Starting a business appears to be the next cool thing to say, as a counterpoint to folks looking to get into finance. But when you ask, am not sure if you have fully thought thru the question yourself, instead if simply asking as a throwaway line.
It's definitely easier to talk about going into business than actually doing so, and most people that actually talk about it never take the first step towards it. First of all, its a huge financial risk. Most people who talk about going into business think of restaurant or retail shop ie stuff they are familiar with. That's the worst kind of business - super competitive and very high capital requirements of $200k to 500k, which you can lose in less than 6 months if the business fails. I've seen a few friends fail and lose 20 years of savings in 6 months and take 10 years to recover. Either that it you lose money from trusted family and friends.
Either that or you can choose a low capital business such as trading or real estate , but earnings are super volatile and most will struggle along for years potentially never getting rich.
Of course, I have a friend who went into his fathers business, is now CEO and has a collection of sports cars now. I also know of a few business men from the older generation that got rich of government concessions in Indonesia, but money is almost never clean.
So the notion of starting a business is romantic, buffeted by examples we all have of less educated friends who have made it very big in business, after starting from scratch. But if you turn a critical and objective eye to it, I have to concede that its not all roses. most (but obviously not all) successful business men either have a head start either via a family business, family money, family contacts or by being very agile in a fast changing market by doing stuff that's not clearly legal (Indonesia example above or new money from China or Russia).
Striving to get into finance is not easy, but its a risk free way of potentially becoming rich (albeit on a much smaller scale than a successful business man). No one ever said that getting rich is easy anyways ...
