Business advice for the clueless salaryman

[badkuk]

If there are any former salarymen/employees out there who have put up their own businesses, any piece of advice you can spare for an old IT guy?

Most like involving food ang iniisip ko...definitely not full service resto, more like canteen/food delivery. My greatest concern here is that the competition is very tight, and the barriers of entry are pretty much nonexistent.

If not that, probably a sari sari store that sells packaging products, detergents, etc. Whatever's being sold wholesale sa Divisoria, yung ang ibebenta ko.

i had a former officemate who made money when he bought and sold fish from the dampa to market vendors. There's something very appealing about getting up early ahead of the rest of the city, then be done with the day before lunchtime ^_^

Importing goods seem to have the most potential for profit, although the scale and networking needed are quite daunting to me.

Other than that, i'm clueless as to what other line of business to get into. Ang advise ng lola ko sa nanay ko, you need a business where people come to you, hindi ikaw yung lalapit sa tao(we're not people persons kasi, virtually no soft skills)


...my greatest fear in all this is that, after all the investment, hard work, etc., what if i earn less than what i'm making now, or worse, kung malugi? Hindi po kasi kami super rich, really can't afford to fail that many times. Lagi ko ngan sinasabi, if you have 10 million, gambling 1 million in business is nothing; if you only have 1 million, you will think twice, thrice before rolling the dice. But i realize, that's the biggest difference between having a job and having a business -- there is no guaranteed paycheck every two weeks.

Just thinking out loud. i may just be a bit paranoid about getting laid off -- the company really, really needs all the help it can get, especially at this very crucial stage, but i don't think i am being deployed properly(why? Nangagamoy pulitiko, to be honest) so i'm perceived to be "unproductive". And to be honest, i usually find myself at odds with their plans, which usually work, but are bara-bara and very short sighted(sorry i can't expound any more than that)

No bonus, pay raise for the past two years, and i don't think any more is coming my way. i take it as a subtle hint from the boss: "umalis ka na". In fact a lot of old timers have been complaining about that. i guess mas mura magpasweldo ng fresh out of college kesa beterano...even though it's the beteranos that are saving the company from making complete blunders