You may believe starting your own business will have no effect on the people closest to you, but it will. That is a lesson Laura Drewry learned quickly when she decided to buy an existing business reports The Globe and Mail.
After the store reopened, Ms. Drewry’s husband, Ron, let her “just get on with it,†putting his focus on his own full-time work in construction. Her sons, now aged 10, 12 and 15, suddenly found their former stay-at-home mom much less available to them. “There was a real adjustment needed by them,†she says.
Ms. Drewry’s experience is far too typical for many entrepreneurs, says Judi Cunningham, executive director of the Sauder School of Business’s Business Families Centre at the University of British Columbia.
The time, financial, energy and emotional commitments required to build a business will easily move beyond its walls and into the family home – yet many entrepreneurs don’t take into account how much the people they live with will be affected by their decision to start a new business.
“There is a romance around being an entrepreneur,†Ms. Cunningham says. “Sometimes people aren’t prepared for what it is really like.
Photo by Steven Depolo