Why Launching a Startup is The Best Thing You Can do With Your Life

After a C-level career in finance I decided to launch my own start-up. I was happy working in the city of London, the environment in the company was great, the owners were just yet inspiring. Nonetheless, somehow it was never enough and I dreamed of something more.

Two reasons why you should stop working for someone else

In March 2014 I decided to quit and start on my own. I didn’t know what I was going to do or which direction to go, but I felt it was a rational decision I will not regret. My main reasons for quitting were simple.

#1 it is hard to achieve high financial goals

I realised that no matter how much I loved all the corporate life and the available resources I wasn’t getting closer to my personal financial goals. Successful companies are reluctant to make late comers equal no matter the time and effort they put in.

Even when the results are above all expectations the owners will still attribute it to the company’s generic growth. It’s very unlikely that you’ll become a multimillionaire working for someone else.

#2 It’s hard to feel complete

I always compared myself to other people in the organisation, as a matter of fact that is what all of us are doing when we are working for someone else. We compare ourselves to the people inside and outside the firm.

No matter how much I put in I always felt that I could do more. Nonetheless, I didn’t see good reasons to work an 18-hour day if I will not be made equal. Don’t get me wrong I worked very hard, but I wasn’t “all-in”.

Four reasons to start on your own

It might be hard to find the right idea at the start. Most of my ideas were crazy or stupid, or both. Some of them didn’t make any sense. Until one day… I was back in the UK looking for a horse riding weekend trip in Surrey.

It took me two hours precisely to find what I was looking for. Let it sink in. With an average pay of £500 an hour I hypothetically spent £1000 doing a “monkey search” through Google.

That’s how ActivityFan – the activity booking marketplace was born. As soon as I started working on my own start-up I realized that I will never be able to go back to working for someone else and here is why.

The challenge is real

No matter how challenging your current job is having a start-up will always be much more challenging. It’s green field and you have to build everything from the start. You will not be stuck in routine ever again. It’s requires enormous amount of effort to even get your project of the ground.

If you’ll decide to self-fund you will feel the pressure of having to get rolling before you become flat broke. Trust me it’s the most motivating kick on the backside you can experience. If you ever felt like: “I don’t feel like working today” it will never happen again.

It boosts your creativity

Limited resources will force you to focus on the most effective ways of achieving results. No matter if we are talking about marketing or simply getting things done, you’ll learn to think outside of the box.

It takes up all your time and you don’t mind

When you have a start-up there is no difference between work time and free time. As a matter of fact, all of your free time becomes your work time and all your work time becomes your free time. You’ll enjoy every day. At time it might be hard, but the satisfaction of moving forward outweighs all the tiredness.

You love it with all your heart

You might have heard people saying: “having a start-up is like having a baby” and it’s completely true. The only thing you can talk of is your start up, the only thing you think of is your start-up and you love it with all your heart. It defines you and makes you complete, every success story is your personal success and every failure simply motivates you to keep on going.

Launching a startup is the best thing you can do with your life, but are you ready for the challenge?

This post was written by Elina Pedersen. Elina is a traveller (over 60 countries) and the founder of Activity Fan  – the activity booking marketplace. Elina was born in Estonia, but she lived in Netherlands, Australia, and USA. Elina currently resides in UK. Her main goal is to help people find their next big adventure, as well as to support small-local businesses worldwide.