Should I start my own business?

JonShar · October 24, 2006

I've been with my current restaurant company for 9 years - starting off waiting tables, worked my way up to manager, then General Manager, then District Manager, and now Regional Manager. Am very proud of the career-path I've had, have done it quickly and I'm the youngest Regional my company has by a good 6 years. I make good money at it too.

I'm starting to get very tired of it though. On average I drive around 1,000 miles a week, spend anywhere from 3-6 nights in hotels a week, and cover an area that spans the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and part of Texas. In other words, it's bloody huge. I've always enjoyed my job, but the past 6 months or so it's starting to wear me down a bit - fortunately I'm not married, but I rarely get to spend time with my friends, and with this job I doubt I'll ever have the time to build a relationship enough to get married...which for the girls of the world might not be such a bad thing!

So I've always wanted to open my own restaurant. When I say always, I mean since the age of 8. I don't know why I always have, but it's always been there - said for ages that my goal was to open my own Italian place by the time I'm 35. I'm 30 now. As most people know the hardest thing about doing it is the amount of work involved - the added bonus right now is that a guy who works for me wants to do the same thing. I've know him for a few years, he's got a great work ethic, honest, and I think he'd make a great partner. Halve the workload, share the startup cost, those parts sound appealing.

The risk is it'll cost us about $100,000 to get us going. This is much lower than we'd initially figured, but I think we're covering everything we need. We've got about $50k between the 2 of us and will need investors/banks to help us out. (Any donations are welcome!) Legally, we've got to decide what kind of corporation we'll be - any help on that stuff would be much appreciated.

So - should I take the jump?

SkippyjonJones · October 24, 2006

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