Dear Young Professionals: Please Stop Trying to Start a Business

I'm about to pour cold water on every entrepreneurship dream you've been fed by Instagram influencers and startup podcasts. And I have the credentials to do it.

Before I started my property business, I ran a 30-person department inside a 300-person company. My division generated over $1.5 million USD in annual profit. My total compensation package was around $350,000 USD — call it $250,000 AUD at the time. I was good at my job. I understood the machine.

Then I left to build my own thing.

Four years later, our team has grown to 34 people. In our specific market segment in Melbourne, we're number one. We've handled over 350 property transactions. By any reasonable measure, the business is successful.

And yet? I still earn less than my last corporate salary. Most of what the business generates goes straight back into operations, hiring, systems, growth. The reality of entrepreneurship that nobody on TikTok talks about.

If you're a young professional thinking about quitting your job to start a business, I have one word of advice.

Don't.

At least, not yet.

The survival rate they never mention

Let's start with the maths that every aspiring entrepreneur conveniently ignores.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics tracks business survival rates religiously. Of all businesses that started in 2017-18, only 51.7% were still operating four years later 1. Half of all new businesses die within four years. And those are the ones that actually registered and launched — not counting the thousands that never got past the idea stage.

For the businesses that survive, profitability is another story entirely. A survey by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman found that 60% of small business owners earned less than they would have in equivalent employed positions during their first five years 2.

So the base rate looks like this: start a business, and you have a roughly 50% chance of it existing in four years. If it does exist, there's a 60% chance you'll be earning less than a regular job. Chain those probabilities together and you've got about a 20% chance of being financially better off than if you'd just stayed employed.

One in five. Those are terrible odds for a decision that involves quitting your income, burning your savings, and working twice the hours.

I beat those odds. My business is profitable and growing. But I wouldn't recommend the path to someone in their twenties who hasn't built the foundation yet. Because I didn't start from zero. I started from fifteen years of corporate experience, a deep industry network, and savings that could absorb two years of negative cash flow.

What you should actually be doing in your twenties

Instead of chasing the entrepreneurship fantasy, here's what I wish someone had told me earlier. The first decade of your career is about three things: finding your spike, deepening that spike, and building a network around it.

Finding your spike means identifying what you're genuinely good at. Not what you enjoy — that's different. What you're good at is the thing that feels easy to you but looks hard to others. Maybe you have an instinct for breaking down complex problems into steps. Maybe you're the person everyone calls when they need to present data clearly. Maybe you're the one who can walk into a tense meeting and somehow get everyone aligned.

Pay attention to what gets you complimented at work. Not the generic "great job" stuff. The specific feedback. "How did you get that client to agree?" or "That report was the clearest analysis I've seen" — those are clues.

Once you find it, go deep. If you're a developer, don't just learn the framework du jour. Become the person who understands systems architecture at a level that makes you impossible to replace. Go get the certifications. Build the side projects. Write about your field. When you walk into a job interview and you can spend forty minutes talking about one specific problem domain with authority and passion, you stop competing on salary. You start setting it 3.

The money follows depth, not breadth. A generalist with ten years of experience across five industries is worth $90,000. A specialist with ten years in one domain who's known as the go-to person is worth $180,000. I've seen this pattern play out dozens of times among my own employees and my peers.

The network compound effect

The second thing — and this is the one most young professionals completely neglect — is building relationships like they're assets. Because they are.

Every person you work with is a node in a network that compounds over time. Your colleague today becomes a department head in three years. Your manager today becomes a VP in five. The person in the adjacent team who you helped with a presentation might start their own company and need exactly your skill set.

I've seen this happen more times than I can count. The connections I built in my corporate career are directly responsible for at least 40% of my current business. Not because I was schmoozing at networking events. Because I genuinely helped people, kept in touch, and maintained the relationship even after I left.

