I’d like to set the stage for this series on entrepreneurship – for me entrepreneurship was never a matter of if, but more so a matter of when. I’d thought about it since I understood what work was and toyed with the thought my entire career, generally day-dreaming the pain away during company kick-offs, QBR’s, or week-long conventions in Vegas.

My wife and I had talked about my “dreams” ad nauseam, but had never come to a conclusion on when, what, or how.  In parallel of these discussions I had been working on a few concepts that I thought had legs, even invoicing a customer or two. The problem was, I couldn’t get any of the concepts to “walk” as I was spending the majority of my time working my corporate job and being a father, barely able to focus on the side hustle I hoped would someday pay the bills.

Finally, December of 16’ I realized that my life was not getting less complicated, but more so…I had my second kid (two girls – 6 months and 2 years at the time), a new house, and all the other challenges life throws at you. I finally realized and accepted that for me the time was now or when the kids were out of college. This was the toughest realization of my adult life since waiting until the kids were out of college didn’t work for me. So, my wife and I had a very long and detailed conversation of how it would work and we put together a game-plan to execute.

Generally not prone to nervousness, but putting in my “two weeks” was one of the most nervous experiences of my life (after getting engaged and posting my first LinkedIn video). The nervousness was not from the discussion, but more so from the finality of the decision to do this (like really do this) and the unknown. The unknown of course being whether or not I even had a viable business or just a concept that I, and I alone, thought was great. Regardless, the nervousness subsided the second I walked out of the building and I haven’t looked back since. Now that doesn’t mean there are not sleepless nights, because those are plentiful, and every honest entrepreneur I know will say same (even if they are crushing it), but I haven’t regretted the decision at all…

Over the course of this series I hope to give you some real insight into what entrepreneurship is really like, both the good and bad.  Some of the topics we will cover can be found below, but would love to hear suggestions on what should be added.

• Entrepreneurship, the good, the bad, and the ugly
• Do you really need to “Burn the Boat?”
• Entrepreneurship Pitfalls- What to look out for in the first 365 days
• Not all Customers are good Customers
• Payment terms and the float are real
• To get Funded or not to get Funded

Beau Billington is the founder of the Free Agent, a consulting company immersed in the strategic-layer of the Gig Economy- www.thefreeagent.com