According to the 2024 Shopify-Gallup Entrepreneurship Study, a whopping 62% of the more than 45,000 U.S. adults surveyed said “they would prefer to be their own boss” and more than half of both current and aspiring founders indicated that “being your own boss” was their top reason for pursuing entrepreneurship. But, what does it really mean to take control of your career and start your own business or nonprofit?
Four local entrepreneurs who have taken different paths to become their own bosses share insights into what it means to them. Through candid interviews, they discuss what drew them to entrepreneurship, the perks and challenges of being their own boss, the skills that help them succeed, and how they find support and work-life balance. Each entrepreneur has also shared some resources to help you level up on your own entrepreneurial adventure.
Some background on the featured entrepreneurs and their ventures:
Dr. Atkins used her15 years of experience as a middle school language arts instructor and faculty member at ASU to develop the Help in Hand mobile app. This app supports teachers in maximizing their time and efficiency to reach more students.
He has founded multiple technology-related ventures alongside his passion for playing jazz. His most recent company, Hyrel Technologies, is a semiconductor packaging company serving the space, military, energy and automotive industries.
She has built upon her 20 years of marketing and strategy expertise from the banking industry to found La Jefa Status. This venture supports Latina entrepreneurs to be more confident and profitable business owners.
She is a Sr. Program Manager at the Edson E+I Institute and a serial entrepreneur passionate about education and technology. Her most recent venture is Sunrise Aerial Imaging.
Were you attracted to entrepreneurship by the prospect of “being your own boss”?
Allison: Heck yes! I love the idea of not having to wait for someone else’s approval. That’s not to say there’s not power in collaboration, I just like to make my own decisions.
Brian: Sort of. I’ve had an interesting journey to starting Hyrel Technologies, but that drive started from a very young age. I was gifted musically and it provided a lot of opportunities so by my freshman year in high school I was already gigging. As a musician, you’re really your own boss, you know yourself and what you represent and how you have to work with people. But it’s really on you to get out and get your gigs, right? So, my journey to the business world was straight through music.
Jenavi: When I first started it was less about “being my own boss” and more about pursuing something more meaningful than what I was doing in my day job. But after four years I had to make a choice—and I chose to be my own boss.
Kim: I didn’t want to be my own boss. But, that being said, I’ve always had some side hustles and always done things because it’s just part of my DNA. My parents are serial entrepreneurs and I was always around it, but I never wanted to be my own boss because I saw those headaches and the risk my parents went through.
What are some of the best aspects of “being your own boss” and what are some things that are particularly challenging?
Allison: Best part: making my own decisions. Hardest part: I’m the only one to blame if I make a poor decision.
Brian: I think one of the biggest perks is that I could live anywhere I wanted to live in the country. So when I was CEO of my previous company, we had 60-some employees and three different factories. I chose to officially go live in New Orleans. And, while I was in New Orleans, I was touring with Andrew Osborne’s Group. We were really weekend warriors until we started doing some bus tours. I could schedule my calls, end up where I should end up for the gigs that weekend, and then get to where I needed to be on Monday. I was able to satisfy both sides—the artist side and the business side. The biggest challenge has been finding money to fund it and I think the other challenge is consistency. You know everybody wants consistent revenue, right? So you work on really dialing in on bringing in multiple customers with multiple orders. I’ll say it’s taken every bit of three years to get there with this one.
Jenavi: Right now, the best aspect is the flexibility and having my kids around. Making my own hours has made it much easier for me to truly enjoy my time as a mom and as a business owner. And I love that they get to see me building my company every day.
Kim: The best aspect of being your own boss is you do get to set your own schedule. We can say no to a project when we’re not available. But, the flip side is that if you’re constantly saying no, you’re not going to be in business for long. So, it’s not as much freedom as you think. And the other thing that is particularly challenging and that a lot of people don’t think about is liability. The insurance and the risks that you’re taking on—especially with drones but it goes for any business.
What skills or traits help you be successful?
Allison: I have a realistic outlook on what I need to do to balance my love for entrepreneurship and being a provider for my family. I’m a calculated risk-taker.
Brian: As a musician, I am very much a perfectionist and that leads to an important drive to keep at it until you perfect it. And, it’s also a balance. Sometimes it is like: so, today didn’t go as planned, but I’ll be back tomorrow. Or sometimes it’s the dedication of saying, to get this going right, it’s a 24/7 type job. You’re not guaranteed success though. You have to have commitment and drive.
