Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
(OP)
Hello. I've searched and read almost every thread on eng tips regarding starting an engineering firm, so I figured it's time I make my own.
I'm a mechanical engineer working at a medium sized MEP firm. I have almost 10 years of experience and my PE. I'm flying up the chain and getting into management and away from engineering, but I'm not entirely crazy about it. I'm in a financial and professional position to make the move to self employment.
I feel I have 2 options: one-man shop or partner and start a firm. I'm leaning towards option 1. I'm extremely efficient in Revit and AutoCAD (and enjoy making drawings). Subscription based software and hardware has come down substantially in price over the years. I really feel I can be competitive on my own, and not have to worry about keeping employees busy.
Option 2 seems more lucrative, but I think I'm a little burned out from management and would like to be completely on my own to start out. If I get bored of being a one man show, I can always hire or partner up in the future.
This thread is just me thinking out loud. Did any of you start off one way and wish you went another? Any input is appreciated. Thank you.
I'm a mechanical engineer working at a medium sized MEP firm. I have almost 10 years of experience and my PE. I'm flying up the chain and getting into management and away from engineering, but I'm not entirely crazy about it. I'm in a financial and professional position to make the move to self employment.
I feel I have 2 options: one-man shop or partner and start a firm. I'm leaning towards option 1. I'm extremely efficient in Revit and AutoCAD (and enjoy making drawings). Subscription based software and hardware has come down substantially in price over the years. I really feel I can be competitive on my own, and not have to worry about keeping employees busy.
Option 2 seems more lucrative, but I think I'm a little burned out from management and would like to be completely on my own to start out. If I get bored of being a one man show, I can always hire or partner up in the future.
This thread is just me thinking out loud. Did any of you start off one way and wish you went another? Any input is appreciated. Thank you.





RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
The main thing is simply not your competence in AutoCad and Revit (or whatever pieces of software you enjoy), the main thing is differentiating your company from mine and the 7 million like mine to greater or lesser extent. How do you plan to do that. Why should I hire you instead of MuleShoe Engineering (for example)? If you cannot answer that then you are not ready. I can tell you with certainty that trying to compete with draftsmen working out of their basements (much like Uber for drafting) is a recipe for bankruptcy. What compelling thing do you bring to the table. A huge network of acquaintances? It helps, but has a pretty short shelf life. Vast knowledge of a niche field? You have to know how you are going to communicate that knowledge to potential clients interested in that niche knowledge.
You need to think really hard about these kinds of questions before you take the leap. I spent 23 years in Corporate America, all the time being active in professional societies, writing papers for conferences and niche publications, meeting people that later became my clients and listening to them (there is no better way to look smart than to listen attentively and asking good questions about what they said). I still knocked on a lot of doors before I got my first client.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
Good short and concise response.
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
As a solo shop, I usually contract work with smaller engineering firms that have the engineers and designers I need. Designers are much better at making drawings look good. They also have the patience to lay conduit, junction boxes, wire, terminations, etc. out nicely whereas I do not. If you want to do your own drawings and have the expertise to do it, nothing should stop you. I don't mind doing some minor stuff here and there but nothing that requires hours of work daily.
There are no wrong answers for how you want to do this and what you want from and for your life. If you make a decision and don't like it, you can make another one and try that, too. Life isn't this rigid, inflexible, set-in-stone journey.
All the best!
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program: http://nspe-co.org/events.php
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
The biggest risk to a one man show IMO is that you can only handle so many clients. So, if one of your eight clients goes out of business and then two others shop you for someone else, you might find yourself a little short on income. How about this happens six years into your business? Will you have maintained the same network as when you worked at your current company? I don't know that I would...even knowing I should.
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
I guess my burnout is a source of being both a manager and a lead engineer on several demanding projects. Being just a manager or just an engineer seems like it would be a cakewalk! I have a very young staff that I am responsible for keeping utilized, while at the same time managing schedules, performance, and engineering the many projects that I lead. I've done a few small side jobs here and there (with my company's permission), and loved everything about it. It's just a totally different feeling when you are working on your own project that you volunteered for and are in full control of, rather than being force fed. Even if it's just a tiny little renovation.
