Why you shouldn’t quit your job to become a full-time entrepreneur

As Patrick J. McGinnis writes in “The 10% Entrepreneur: Living Your Startup Dream Without Quitting Your Day Job,” “You don’t become an entrepreneur because you want to be rich or famous. You become an entrepreneur because it chooses you. No matter when you make the decision, you know in your gut you just have to go for it.”That call is hard to resist, especially as you imagine fleeing your cubicle to follow that gut feeling.

But McGinnis, a venture capitalist and private equity investor, suggests starting small: becoming a “10% entrepreneur.”

According to McGinnis, a 10% entrepreneur invests just 10% of their time and resources into a new venture, while holding on to their full-time job. This way, he says, they have the best of both worlds, rather than throwing all their time and money into something uncertain. He’s for entrepreneurship, but he doesn’t recommend going all-in right off the bat.

Part of the reason he recommends this approach is because it’s impossible to predict whether your entrepreneurial dream will work out. If you aren’t prepared for things to go south, you could be in for a rude awakening. “When you choose entrepreneurship, you accept that the success and the money are terrific if they come, but they cannot be the only drivers of your decision,” he writes.

Here are McGinnis’ five arguments against quitting your job to pursue full-time entrepreneurship: