There's a middle path: - Find a corporate role that pays a good income and teaches you skills are easily be transferred to your own business. You're getting pa

There's a middle path: - Find a corporate role that pays a good income and teaches you skills are easily be transferred to your own business. You're getting paid to train, basically. Better yet, you're likely going to be coached in these skills to a fairly high level of proficiency if you seek out good mentors at your current company (its in their best interests to help you). - Look for side projects that can easily grow into a small business and work on them nights / weekends. - Spent a little time trying to understand the financial potential per hour spent on these different side ventures. Get specific - when does revenue happen, how much, what do you need to invest to get there... is there a way to gate these investments so you're not spending money until you've got a fairly sure thing... Start thinking of yourself as a steward of time & capital... (warren buffet on startups). So for example, I have been paid director level wages to learn (in a coached and skilled setting, with projects): - Software development (Python / Javascript / SQL / R) - Data Science & Advanced Analytics (leave it at that) - Manufacturing Process Improvement / Six Sigma - Strategic Market Analysis / Business Development - Post Merger Integration / Operations Strategy - CPG and B2B Product Management / Sourcing - Consulting / Change Leadership - Direct Marketing - Sales / Client Development - Contract Negotiation All of the above under the guidance of people who knew what they were doing, so plenty of free coaching on technique. And when the sun goes down and I have some free time, I work on other ventures.... and learning these skills has yielded benefits in both better solutions / execution and lower cost to launch / test.... And since the day job pays for our key needs, anything we do here is more-or-less upside... I mentioned the $$/hour analysis because there is a very big difference between product businesses and small consulting operations; the curse of consulting is uneven income and constant interruptions between bizdev and delivery...which persists until you grow into a good sized firm (20+ people, with at least 2 - 3 full time business development managers) at which point... you're forced to deal with the drama of managing 20+ people... (I am a well-socialized introvert; I find such affairs exhausting. In any event, if I wanted to be the boss of 20 people, there are ample jobs in industry). You don't have much slack as a solo act, so you need to put all of your time behind projects / growth vectors that will meet your needs vs. filling a schedule. Dig deep enough on many "independent" service businesses and you will discover a deal where the owner is likely better off as an employee. (particularly when it comes to health care, oy vey....)