in a pickle...any advice?

[some_dude]

First post!

Now, to the meat and potatoes...kinda long, sorry

I am a young business owner (25) and have ran my own shop for about a year now. There are two of us, business partners. I work in graphic design and, not to toot my own horn, am good at it. It's my life, it's what i was born to be doing, art and creativity that is. It's had it's up's and downs so far, and like i said, it's my heart and soul and i absolutely LOVE what i do. My thing is, well a couple of things.

1. My stress levels are through the roof. I'm not one to worry about much at all really, but since doing this i feel like my heart beats twice as fast and i'm constantly worried about my future, whether that be a day from now, month, year, etc... Money is what it boils down to. Being a business owner i don't have a paycheck. We're not slamming busy, but we get by. Occasionally it gets to the point of rice and chicken for dinner and my bills get behind a month or two. I'm having a tough time dealing with the rollercoaster of lots of money one day, none the next. My car is broken down right now and i can't afford to fix it at the moment, but in a week we'll be signing a deal witha client that will pay off my next few months with plenty of "fun money" as well. Can anyone pitch in a little advice on how to handle this psychologically? Each day i feel differently about my situation. Some days i'm like "you know, not many people my age can do what i'm doing...i'm proud of myself!" and the next day "man...maybe i should cut my losses and get out while i can." It's a real mental trip for me and it's really building up. What should i do?

2. I sometimes feel my business partner isn't holding up his end of the bargain. How can i let him know that I feel this way without coming across as an asshole? It's a 50/50 deal we're in, and on some jobs i'll do 90% of the workload and he just cashes a check. Basically, i'm the web and print guy, and he's just the print guy. So all of the web work(websites, banners, etc.) I do 90% of it, and if thats the only job at the moment, he "markets" for the next job. I kind of feel like i'm getting ripped off when i do all the work and get paid half as much. How should i go about approaching this issue?

3. I've sacrificed a lot to do what i'm doing. Social life, money, and 10 times the stress of a "normal job" on top of it all. Maybe i'm just not cut out to do this? ...but I also think, if consistent work was coming in and my money issues were in a comfort zone i'd be fine. I have no problem with giving up my friday nights and working, no problem at all, but on the other side of that i'm single, and would like to move forward in my life socially(marriage, family, etc.) Any thoughts on "what to do" about this?

sorry for the essay! Thanks for the help in advance...(felt good to get that out too btw!)

[cdeneire]

how are you marketing your business?

Are you managing your money properly?

What is your annual salary at your "normal job" ?

Make sure that your "Normal Job" can pay the bills alone... your business should be something to make cash on the side. Until the business gets moving along I wouldn't rely on it for paying your bills.. especially when your eating rice and chicken every day.

[Yiie]

I guess what you're feeling is how most entreprenuers feel when running a business from scratch.

Maybe you should delegate more responsibilities to the other guy and see how he handles it. It would also free up your work. People like taking up more responsibilities as it makes them feel important. If he keeps failing to produce the designs, then talk to him and highlight the problems you're facing and how his performance is affecting the business. I'm sure he doesn't want to see the business fail either.

Have you ever thought of having a "normal" job and doing this on the side?

[andrewrichardgale]

we got a entrepreneur on our hands ladys and gentlemen!

[chrispalko]

^+1

Yes, welcome to the life of an entrepreneur.

I can relate to you in many senses.

Honestly, I feel a partnership is a bad decision no matter what. That's my personal opinion as I ALWAYS see partnerships go down the drain.

If you want my advice, I would say start doing your own thing on the side if you have to (unless you guys have a non-compete agreement). Once you feel established, break off and run a proprietorship. You will lose all the stress of your partner. Yes, you will have to market on your own, but I do it, and once word of mouth gets going, it's not that bad.

Plus, you get all of the profits, you make all of decisions, and if you ever want to work with anyone, you can sub-contract your work or hire on a commission basis (for sales).

I don't know if you guys are just business partners, or best friends, or what, but when you're in business, you have to think about yourself, or issues will arise (such as this one).

Just think how nice it would be to make all the decisions yourself, or take full credit for all of your work?

The decision is yours, but you can't let this go on because you are afraid of what someone else is going to think, business partner or not.

[byzantium]

Imagine if rice and chicken were the only things you could eat more or less-I have multiple food allergies, and a large part of my diet is rice and chicken. I use seasoned salt to make the chicken palatable, and flavor the rice with non-dairy margarine. I also eat some fish and pork, and occasionally a potato. The up side is that my food budget is low, which means more money to invest with.

I agree with everybody else-partnerships suck for the most part, one guy does all the work and the other gets most of the money. The super rich use partnerships to avoid taxes, but that and a few professions such as law and accounting are the only thing a partnership is good for. I suspect that a lot of your stress is doing 90% of the work and getting 50% of the money. Buy out your lazy partner, then you will have less stress.

Entrepreneurs work hard. Our culture teaches that you should "have fun when you're young", but that option has mostly disappeared. It's easy to whoop it up when Daddy is paying the bills. If you don't have a rich uncle, then the other option is to work hard. It's better to work hard on your own business than to work hard making somebody else rich. Just dump your partner, because he's obviously a big anchor weighing you down.

[KKoher]

So yeah...Welcome to the entrepreneur life style...work your ass off, crazy stress like you've never known before..and money..well, wait what money..lol..jk..but seriously, I know exactly how you feel...I pretty much live the same life. I work 60+ hrs. per week...yet most weeks I'm not making enough to take home a pay check...I'm stressed beyond belief not only by the crazy hours, but the lack of funds and what its doing to my personal finances...Anyway, the most important is to evaluate where you are now, and how long you can keep going until you absolutely have to throw in the towel...I pretty much do this every few months..and figure out if something BIG doesn't happen, I have to close shop at this date...and luckily I somehow manage to keep on going...Also, I notice that you said you had ups and downs with your fund...and being 23 I know how easily it is to spend money when you have it, but the big thing for you is going to be to try to cut every expense possible so you can stretch your pay check out when you get one. Do you have cable at home? cancel it. Home phone and cell phone? cancel the home phone.Car not working? get a bike...If you really LOVE what you do, and LOVE your business, and believe in your business, than you do what you need to do. You make sacrifices and learn to live on the bare minimum for now. It sucks...but it might pay off one day..and that small chance is always worth the struggle.

[Aletheides]

1. That's just the way it is sometimes when you don't have steady work coming in. It will take some time before you have a solid stream of clients coming at you, new clients will build up and old clients return for more work. It's only been a year, give it some time. Make sure your marketing is like a train that never stops.

2. You need to get rid of your partner, consider starting another similar company if you have to. He obviously isn't pulling his own weight and you could probably hire someone in his place at much less of the cost. 50% of the profit is a large chunk. Find out what he's doing, "marketing" - you could hire some commissioned salespeople for this. Printing, you could probably outsource this for cheap.

3. You need employees.