I already have a home office and workstation set up. I activate software on a monthly subscription basis when needed for side work, so there's really not much upfront cost in front of me. I have a good network of clients that I'm confident can keep me busy when I'm getting started. I have enough savings to carry me through a year of no income.
Another bonus is if the senate tax bill becomes law; it would be a nice boost to self employed S-corp pass through income that larger firms wouldn't be allowed to take advantage of in its current form. I'm thinking early 2018 may be the time to make the jump.
Thank you all for your opinions.
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
If you enjoy working, don't mind the hours, and don't mind waiting to get paid, I'd recommend it. It would be hard for me to go back to working for the man...that's for sure.
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
Here is something I have generally experienced:
As a solo practitioner (ie. no employees or business partners), if I am working full time doing project work, I am working overtime hours. I'm business owner/administrator and I am building designer. This means if I put 40 hours a week to working on client projects, I am working anywhere from 60 to 80 or more hours a week. This is because I have two intensive roles.
If I am only to keep a 40-60 hours a week max. work load, I have to only do about as many projects that will only consume about 15-30 hours a week at a time. You might ask where these hours beyond the project fall in. This is because all the overhead hours, customer/client services, and don't forget to throw in your continuing education, then you also need to do your book-keeping and accounting and other misc. tasks. There is also all other misc. activities of the business that I would have to do as well.
All of this comes together at some point. When you are on working on your own, forget 9-5.... that's relative nonsense. Keep that for phone hours so people don't bother you after hours (if that actually works). Your life is absorbed. It isn't just something that just starts at 8 or 9 in the morning and when 5 o'clock comes along, you clock out and relax and all. It doesn't work that way. You must put whatever hours you need to put in to be successful.
I doubt that is any different for engineering firms. It is good to try where possible to have some time to wind down and relax. This is where you need to consider limiting what you can be willing to take on at a time, have partners/employees that you can delegate and distribute the work and still make an appropriate income.
Going solo for real as a business is NOT a weekend gig.
ASTORIA BUILDING DESIGN, LLC. |
Building Designer | Architect/Engineer (Sweden,Norway, Finland, and Denmark [including Greenland])
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
As has been said working for your self does not mean you are engineering all day long.
Do you like project management?
Do you like sales & marketing?
Will you devote the hours each week needed to make the phone calls and keep the work coming?
good luck either way
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
Please remember: we're not all guys!
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
I ran a business for many years, it was not in engineering , it was in aircraft repair , but the same things apply. I started on a part time basis while working for an employer, this worked for a while, then I got busy and could not work two jobs, at the same time my employer got slow; so the decision was a no brainer. At first life was ideal, I was doing what I liked , then the work load picked up, and I had to hire more people, a book keeper to deal with taxes and paperwork , more helpers on the shop floor, the next thing you knew I was not repairing aircraft , I was ,Gasp , a manager/sales man.
The tasks I loved were being done by my workers, and all I was doing was supervising and looking for work to keep the shop going. This is something to consider if you are good at your business.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment
Don't partner up.
If your prospective partner is worth a heck then he can run his own show while you run yours, and you can share work for a fee to each other. If he's not willing to go out solo, then you probably wouldn't have wanted him as a partner anyway. Partners can be baggage. If you ever do want to partner up, then do so with someone else who's already proven he can run a one man show.
But it will be essential for you to network with other one man shops, or similarly small shops, to share work. If you're too busy, contract drafting from them. If they're too busy, they feed you work they can't handle. Etc. That gives you the flexibility of being a larger outfit while you still maintain the benefits of being in a smaller outfit. Collaboration *is* marketing.
Start as a single owner disregarded LLC. Once you start grossing $200k/yr or a little less, switch to an S-Corp.
Get Quickbooks, and get someone who knows accounting better than you to set it up for you. Do all your IT with google. Keep your projects in the cloud, either Dropbox or similar. Write your own website. These aren't hard things to do. Write it all off.
If things go very well, then you'll eventually be able to offer "partner" type positions under your umbrella for other project managers who have clients and don't want to learn the business headaches you already have. Then they rake more of the money from the project fee, you rake a cut, and everyone keeps more of the fruits of their own labor.
This is how the free market is supposed to work. Live it, love it.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Career Crossroads - The Jump to Self Employment