[freshfunk]

My thoughts exactly.

When you're out of college, you're used to living on a shoestring budget. You can get by without quite little because you haven't really raised your standards of living around a big salary.

When you've worked for a few years, you've likely saved up a decent amount of cash (unless you live a life filled with consumption). You may have to cut back on all the perks but you can still get by.

Most of the people I know who want to start a company don't want to risk their current cash flow. Yet all of them have been working long enough where they've likely saved up enough money to go a long time without making money and be ok. I think the only thing is that people raise their standards of living (more expensive rent, big car payments, high rent/mortgage) such that they feel they must continue to make their current salary in order to "survive."

[Kevinjmireles]

The problem is when you're the sole bread winner with 3 kids...When I was much younger I chucked it all and spent a year biking through South America. People asked me how I could leave everything behind - and my response was, "what behind?" I had no girlfriend, no fancy stereo (pre-ipod days)a VW bug, whose steering wheel would loosen up after every few hundred miles, so it was easy to leave it all behind because I didn't have much to start with. So my advice is don't wait - take risks when you're young and the consequences aren't that great and your cash flow needs are fairly limited. Don't wait because it doesn't get any easier.