Here's a practical habit I recommend to every young person I mentor. Maintain a contact list. Not your phone contacts — a real list. Every person you work closely with, their role, their strengths, and a note about the last meaningful conversation you had. When you leave a job, send a genuine farewell message. Not a mass email. A personal note to each person who mattered.

Do this across three or four jobs over ten years and you'll have a network of 60 to 80 people who know you, respect you, and will take your call. That network is worth more than any business plan 4.

Compound interest works on relationships the same way it works on money. The difference is that nobody teaches you to invest in relationships the way they teach you to invest in super.

Where property fits into the picture

If you're in your twenties or early thirties, earning a decent salary, and you're smart about it — you don't need to start a business to build wealth. You need to start buying assets.

Property is the wealth vehicle I know best, so I'll speak to it directly. A young professional earning $100,000 can borrow roughly five times their income — about $500,000 to $600,000 depending on existing debts and living expenses 5. At 80% LVR, that's enough to buy a $625,000 to $750,000 property with a 20% deposit.

In Melbourne's southeast, that budget puts you squarely in the sweet spot. Cranbourne, Hampton Park, Narre Warren — established suburbs with strong rental demand, limited new supply, and genuine growth fundamentals.

Our data shows properties in this corridor appreciating at roughly $5,000 per month in the current cycle. Over a five-year hold, that's $300,000 in capital growth on a $650,000 purchase — an annualised return of around 8% to 10% before rental income 6.

Here's the thing that makes property different from a business. Property doesn't need you to show up every day. It doesn't need you to manage staff, handle complaints, or worry about cash flow at 3am. With decent property management — ours runs at a 1:50 manager-to-property ratio versus the industry standard of 1:170 — your investment generates income while you focus on your career.

A young person who buys their first investment property at 27, adds a second at 30, and a third at 33 is in a fundamentally different position at 40 than someone who spent their twenties trying to launch a startup that burned through their savings.

I'm not anti-entrepreneurship. I'm an entrepreneur. But I wish I'd bought my first three properties before I started my business, not after. The passive income from a portfolio provides a safety net that makes every career decision — including the eventual decision to start a business — come from a position of strength rather than desperation.

Our clients who've done this well often follow a pattern. First property in Cranbourne or Hampton Park around $600,000 to $650,000. Light cosmetic renovation — $10,000 to $15,000 — boosting the rental yield to $500 to $550 per week 7. Bank revaluation six months later typically comes in $30,000 to $50,000 above purchase price. Refinance, extract the equity, use it as a deposit for property number two.

By the time you're 35, you've got two or three properties generating a combined $1,500 to $2,000 per week in rental income. Your mortgages are covered. Your career salary is genuine disposable income. And if you do decide to start a business at 35 or 40, you've got a financial cushion that lets you survive the inevitable first two years of negative cash flow.

That's not a theory. That's the actual trajectory I've guided dozens of young clients through. And every single one of them thanks me for talking them out of the startup idea and into the property portfolio instead.

The bottom line for young professionals

Find your professional spike and go absurdly deep on it. Build a network of real relationships — not LinkedIn connections, real people who'll pick up when you call. Start buying income-producing assets in your late twenties. And for the love of everything, don't quit your job to start a business until you've got a financial foundation that can absorb two years of zero revenue.

Entrepreneurship isn't the shortcut to wealth. It's the scenic route with potholes. The shortcut is a good salary, disciplined investing, and compound growth over time.

I make this argument from the other side. I took the scenic route. I'm glad I did, eventually. But if I'd bought three properties in my twenties instead of spending those years building corporate empires for someone else, I'd be about $800,000 further ahead right now.

Don't make my mistake. Build the assets first. Build the business later — if you build it at all.

And if you're a young professional reading this and thinking "but I'm different, my idea is special" — I had that same thought. The idea might be special. You might be talented. But the odds are still 80% against you making more money than a corporate career with smart property investments on the side.

Respect the odds. Respect the compound effect. And get your first property sorted before you draft your first business plan.