Making less money after starting a business
Building a startup often leaves founders going years without a steady salary or barely scraping by on one or two daily sales. This severe drop in income makes it difficult to cover basic monthly expenses, leading many to feel discouraged and question whether to abandon the business to find a stable job.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
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Making less money after starting a business
- 1considering doing freelance work to match the previous salaryDid this help you?
- 2Running Meta ads at $40 a dayDid this help you?
- 3Searching for a full-time roleDid this help you?
- 4picking up part-time workDid this help you?
- 5relying on a supportive partner or familyDid this help you?
- 6using savings or burning through a financial runwayDid this help you?
- 7canceling planned trips to pay the mortgageDid this help you?
- 8using credit card debt responsiblyDid this help you?
- 9Raising prices to improve profit marginsDid this help you?
- 10Upgrading marketing games with better ads, copy, and webpagesDid this help you?
- 11Staying bigger to share on-call coverage and reduce personal evening/weekend workDid this help you?
- 12Rewarding employees with flat bonuses for no callbacks, referrals, and timely workDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Now I’m more established the business is steadily growing, but with the amount of work I’m doing, and taxes, it’s working out that I’m finishing the end of the month on less than minimum wage!”source ↗
“A bit broke? How about totally broke! I had zero safety net and there was no plan B.”source ↗
“Two years ago it was me, a truck and a trailer doing house washing and I took home more money than I do right now with three guys and two rigs.”source ↗
“the honest version is I traded a job I liked for a job I mostly dont and gave myself a pay cut to do it.”source ↗
“None of that is washing a house. I havent held a wand in a month.”source ↗
“I was broke for 2 years and half broke for 2 more.”source ↗
“One year i was not taking any salary and the team was only me.”source ↗
“I think it will take me 2-3 years more to reach my monthly expenses of my old job.”source ↗
“Should I just handover the business to someone and i start looking for a job ?”source ↗
“I canceled trips we planned and paid for to get that money back to pay the mortgage.”source ↗
“I was a solo consultant, doing great with zero overhead. Hired three people and the overhead that came with it, make less now, worry more, work more. I’d go back in a heart beat.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to turn a business idea into reality with no money
- 5What to do when your business spends more than it makes
- 4Why do family businesses refuse to pay fair wages?
- 4How should a new shop owner pay themselves?
- 11How to quit a corporate job to start your own business
- 36Why are clients suddenly ghosting contracts and sales slowing down?