Yeah, as an employer I made much more money. It was also very stressful, as managing people can be quite a hassle. I much prefer being self-employed without employees.
Yep. I've been running a 1-man software business for 19 years. I could have taken on employees and made more money, but made a conscious decision not to. I don't regret it.
You could also fail completely if employed some people. Adding employees doesn’t necessarily equate with adding revenue, but 100% equates with adding cost. As a fellow solo business owner for 19 years (hi!) I’m sure you understand this, but few posters on this topic seem to to think that additional employee is a guaranteered profit. It’s especially dangerous when bad times come and you’re reluctant to lay off people.
Absolutely. My main product is an event seating planner (PerfectTablePlan) and my sales basically went to zero during the pandemic. So glad I didn't have any staff to pay/fire.
One useful take away from the time I was bored enough to let MLM people attempt to pitch me: "the only thing worse than having a business with only one employee is having a business with more than one employee"
