I now know how to make money working from home. But it wasn’t always like that …

When I was still at school, a friend of mine said that he wanted to be an “entrepreneur”. I didn’t know what that was. He explained that it was someone who worked for themselves, rather than being employed, and made loads of money. I was hooked! I didn’t like the idea of being bossed about by an employer and I definitely fancied having loads of money!

I had many jobs as a teenager, but mainly worked in catering. I started washing up in a restaurant, then became a waiter and barman. So when I left full time education and wanted my own business, the only business I knew anything about was catering. So I decided that I would have my own trendy cafe-bar.

Although I’d worked in catering as a teenager, I didn’t know anything about managing a restaurant, so I got a job as a trainee manager at a chain of restaurants.

Sure enough, I learned how to manage a restaurant. But I also learned that owning a restaurant was a VERY high risk business. The overheads are HUGE. You have to pay for your premises, ideally in a prime location, and you need to employ a lot of staff – which involves a lot of hassle and expense.

Much of the time, your restaurant is shut, i.e. at night, so it’s not making money. But you still have to pay overheads like rent, bills, etc. But even when the restaurant is open, if you are not busy, you will struggle to earn enough to pay your overheads, let alone make any profit.

It’s also VERY stressful. If there is a problem, it has to be resolved NOW – not tomorrow. Your customers want good service there and then or they won’t be your customers for long.

And of course the hours are very unsociable – you have to work when everyone else you know who isn’t in catering are enjoying their leisure time.

Of course, if you OWN a restaurant and employ someone to manage it for you, you don’t have the stress of the day to day running of the restaurant and you don’t have to work the unsociable hours. But I was NEVER going to earn enough as a restaurant manger to ever be able to afford my own restaurant. I would have to go cap in hand to a bank for a loan and I could see that I would probably spend the rest of my life working hard just to cover my overheads and pay back the bank.

I spent 3 years as a restaurant manager learning that owning a restaurant is NOT a good way to make money. It is high risk as you have to invest – or borrow – a lot of capital to get started and your overheads are very high. You are very dependent on other people – your staff. And you can only make money whilst your restaurant is open.

I realised that if I was going to be an entrepreneur and make a lot of money without working myself to death in the process, I needed something that was low risk, that didn’t involve a lot of capital up front, that didn’t have massive overheads, and didn’t involve employing a lot of staff.

Then I found a way to make money working from home …

Martyn Boaden