Back in April of this year I started a Going Independent series of blog posts, inspired in part by Johnathan Goodyear's articles on this topic. Anywho, it's been a while since I've updated that series, and I plan on doing so eventually, but in the mean time James Avery has started a similar series of posts on going independent on his blog. His most recent entry - Going Independent - Making the Decision - is definitely worth reading. I particularly enjoyed reading about James's epiphany on when to make the leap from being employed to being self-employed:
So starting my own company and working as an independent consultant while working on writing and software in my spare time seemed like the perfect solution, but the question was when to do it. This is when the fear started to kick in, no longer was I a single guy with no responsibilities, I am newly married with house and car payments, I needed to make sure that I had a semi-reliable income. For the last year or so I have been putting off this idea of going independent, writing it off to needing more experience or wanted to wait for the perfect time. Then I was out at the MVP Summit earlier this year and I was talking to a number of different developers and we were discussing going independent, I mentioned to Jonathan Goodyear that I was thinking of going independent and he said something like "What are you waiting for?"
I started working for myself back when I was still an undergrad at college, but I had a similar tough decision to make myself upon graduation. I had been offered a great job from Microsoft, an oppotunity to work with the Hotmail team in Microsoft's office in Silicon Valley, and needed to decide between pursuing that oppotunity or continuing to work for myself. I opted for the latter, figuring that I had to roll the dice and try my luck at working for myself. In the worst case, I reasoned, I could always go begging back to Microsoft if working for myself turned out to be a bust. (Of course this decision was infinitely easier than James's, seeing as I was single, had just graduated college, wasn't saddled with a mortgage, etc.)
In the end, I made the right decision for me. Striking out on my own forced me to grow in ways that working for a company wouldn't have afforded. Had I chosen to work for Microsoft, my life's script would have been a bit more spelled out - I would have moved to San Jose, I would have had help from Microsoft in finding a place to live, I would have gotten to know and socialize with coworkers, and so on. When I decided to work on my own, I packed up the car and drove out West, not knowing where I was going to settle, how I would meet folks, or what, precisely, I would be doing. It made for a bit more of an adventure and introduced challenges that would have likely otherwise not presented themselves.
Oh well, enough of this emotional ramble, check out James's blog entry, it's worth the read...