10 Reasons I Was 10 Years Too Young to Start a Business

Greetings from my lunch hour in a St. Louis high rise, where I’m much, much happier “working for the man” than I was for two years as a full time business owner.

And much, much, much, much happier than in 2012–2013, when I did the same thing.

Both times, I went through corporate layoffs and thought to myself “you know what, maybe I’ll just do this thing on my own.”

Or, alternate take, I was so timid in my own abilities to think I could land a job I really wanted. Take your pick. Probably both.

If I’d known the average age of a successful startup founder is 45, that might have given me pause. Or the guts to go back to indeed and send my resume on the jobs I thought I didn’t qualify for. Or both.

Now that I’m in a dream gig, I’ve got the open space to look back and objectively judge where I went wrong at my two attempts to start a business.

Neither attempt “failed.” Both muddled along and didn’t grow fast enough for me to want to continue. In the first instance, my self purchased went to $880/month after Obamacare kicked in. The second attempt ended after I became a parent, and Amanda and I were just too far from family…I couldn’t move my “company” to a city closer to relatives, so I just called it a day on full time self employment.

Will I ever do it again? Who knows. When I walk into my current company, it feels like a situation I could retire from in 35 years…