Top Five Reasons To Start A Business For Optometrists

Younger people are more adaptable and motivated to adopt new technologies that help start disruptive businesses that have enough time to grow in the market and maybe replace the incumbents. It is never too late to start a business while the average age of business owners varies between 34 and 45 depending on different sources (34 years old: CNBC and Bloomberg, 42 years old: Wharton, 45 years old: Harvard Business Review, Northwestern, Entrepreneur, and Inc.). History shows there is no ideal age for someone to start a business, therefore, age may not be a criterion of the propensity to start a business or to become successful. Mark Zuckerberg for example started Facebook at 19 in his Harvard dorm room, Steve Jobs Apple co-founder started his first business at 21, Jeff Bezos started Amazon at 30, and Ray Kroc was 52 when he purchased McDonald’s in 1961 and expanded it globally. Then what are the most common reasons to start a business?

For me, the top five reasons to start a business as an Optometrists and not get employed are:

1- Freedom of decision: Be your own boss so you don’t need to have someone telling you what to do;

2- Financial Freedom: you manage your own finances that may be humble when you start then as your revenue grows you will see your financial potential growing too and you will be the one having direct control and deciding where and what you will invest in;

3- Starting at a young age will allow you to put all your efforts into the organization you own and not into an organization someone else owns. So as time passes by you can use the assets you created to increase your capital, sell and transition, or become a serial entrepreneur.

4- You pursue your purpose and grow knowing why you are practicing Optometry as a business owner and who are the people directly affected by the care you are providing;

5- You get to hire and fire people but also help them set their goals and inspire their careers.

It is important to note that there are a lot of reasons why would someone start a business. Dr. Gary S. Goodman, author of many best-selling books provides fifty great reasons to open a business in the first chapter of the book The Forty Plus Entrepreneur: How to Start a Successful Business in Your 40’s, 50’s and Beyond. On top of the reasons I provided and Goodman’s reasons, we discovered during the past couple of years that the COVID-19 Pandemic was also one major reason to start businesses due to layovers or due to the excessive time spent at home.