[jiggy2011]

This seems to be the trendy advice to give to young people now, "go start a business straight out of college!".

But speaking as somebody who relatively recently set one up, this seems to ignore how expensive it can be to get even a simple business off the ground without someone willing to help bankroll you to begin with.

No, you don't need millions of dollars but you probably need at least a couple of thousand $ spare to cover your living expenses for a few months + whatever up front costs you need to fork out on.

You get problems like clients who pay very late, or for whatever reason try and not pay you at all. And since you're the new guy with no track record people don't want to give you much up front and know you're going to struggle to lawyer up so put you at the bottom of the payment list.

Not the sort of money who somebody who is likely without savings (and who probably also has debt) is likely to be able to spare.

Also the advantage of having a job before you go out on your own is that you already have some track record with a company people have (hopefully) heard of as well as more connections and hopefully knowledge that you have acquired on someone elses dime.