hated.
We’d be stuck in the 'burbs.
And you know where you’ll be if you don’t take a chance-exactly where you are now.
My husband does support me, but he also is always bringing up the fact that our lifestyle would change, we’d be strapped for cash for a while, and he’s so practical that I can tell it scares him, too.
I just know that if I don’t do something, I’m going to be right in the looneybin…I feel like the walls are closing in on me. Getting up to go to work each day just brings me DOWN. (AND THAT’S WITH ANT-DEPRESSANTS! :D)
If you don’t do it, years from now you’ll be asking “what if”. Its better to try and fail than to never try at all, to paraphrase somebody.
My wife and I took a major chance a couple years back. Successful careers for the both of us. Neither of us liked our jobs. She wanted to go back to school. And we hated were we lived. So, we both quit our jobs, packed up the house, moved across the country. I have a job that pays quite well and I like it a lot better. And we bought a house that we can afford on my salary and have her go to school full time. We are both much happier now.
We could have stayed where we were and been “safe”. But we took a chance and are much happier. Now we are talking about starting our own business. About to take another leap, I think.
You only live once so you have to try as many new things as you can.
This was true of my mother too. But in her late 40s/early 50s, she started a catering business. She did mainly weddings and corporate parties. She wound up employing several of her friends and most of my sibs over the course of many years.
OK, so my brother is a CPA and he did advise her about the books and similar stuff, but you can hire someone to do that for you.
Anyway, she “retired” from this at 65, but she still does some parties for select customers. One of my sister’s friends started his own business and has gotten a lot of her former customers - he’s in his 30s.
Sooooooo, my advice - do the research, make the commitment, and do it. Even if it doesn’t work out, life will go on - we lost more than $50K in a partnership that should have been profitable - and we’ve all but paid off those debts 5 years later. Expensive lesson, but we didn’t know till we tried. You’re young and smart and motivated, so go for it! And best of luck to you!
Devil’s Avocado here. These are scary times, economically. I was unemployed for seven months, and had a few offers for commission-only jobs, but didn’t take them because the regular check from unemployment was a sure thing–I didn’t know for sure that I could sell copiers. With savings gone and a family to support, I knew that a regular check was the only thing I could comfortably go with.
Jar, you’re the only one who knows your situation. Can you live without income for months or years? If it fails, can you pay back lots of debt? “Follow that dream,” sounds nice in theory, but I now have about 50K in student loans, no Ph.D. to show for it, and a sales job I could have gotten with a B.A.
Rambling on, try it part-time in the evenings and on weekends for a while and see if it works out for safety’s sake.
Jar,
Go ahead and do it! Of course it’s scary…if it were easy, everyone would be comfortable well off having started their own business. And you can come up with dozens of reasons why you shouldn’t. But here are the reasons why you should:
You’re miserable in your current job, and your boss knows it. You’re no good to him/her if you don’t believe in your company, and it sounds like you don’t. You’re going to continue being miserable if you stay in that job.
If you do it you might fail, but at least you’ll have failed doing something you love to do. If you don’t do it, you’ll be far worse off, because you’ll always wonder what would have happened if…
So you don’t know bookkeeping? Hire a CPA. There are accountants you can hire to do your books on a monthly basis, paying them as needed. You’re a little computer savvy, so learn how to use MYOB (that’s what I hear is the best business software for the Mac).
It’s not likely that someone will choke on your chicken salad, but that’s what business insurance is for. It’s not all that expensive, and if you’re in a food service business you’d be foolish not to carry it. When I was self-employed, I carried a $1 million umbrella liability policy on myself, just in case.
If you flop, just hit the reset button and start over. Think about why you flopped, and do it differently the next time. Remember: if you use the same recipe, you’re gonna make the same bread. Making mistakes is nothing to fear, even if your first attempt (or even your first couple of attempts) fail…just do it over, and do it better.
You can do this, Jar…don’t give up on your dream just because you’re a little nervous.
I would say research the crap out of what you want to do, and determine that you can make a go of it. Figure out ‘OK, it will take a $50K loan to do this.’
Then ask yourself what will happen if, two years down the road, you are out the $50K. I don’t mean to be Mr. Negative Vibe Merchant here, but I am a tax/business lawyer, and I see cases all the time where people start businesses that don’t work out. Many of them were smart people, who knew how to run a business. It is a simple fact of life that a lot of new business don’t work out. (Feel free to e-mail me, if you have any specific questions)
That being said, like Stofsky said, can you afford to live for a while with money going out rather than coming in? I can guarantee that you will be losing money for a while. Your hubby is an actor too if I recall correctly. Is he ready to possibly take on another day job?
I also second the idea that you could start taking catering/cooking jobs on the side without giving up your assistant job. If you get out at 3 each day, and you have fairly liberal vacation time, you could have a good deal of time available to do your cooking in the evenings and weekends. Once you have your name out there, and at least a moderate steady income, I would take the plunge.
Bookkeeppiinngg and taxes should not be a problem. While you are a small operation, just keep careful track of your receipts and expenses. There are a lot of good accounting and tax prep software titles out there that don’t require a lot of specialized knowledge to use.
