ParkBridge Wealth Turns Two: Reflections On Being a Business Owner

This week marks TWO YEARS since I started my own business, ParkBridge Wealth Management . Mazal tov!

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In honor of the occasion, here are some thoughts about starting a business. Perhaps it will be helpful to those who are considering hanging up their own shingle or maybe it will reinforce others to continue to work for The Man.?

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Either way, I hope you find it helpful.

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1) Starting a business is hard: Like VERY hard. Lots of decisions need to be made and quite a lot of things need to be done to run a legitimate business. This is all before you bring in a single client. Colors, logo, website design, name, business structure, and many MANY others. You will not care about every decision, but you will have to make them.

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2) Starting a business is worth it for many people: The freedom of doing your own thing, having your own brand, and being more in control of your destiny is quite appealing. After spending 15 years in corporate America, there has not been a single day that I wished I was back there being pressured to push someone else's agenda.

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3) The tax benefits can't be beat: The tax planning that can be done from owning your own business is the best and no other strategy can compare. Business expenses, paying yourself rent, and other. There are a many tax planning opportunities to take advantage of.

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4) Retirement Planning: I get to choose my own 401(k)/corporate retirement plan with all the bells and whistles I want.

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5) Flexibility: My job was always flexible, but when you are your own boss, you have even more say. If I need to pick up my kids from school, work from another part of the country, or a happy hour at 10am on Tuesday, I have the flexibility to do so!?

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6) Ability to express your creativity: Working for an organization with thousands (or tens of thousands) of people means far more structure and less room for creativity or thinking outside the box. Every decision requires meetings, committees, and endless discussions. As a business owner, I can try things and if they don’t work out I move on to something else. If they work out, I can keep doing it and refining it as I go. As a sole proprietor, I pump out more content through my various writings, videos, podcasts, and other endeavors than many massive wealth management firms or other large firms in tangentially related industries. Part of the reason for this is I am not slowed down by bureaucratic frictions. Being big means being slow. Thankfully, I am not part of that world anymore.?

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7) It helps to start a business when you have an existing client base: As much as I've come to realize that Corporate America is not for me, I do appreciate that I had time to learn (oftentimes what not to do), build a client base, and hone my skills during the first third of my career at large companies. Sure, I was treated nicely all the time, but it just built my character and resilience. Going out on my own at age 37 was really a great age and point in my career to start my practice. If you don’t have clients or are older or younger this shouldn’t deter you from starting a business. I’m just sharing my experience.

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8 ) When you own a business you are building an asset: When you retire as a business owner you can sell it and keep the proceeds. Yes, you can also do that when you build your "human capital" within a large organization and then jump to another company. However, it cannot be done to the same degree when you OWN the actual business. In short, it can be quite lucrative over a long career.

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9) Elimination of corporate/bureaucratic nonsense: I am infinitely more productive because of this alone. Furthermore, I find few things more triggering than corporate bureaucrats and their nonsense. If having your own business had no other benefits beyond eliminating my need to deal with BS meetings, talking about my weekend to people who don't actually care, or getting e-mails about personnel changes that are meaningless to everybody other than the person sending the e-mail, then it was totally worth it. Granted, I have corporate partners I engage with regularly, but all these interactions serve a purpose and don't waste my time. In my next life I will be a consultant to financial services companies. 50% of the people serve no purpose, are employed because they are skilled at being bureaucrats, and can be eliminated. Boom! I dramatically increased profitability!

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10) The buck stops with you: This is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a very rewarding feeling to set your own path and make the ultimate decisions. However, when something less than pleasant arises (i.e. client matter, frivolous business dispute, random administrative tasks that can’t be outsourced, etc.). More often than not, being the final decision maker is a great thing. However, the tradeoff is needing to deal with various inconveniences along the way.

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11) No back to office talk: I don't need to deal with any phony gimmicks to try to get me back into the office. No bagels on Tuesday, beer on Friday, or threats that my salary will be lowered. An office building is an antiquated construct for many in the wealth management industry. Sure, if I was a surgeon I couldn't do surgery in my PJs from my kitchen. If I was a garbageman, I couldn't collect garbage if I didn't leave my house. And if I was a construction worker, I couldn't build a building over zoom. But I can push buttons on my computer and talk to people about their money on the phone from anywhere.* My skills and knowledge are from experience and consuming more personal finance content than most people. It is not from being in close proximity to coworkers. Schlepping 3 hours round trip because some Boomer executive is trying to justify their company's imprudent decision on real estate is absurd. Glad to be done with that.

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Anyway, those are my reflections on starting a business two years later. If I can be a resource to anyone, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Jonathan

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#JonathanOnMoney

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*For the record, I do have an actual office outside my home. In the post Covid era, very few clients have wanted to meet there. They prefer Zoom, phone, and occasionally at their own home (which I’m happy to do if convenient.)