I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job.

I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job is part of Diego Segura's I Want to Start a Business series, so it checks one reason for not starting against the evidence.

I can't quit my job. You have said it out loud, and it came out sounding like an excuse. Nobody has ever checked whether it is true.

Thirty-five per cent is how much less the median person earned, ten years after leaving a wage to work for themselves. Not the failures. The middle of the pack. Then the reversal: across fourteen years of employment records, the people who built the business while keeping the wage were about a third less likely to shut it down than the ones who jumped.

Fourteen chapters, each ending in one evening's work on paper: what is really bolted to your salary, the ninety-six hours that are your whole trial, and the clause at the back of your contract that cost an engineer a third of a million dollars. Every figure checked. This book might tell you to stay.