Path forward for a 45 year old small business owner with 20 years experience

New / Eng
KeLn84

New Eng

KeLn84
Jan 30 30 Comments

I've ran a successful website based company for the past 20 years.
I work from home and make about 90k a year.
I wear the hat of programmer, sysadmin, project manager, CTO, CEO, etc...
I have a web designer, app developer, and a couple back end developers
under me that I also pay in the 70k-90k range.
I also have several office staff as well.

I've been relatively successful but I see the high compensations on blind
that I've never made and I've never been able to pay my staff.
Furthermore, I don't see being able to get me or my staff to the 200k range
anytime in the near future.

Should I just throw in the towel, shut down my business and get a job
working for someone else?

I feel like my limited success has made it harder to move on.
The business has been successful enough that it has paid the bills but
not successful enough for me to get rich.

If I do decide to call it quits, what type of jobs or compensation can someone with 20 years experience running their own business qualify for?
I've always wanted to work in AI. What skills would I need to get a job working in AI?
Just having a bit of a midlife crisis I guess.

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TOP 30 Comments
  • Amazon
    LvMpar

    Go to company page Amazon

    LvMpar
    I feel for you. Unfortunately probably not the answer you want to hear but since you mentioned it: yes you would be better off throwing in the towel and getting a job.

    You can easily make the same income you are now, without any of the hassle of payroll, dealing with customers and clients, etc. And you will have a more stable path toward promotions and raises to get your income higher.
    Jan 30 6
    • New / Eng
      KeLn84

      New Eng

      KeLn84
      OP
      Yes, it would be possible. I did it while in college. I ran my business in between classes. A little harder now that I have kids. Also, not sure I'm up to a 40 hour week and running my business on top of that. I've though about doing some freelance work on the side. I could possibly even use my existing staff to help with the freelance work.
      Jan 30
    • Amazon
      LvMpar

      Go to company page Amazon

      LvMpar
      First, it would clearly violate terms of employment. Second, the same effort spent on a job would yield much greater returns than spread across both. It's a fun idea to dream of doing multiple jobs at the same time but it's delusional to think anyone can succeed doing that.
      Jan 30
  • Amazon
    xmTe12

    Go to company page Amazon

    xmTe12
    Isn’t it possible for you to increase your backend skills and takeover some responsibility and double your income? If it is a reliable business that sustained you this far, I say keep it, cut the fat and push some of the backend developers to the high paying tech industry leaving you with some more ownership and pay along the way. That is what I would do. Then you setup sep IRA and push all that money out of the ITS sight and pay less taxes. Good luck
    Jan 30 1
    • New / Eng
      KeLn84

      New Eng

      KeLn84
      OP
      I have the back end skills too. Pretty much all the code review goes through me front end or back end as a large portion of both the front end and the back end was written by me. The issue is that we pretty much already have the minimum number of people to deal with bugs, new features, etc... so letting go one or more developers isn't really an option at this point.
      Jan 30
  • Adobe
    GICJ41

    Go to company page Adobe

    GICJ41
    Would getting more clients/ customers solve your problem?
    Jan 30 5
    • Adobe
      GICJ41

      Go to company page Adobe

      GICJ41
      When you say want to be where the other is, do you mean location? So you’re confined to your area? Limited customers?
      Jan 30
    • New / Eng
      KeLn84

      New Eng

      KeLn84
      OP
      No I mean we have a similar problem as any marketplace. More sellers equals more buyers and more buyers equals more sellers. If you're not the largest, it's a harder sell because you have less eyeballs. Think autotrader or ebay or craigslist where your value goes up to both buyers and sellers by the volume of your traffic.
      Jan 30
  • New / IT
    insighter*

    New IT

    insighter*
    TC, YOE, Location or GTFO
    Jan 30 1
    • New / Eng
      KeLn84

      New Eng

      KeLn84
      OP
      I posted my base pay as 90K and YOE as 20. TC is a little harder to calculate because it's a privately held company. Location is midwest so relatively low cost of living.
      Jan 30
  • Meta
    πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

    Go to company page Meta

    πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«
    How come you make the same salary as your employees ? What kind of business model is that
    Jan 30 2
    • New / Eng
      KeLn84

      New Eng

      KeLn84
      OP
      I don't have much control over that. It's very hard to find good developers under 100k. That wasn't necessarily by design. We bring in about 2M a year but after payroll and other expenses, that's about all I have left to pay myself.
      Jan 30
    • Meta
      πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

      Go to company page Meta

      πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ€·β€β™‚οΈπŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«
      Your business model is not working for you. You have to figure out how to lower your expenses by either outsourcing or doing more dev work yourself and making atleast 3-4x of what you are making.
      Jan 30