The cost of freedom

Social mobility is a subject I've been interested in for some time.
What is it that allows some people to climb the socioeconomic ladder
and prevents others? The answer I've found is that most people either
don't understand the cost of upward mobility, or are simply unwilling
to pay the price once they discover it. For a long time in my live
I've been ignorant of the cost. Last Wednesday I decided to run a
simple cost analysis to see what it would cost me to launch my site.
The numbers shocked me. For years now I've known that if I had several
breakout weeks at my job I'd be able to start a business of my own but
I could never seem to get enough sales consistently enough to do it.
At my new job we're talking to small business owners who more often
than not can afford our services. And all I need to earn the maximum
commission is 2 sales. The first sale is paid $400 to pay for the
building, keeping the lights on etc. Once you get 2, that sale is paid
at $800 and you get full scale retroactively for the first as well.
Back to the numbers. I added up the rate on everything I could find to
start my site and it came to about $6,000. Which when I added a
cushion of 15% came to just shy of $8,000. Or 10 full commision sales.
Think about that for a moment. After retention fees and taxes I'd need
to sell more than $80,000 at my old job to do that. Now all I need is
10 sales. You can understand why I'm so excited. For the first time in
my life, not only do I have a path to owning my own business, it's
something I can realistically see myself doing! I'm off to get ready
for work. 10 sales is the price of my freedom. A heavy cost. I pay it
gladly because I'm goin' up! :) $$