See a lot of home run threads and getting started/new idea threads, but I’m wondering how many entrepreneurs have “sort of” made it here?

I’ve been building a small business marketing agency for around a decade. We’ll prob do around 600k this year but no real profit (long story, working on it). I get paid 6-7k as a salary kind of like a normal job I guess.

Started doing some additional consulting work last year to make more money while we restructure the agency business model and now make about 6-7k/mo there as well.

I’m healthy, good marriage, generally doing well. But work is a lot, battling burnout, have a few regrets, etc. Not perfect but not terrible either.

Anyone else feel like their business aspirations have led to a life that kind of plays out more like you have a normal job give or take, vs the big fail / multimillion dollar exit dichotomy that is usually presented?

  • robot-bob@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Very much relate. I have a small recruiting firm, started July 2020. I’m paying myself a livable wage, taking care of my family. We have a few actively hiring clients every month, and our revenue this year should be about the same as last year. But I thought we’d be doing at least $100-200k/year more than we are. We’re light years away from any kind of exit or passive income or even scaling up at all. It’s basically the best job I’ve ever had, but it’s still a full time job, and very much working IN the business 80% of my time, rather than ON the business.

    • mendicant0@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Mind if I DM you? I have a couple questions about what it was like to launch a recruiting firm.