So here's the Math for me. I recently dropped my nice fat full-time contract so that I could either "go full time on my business" or "retire", depending on how you want to interpret it.<p>Before: One of those Google/Facebook/Twitter "Total Comp" numbers that nobody here believes whenever Bay Area salaries are discussed. Upwards of 40 hour weeks, though I did drop down to 4 day weeks for the last year because, hey, I can live on only 80% of a fairy tale number that nobody would believe if you told them.<p>After: Normal Bay Area Developer money, of the sort that the other half of that discussion above make. Or maybe a bit less. But the "Hours" side of the equation is where it all gets made back up.<p>I just spent 3 months traveling through Southeast Asia with the kids, Rock Climbing, Surfing, Getting Married, Riding Elephants and Building Sand Castles. The biggest work week I had involved maybe 10 hours in front of the computer.<p>Realistically, I could coast along like this indefinitely (thus the "retired" interpretation of my current situation above), but more likely I'll go back to 5-20 hour weeks building out features in the existing products and shipping the next one.<p>That's what you're buying with all this "Entrepreneuring". The ability to replace your old income with a new one that doesn't necessarily require you to work full time for it.<p>If you like doing things other than sitting a cubicle discussing where to go to lunch, I'd highly recommend looking in to it.
I recently registered an LLC, and opened a separate bank account. I did it because I didn't want to "cross the streams"... however it felt more like a switch was flipped in my head, and so far that's one of the biggest benefits.<p>Where as before when I had to spend some money for the business, it was very difficult on an emotional level. I'm not the kind of guy who doesn't spend money if he doesn't have to. However once I was spending money out of the business account, it was easier somehow. My mindset was now a matter of "will this help me grow the business? sure, let's go for it". Instead of "Can I accomplish the same goal without spending the money?"... which there is almost always a way to do.
I am defiantly on the control-oriented side rather than the wealth-oriented side. The appeal for me of being an entrepreneur is I have control over my life, not the money (I am not saying that money is not great).<p>You only have one life and you almost certainly won't look back on your life and say "I wish I spent more time making money".
Much more interesting is the percentage of the value they generate that is captured by entrepreneurs:<p>"<i>We conclude that only a minuscule fraction of the social returns from technological advances over the 1948-2001 period was captured by producers, indicating that most of the benefits of technological change are passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers.</i>"<p><a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w10433" rel="nofollow">http://www.nber.org/papers/w10433</a>
There's a bit of an implicit post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy going on with this article. That is, if someone quits their salaried job and incorporates, then they'll make more money. I think the likely conditional for most entrepreneurs is "if I incorporate a business to do X, then I'll make more money." I think a lot of entrepreneurs have an X in mind before they start their business (which is not to say it doesn't change, but, still).
I've read that incorporation isn't worth the effort and cost if the business makes less than 60k, maybe this is a hidden cost in some of these situations.