All Articles

So you think you can dance?

Don't be fooled by the title, since I don’t have any dancing skills and probably never will. In fact my wife always said me that I am a lousy dancer. Her feet always suffer when we dance together.

The real question I want to ask is:

  Do you think you can leave your day job and start your own company?

During my life, I’ve listen too many persons criticizing the company partners/directors, about some of the option behind made, or about some policies, etc.

It's legitimate, nobody is above critic. I also criticize some options. What makes me uncomfortable is listen sentences such as

"If I had my own company I..."

My question  is immediately: “So, why don’t you?” or "So you think you can leave your day job and start your own company?"

Let me show you a chart


This chart shows my asset values (house mortgage not accounted for). The inflection point, at January of 2004, is when I left my job and started my own company. There were many fringe benefits that I’ve lost, such as car, fuel allowance, mobile phone, stock options, tuition, etc. Some of these perks, I had to buy/pay myself after leaving my job.

So you think you can handle this?

I think it will be interest to analyze the typical answers, “I have a mortgage to pay”, “I have kids and I need some security”, “I want to guarantee my retire plan”, but maybe in a future post.


P.S. I don’t intend to discourage anyone, but if you are doing the talk, you have at least be (seriously) willing to do the walk.

Published Mar 19, 2012

Cloud Solutions and Software Engineer. Married and father of two sons. Obsessed to be a continuous learner.