How Big Is Too Big?

As you can see, it costs more (in both time and money) to run a bigger business than it does to run a smaller one. At some point you'll need to ask yourself just how big you want your business to grow. Do you want to run a $50,000/year business that takes 80 hours a week of your time, or limit yourself to a $30,000/year business that you can manage in an eight-hour day? Is growing your sales worth the hassle of hiring an employee or two or renting warehouse space, or can you be happy with a smaller home-based single-person business?

Running a bigger business is a lot different than running a smaller one. When you have a small business, you're truly working for yourself. As your business grows, you're now working as part of a machineeven though you're supposedly running that machine. There is much stress associated with managing employees, making sure you have money in the bank to pay for rent, and so forth. Many people prefer to keep their businesses small and their stress levels low; others like the challenge of running and growing a thriving enterprise.

Bottom line, you can control just how big your eBay business becomes. If you want to keep it small, keep it small; there's nothing that says it has to grow beyond a certain point. If you want to run a bigger business, go for it. (Although there's no guarantee that will happen, of course.) The point is, it's your choice to make. That's one of the benefits of running your own business, after all; you have total control over the form that business takes.

With an eBay business, you control the size by controlling the number of auctions you run. You grow your business by running more auctions; you limit its size by running fewer auctions. That's one of the things I really like about an eBay businessyour future is fully in your own hands.