How to quit a corporate job to start your own business
Leaving a traditional desk job requires managing financial risk with accumulated savings while breaking the cycle of repetitive corporate employment. This transition allows individuals to take full responsibility for their own success or failure without getting trapped in another standard 9 to 5 position.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 179.1× more often in r/Entrepreneur than across the site as a whole.
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?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Switching between different corporate desk jobsDid this help you?
- 2Considering low-barrier service businesses like pressure washingDid this help you?
- 3Exploring part-time or consulting work to maintain income while testing business ideasDid this help you?
- 4Keeping a day job while trying to build a business on the sideDid this help you?
- 5Transitioning into consulting or freelance contracts temporarily to pay the bills while building a scalable productDid this help you?
- 6Build what you want to do in the smallest iteration possible to test if it worksDid this help you?
- 7Work your job plus your business until you absolutely cannot do your job any moreDid this help you?
- 8Having a spouse work extra hours to cover the lost salaryDid this help you?
- 9Keeping the day job and saving money until life events force a transitionDid this help you?
- 10Starting a business on the side while keeping the day jobDid this help you?
- 11Running a few small projects on weekends to test the watersDid this help you?
- 12Investing in the stock market or real estate instead of starting an active businessDid this help you?
- 13Buying an already successful business instead of building from scratchDid this help you?
- 14Shutting down the business and returning to a corporate jobDid this help you?
- 15Keeping the day job and testing a new idea on the side firstDid this help you?
- 16Shadowing an established business owner to see the reality of the workDid this help you?
- 17Interviewing non-tech business owners to find manual processes to solveDid 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.
“I mentally cannot do another 9–5 desk job. I have $70k saved and need to build something of my own. What can I realistically do?”source ↗
“I’ve tried switching jobs, but everything I’m qualified for ends up being another desk job. And I just can’t do it anymore.”source ↗
“My current career is being automated away and I want to start fresh, do something weird, different, something that makes me uncomfortable even if I lose money in the process.”source ↗
“I've gotten depressed over the last year seeing so much of what I've spent my whole life doing being solved by prompts so I want to make an actual physical product or provide a service.”source ↗
“Anyone make this transition from knowledge work to something straight up being a real, actual physical service / a real product? How was it? What did you learn specifically in this transition?”source ↗
“I'm thinking about what to do with my life after my job.”source ↗
“Now I don't know what to do, i want some challenges Life feels easy with my job.”source ↗
“I'm just bored and thinking what to do.”source ↗
“It's been in operation for 1.5 yrs but I haven't been able to pay myself yet.”source ↗
“I have always been taught to be independent an earn money to sustain the house but in the past when I don't work, I become aimless.”source ↗
“I also worked really hard to get my medical degree but have been feeling burnout for a long while.”source ↗
“I want consistency but I know that it will be tight for a few years until my business provides steady income for me to provide for my family.”source ↗
“I come home everyday defeated and drained so I’ve been slowly working on things but half assing everything”source ↗
“Putting in my two weeks notice on Tuesday. May end up being a bad decision, but I’m ready to either succeed or fail with the only person to blame being myself.”source ↗
“I just got out of my own contracting business to go back working at an engineering firm”source ↗
“What I lost ? Friends, family, missed birthdays, missed trips, gone on trips with stress that payroll will be rough. Unpaid invoices from the most trusted clients. Such and such.”source ↗
“We pivoted to more residential customers and my role become more paperwork, chasing invoices, payroll, HR, vehicles, reliance on one person most of the time and I wasn’t enjoying it.”source ↗
“I wish I had kept my (rather easy, well paying job) for longer while testing business ideas on the side, rather than quitting and jumping head-on into startup life. The stress is obviously high but to me it’s manageable; not making money however, is an unbelievable shock and adjustment for someone coming from your comp levels (or really any level).”source ↗
“Good luck! I'm about to take the plunge myself, I'm kind of one foot in, one foot out.”source ↗
“I left my high-paying corporate job last week. Announcing my departure, goodbye calls with everyone, and the waiting period was all brutal.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to turn a business idea into reality with no money
- 16Should I register a business before making any money?
- 2How do you stop researching forever and actually start a business?
- 2Can I start selling before my LLC is officially approved?
- 19How to plan a business from scratch without missing key steps
- 6How to grow a side business while working a full-time job