Are you thinking of starting a handmade business? 

Today, I’m going to talk to you about five major pros and cons for running your own business.

Stick around to the end because I also have a short quiz that will help you decide if a business is right for you or not. 

1. Control

Let’s talk about control. Control of your destiny, control of your life, control of what you do for a living. 

It’s not a surprise that this is a huge pro to running your own business. 

You’re in charge and no one tells you what to do. 

You get to choose your own path. 

When you wake up in the morning, you get to do what you want to do. It’s your business!

And you know what? 

As you become more and more successful, you can hire people to do what you don’t feel like doing! 

Say you don’t like doing the accounting. 

No problem! You can hire a freelance accountant. 

Or maybe you don’t like packing your orders. You can hire someone to do that. 

A huge pro to running your own business is an immense sense of control. 

The Con

Now, this is a double-edged sword, and being in control is also a huge con. 

Sometimes it can really suck. 

You’re in charge of everything and you are legally responsible for what happens in your business. 

You’re in charge of paying your bills and you’re in charge of making sales. 

Depending on your position, a lot of people can really feel the pain that comes from having a lack of a mentor, like in a traditional job. 

You’re typically given a job description with expectations that you should meet. 

You often have someone with some seniority that you can follow and learn from when you’re working in a regular job. 

When you own your own business, however, you’re just out there on your own. 

You have to figure it all out by yourself. 

While it’s nice to have that freedom of doing whatever you want, whenever you want, it’s also hard for some people to have no guidelines or structure in their life. 

#2. Time

The upside when you run your own business is that you get to create your own schedule. 

You can take time off whenever you want. 

You can plan a vacation and you can go to the gym first thing in the morning. 

It is your schedule. 

That’s a huge pro! 

I have to admit it’s one of the things I love the most about running my own business. 

The Con

You’re in charge, which means you’re the one who has to get things done.

I think a lot of us fantasize about laying on the beach for a month at a time, but the practical realities of actually running a successful business often mean that you can’t take time off the way you’d like. 

Until your business is earning enough to hire staff, you are the one who has to get things done. 

You’re probably going to be working longer hours running your own business than you did when you were working for someone else. 

If you get a rush of orders on Black Friday, you have to make sure that those get out because your reputation is on the line. 

You should assume for the first few years that you’re not going to have a ton of spare time, even if you do get to pick what time you have lunch. 

3. Money

The serious pro here is the potential to earn money. 

When you’re running your own business you can hustle hard for those sales. 

You can even build a business that you can turn around and sell. 

This is a big reason why some people start businesses. 

The Con 

You could earn a lot of money or nothing. 

You should probably assume that for the first little bit, you’re not going to be earning very much money.

It might be a few years before you’re earning enough money to live off of or that matches what you were earning in a normal day job. 

Remember, you’re the boss. 

That means you have to pay your freelancers, the postage, and for your supplies. 

And you have to pay for those things first before you take home a paycheck. 

So in the beginning, the money can be slim.  

#4. Space

A serious pro here (and another one of my favorites) is that you can work from home. 

That means you can just pop on over to the kitchen and have a cup of tea if you want to. 

It also means that:

• You’re saving money because you don’t need any work clothes 
• There’s no overhead for renting a workspace 
• You don’t have to commute to work

The Con 

Depending on your family situation, working from home may not be the most ideal. 

This really is a personal preference. 

I love working from home. 

But it’s just me, my husband, and my dog. 

If I had a couple of kids, I might not love working from home as much. 

If I had a business that required a lot of space, like printing, or pottery, or dying yarn I might not be interested in working from home.

Then you’d have to pay to rent a separate space. 

It can either be a good or a bad thing that you’re working from home. 

This is all information that you need to budget for when you’re starting to plan for your business.

#5. Tools

You get to pick all of your favorite tools!

No more working with what someone else picked out for you. 

If there’s an amazing laptop that you can use for your business, buy it. It’s a business expense!

That’s amazing for those of us, whose business is an extension of their hobbies. 

The idea of buying fabric and yarn, all of the things we’ve always wanted to, and calling them business expenses while making money from it is absolutely amazing. 

Photographers who have been drooling over buying that new lens, but haven’t really convinced themselves it’s worth it. 

When this becomes your profession, it suddenly becomes a business expense and that’s a tax deduction! 

The Con 

You’ve gotta pay for all these tools. 

That’s your responsibility now, not your bosses’. 

And you know what? There’s a lot that you take for granted when you’re working for someone else. 

Just a couple of examples. 

If you have to meet a customer, did you know that it’s a liability to have a customer come into your house unless you have the right type of homeowner’s insurance? 

So, then you would be renting a space, maybe in a community center or a coworking space. 

Again that’s money. 

You’re paying for every phone call that you have a meeting on. 

If you’re spending minutes on the phone, that’s a cost, the electricity to run your buzzsaw or whatever kind of equipment you’re using. 

Even simple things that we consider everyday tasks like Microsoft Word, Photoshop, or your Dropbox storage, all of those things that came along with your regular job without thinking a lot about.

They were freebies in your standard workplace and now they’re things that you’re going to have to pay for yourself, like hosting your own website or maintaining your website.

Those are the kinds of expenses that are never quite as fun as that new camera lens.

The Quiz

So now that you’ve read all my pros and cons it’s now time to take my short quiz. 

I’m going to ask you just a few yes or no questions.

• Do you feel stressed by having a lot of different things on your plate? 
• Does your lifestyle require a reliable income? 
• Are you constantly distracted by new ideas? 
• Is it hard for you to be self-disciplined or to have self-initiative? 

If you answered yes to two or more of these questions then running your own business might not be right for you. 

The thing is, you may want to run a business as your side hustle, but also maintain your day job, and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Because I’ll tell you, running your own business is not easy, but it can have some amazing rewards. 

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I hope this post has helped you better understand the pros and cons of running your own business. 

If you have any advice on running your own business or questions please share it in the comments below. 

Don’t forget to check out my channel for more handmade business tips!