The Reader’s Digest version of all that is, yes, you should be scared about going off on your own. If you’re not scared, you don’t know what you are getting into. However, every successful business started with someone having a dream and being ready to sacrifice in the short term to achieve greater rewards. (or having a daddy who is speaker of the Illinois House of Reps.) If you can handle the potential risks, go for it.
A few years back, I left a small business that I worked for, and started my own web design/computer repair business. I kept it afloat for two years, without getting into too much debt; I had a good time, met a few great people, and determined that, as much as I loved the idea of runnning my own business, I hated actually running my own business.
I got my clients taken care of, got a job, and now, a couple of years later, I find myself in a good job, feeling much more secure. I learned an enormous amount during those two years, and I don’t regret having done it at all. The biggest thing I learned was that the dream that I’d had wasn’t what I’d cracked it up to be.
I was constantly torn between doing actual work for clients, or getting in new clients for when the current ones were taken care of, or doing the paperwork involved for clients that I had just finished helping, or devising new ways to market myself to new clients. I had no time left to myself at all; whenever I was home, my office beckoned, and I worked myself ragged.
What this all means is that I am spectacularly unsuited to run my own business. I suck at it. I failed completely. And yet… failure wasn’t that bad. I learned a lot that came in handy when hunting for a job later, and it looks good on my resume. I didn’t come out of the venture with a load of debt, and the job that I have now pays more than I ever made before. And I made some good friends in the process.
So my advice, in a nutshell: Research like crazy. See if you can find someone to advise you on accounting/bookkeeping. Maybe get your feet wet before quitting your current job; it helps a lot to have a few clients right off the bat. But don’t let fear stop you from trying out your dreams. Jobs you hate are a dime a dozen; a life that’s worth living is of unmeasureable worth.
jarbaby, have you any professional cooking or catering experience? It’s a tough, tiring job with long hours and a pretty thin profit margin. Plus drumming up clientele can be pretty hard to do.
One option might be to try it on weekends w/o quitting your job. If you’re getting out at 3, that would give you plenty of time to shop and prep.
Personal chef is a little different. I have a couple pals out here in the Bay Area who have made it work. Their families, however, are tremendously wealthy. That’s key, I think.
Good luck. I have 20+ years of cooking and catering experience; and I’ve worked for myself. Feel free to email me with any questions or if you’d like more in-depth answers.
Stofsky and MrVisible gave the advice I agree with. Try to work in your dream field on a part-time basis. Observe your employers and soak in as much knowledge as you can. If its possible, could you do some kind of research to see why so many self-employed businesses fail? It might show you some pitfalls to avoid. Think about writing a business plan. This is a portfolio that banks want to see before lending a huge a amount of money for a new business. They want to know what your business is, who your projected customers will be, where you’ll be working from, why your concept is a winner. The process will open your eyes to potential pitfalls and allow you to alter your expectations realistically. Finally, save as much money as possible. I’ve heard that the main reason new businesses fail within five years is lack of money. Good Luck.
a. You have posted that you have chronic back pain. Catering/cooking is physical work. Hefting stuff. Hauling stuff. Standing up for hours. Cleaning up afterwards. Can you handle this, or are you going to be drinking the sterno from the chafing dishes after a few hours?
b. You’ve posted that you’re trying to have a kid. This is, as far as I know, incompatible with starting your own business, both from a financial angle, and from a physical standpoint. So are you willing to put this off for a few years?
A few more things – are you prepared to turn something you love doing (cooking) into work? Can you handle it if a customer complains about a dish that you were proud of?
I would seriously try to do this as an apprentice or as a part time occupation for a while and see how you like it. (Getting out of work at 3:00 is probably ideal for this.)
Finally, you say you are depressed (or at least, you started crying at work today). NEVER make a lifestyle decision when you’re depressed or emotionally overwrought. By definition, you’re not thinking clearly.
Hi guys. Thanks for the info and reality check into my insanity.
I DO have restaurant experience as a waitress, I worked as a caterer’s assistant for eight months, and then assistant to the banquet coordinator at a restaurant in Chicago for a year…so I know what’s going on as far as hours and labor.
I don’t ever believe this business would be a cash cow, non stop money thing. I just want to do ONE thing that I love, since acting and writing aren’t working out. I’m miserable being an office lackey.
I was DEFINTELY going to do it part time. I have three pregnant friends who i’ve offered to deliver a week’s worth of meals to, and I have two theatre companies in town who are going to allow me to cater their opening night parties (for about 30-50) people.
I’ve been researching it for months actually, but I didn’t want to actually jump into it ever, because, I’m scared.
My back is much better Finagle…and I don’t think the baby’s comin’ any time soon (I must have rotten eggs or something), and I’m ALWAYS going to be depressed. Cooking for people is one of the only things that makes me happy.
For what it’s worth, JarbabyJ, I think your idea is a great one. Nowadays, many people don’t have basic cooking skills and certainly don’t know how to put a menu together. I’ll bet you could have quite a bit of success if you cooked a number of nutritious, delicious meals for customers who maybe had special dietary needs or just wanted a meal plan they didn’t have to think about.