Is a work at home business better than a work at home job? You bet. Hands down. But each option has pros and cons, and it may be that for right now you’re just not ready to start a work at home business. Its a big commitment. That’s OK. But if you’re dedicated, smart and willing to work harder than most, settling for a work at home job could be selling yourself short.

2 Best Reasons To Start a Work At Home Business

1) Business owners build equity in their business. Work at home job holders just get a weekly paycheck.

If you take a work at home job, you’ll need to continue working, hour by hour, as long as you want the money to come in. When you finally quit your work at home job, the paychecks will stop. If you can start a work at home business, you’ll not only have a steady income once it is up and running, but you’ll have the option to sell your business when the day comes that you no longer want to run it.

Some people launch and grow their businesses with the goal of selling them later; others just get their business started and then decide, say, five years later that they want to get out. Either way works. But getting $150,000 for your business after five years of building it beats the pants off just calling your boss and giving two weeks notice. No employer gives a retirement bonus like that!

2) Business owners can hire people. Work at home employees have to do it all themselves.

As a business owner you can do whatever you like – so long as its profitable. In many cases your business will actually do better the less you work in it, and the more you work on it. So your real job as the boss is to create systems for getting things done, complete with bullet-proof instructions so people can practically train themselves. As soon as each business system is created and running smoothly, the boss (you!) finds someone to follow the directions. Then that new hire does the job you used to do, and you get to either take a break or continue building the company and its profits.

Two Reasons To Just Get A Work At Home Job

1) Starting a Business is Risky.

This is the big factor. Most businesses fail. There are things you can do to radically improve your business’s chances of success (like writing a detailed, real-world business plan and interviewing 3-5 business owners in the same industry you want to go into), but no business plan is perfect. By sticking with a simple work at home job, you can rely on that paycheck and leave how your employer is going to fund that weekly paycheck to someone else.

2) Owning A Business is More Work.

Despite the view that the boss taking it easy in his office while his employees slave away, the business owner may work harder than anyone. The employees, after all, get to go home. The boss may need to keep working until after 10. There’s no passing the buck if you’re the owner – you must either hire somebody to deal with it, or deal with it yourself.

This is the flip side of the benefit of not having to do all the work – yes, you can delegate it all out, but there’s an unbelievable amount of work to do, and most of it all needs to be done all at once. If you aren’t someone who’s comfortable “changing gears” or “wearing many hats”, you either need a flawless business plan (and the will and money to execute it), or realize that working at home as an employee might best for you. As I’ve mentioned, having a business has more benefits, but if getting to those benefits risks you getting a heart attack, stick with a work at home job.