Jenavi: Investing in coaching and not being afraid to ask for help. It takes a lot of deprogramming from the corporate world, where asking for help can often be seen as weakness. However, as a business owner, you can’t get ahead if you aren’t willing to be honest about your own shortcomings and to get support where you need it. Entrepreneurship is absolutely a team sport!
Kim: Number one skill is you’ve got to be able to work with a wide variety of people. You have to be able to work with people who are very different from you—different beliefs, different politics, different backgrounds. Different. You have to go in willing to listen and actually hear what they’re asking and know what questions to dive deeper.
How do you approach work/life balance and time management?
Allison: I’m of the mind that there’s not a perfect balance, but I’m intentional about choosing when work is the priority and when life is the priority. It’s not easy, but that’s the lens I look through when making decisions.
Brian: You know, it’s the little things. We stream KJZZ Long Beach all day at the plant so I’m listening to what I’ve studied and love. I have a half-hour drive to work every day and I use that to listen to something and prep for the day. And, from a time management standpoint, you don’t let anything sit—especially when you go through hyper-growth like how we just did with seven new major customers. You create a checklist of what you’ve got to do, and you check it off. You have to be very careful, though when you work seven days a week not to burn yourself out. Take time off when you need to.
Jenavi: It really depends on each day how much time I work in my business. It’s definitely not eight hours, and I don’t want it to be. Admittedly, it is difficult to adjust to a less structured routine and I don’t always feel like I “get it right.” But I’d rather figure it out for myself than to punch a clock again.
Kim: We’re doing 11 jobs at a time and that looks like a once-a-week commitment of four to six hours. Having an employer like Edson E+I that values flexibility and entrepreneurship is really very beneficial to create that capacity. Being able to save that commute time and schedule to work from home or off-site on the side of town where we have a project allows everything to balance and get done.
Who do you look to for support?
Allison: The people I respect and admire that I’ve met throughout my entrepreneurial journey. I’m a Kristin Slice stan, and she’s connected me to SO MANY RESOURCES AND PEOPLE.
Brian: I have a co-founder. We’ve worked together seven days a week and we’re like brothers. I’ve got four partners who are very committed and always asking what they can do to help. I also have two mentors who I can bounce my technical side off of. And then I’ve got a solid core of friends who are musicians and that’s a whole other world in many ways. It’s important that you have a really good support network around.
Jeanvi: I say this will all earnestness: my friends at the J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute. Otherwise, I have gone to events and made connections with like-minded people, I talk about my business wherever I go, and I reach out to other business owners over social media. I will take support from whoever is willing to offer it! Sharing about my business and taking people up on their offers to help has created countless opportunities for me.
Kim: With our business, it’s my husband and co-founder. But, I have also been going to drone conventions and being in drone groups online. I have a lot of friends in the drone community so we talk about challenges in the industry and for me specifically being a woman in a STEM field and in a drone field, which is like 90% men. I think we’re finally up to like 8% or 9% of certified drone pilots who are females, but it is still a very small number, so having a drone group for women has been really nice to talk about challenges.
Do you have a source of inspiration, continuing education, or a centering resource that you would like to share?
Allison: I learn a lot by listening to others. Resources like Pitch In (www.pitchinaz.org) where you can meet and hear from other entrepreneurs are an amazing welcome mat to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I’m not just saying that because I’m a committee member. It’s a true connection to a diverse array of ideas and resources.
Brian: There isn’t one in particular but I will say this: study history because it can be your best teacher. You know, when we look at the technology that we’re advancing today, the people who founded the original companies were able to get a lot of early support from the Navy in terms of research dollars and orders to buy, which helped them to build the first machine and prove their processes.
Jenavi: What’s been helpful for me is being aware of my nervous system and getting tools to help me not become too wound up as I create a new way of life for myself—essentially somatic work. That in combination with therapy has helped me to resist falling into old patterns of burnout that contributed to my corporate success. My advice: don’t leave a toxic work environment to just go create your own.
Kim: Of course, working at the Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute, the continued skill-building resources that we’re building out in the TDR are amazing. I have gone in and used them. I refer people to them all the time. We’re building some to help teachers too. The TDRs are great resources. LinkedIn Learning is an amazing place to learn skills too, so I highly recommend that. That’s how I learned how to use Airtable!
The Future is Yours
The number of self-employed people in the United States is growing, making the perks of being your own boss more appealing than ever. Creating an amazing job and work environment for yourself and others, and offering something unique to the community, is appealing to many. Finding the right people to help you along the way is key to being successful. The Edson E+I team is here to support you at every step of your entrepreneurial journey.
