Living a life of an entrepreneur seems to be fascinating, however, it comes with its own challenges. It is no easy task to manage and run your company the way you have envisioned and requires hits and trails on many fronts. According to sources, 25% of those who want to start a business don't even commence because of the time required to get started and keep going. However, those who take the plunge are risk takers which goes with the saying ‘Higher the risk, higher the profits.’
One such personality is Filip Boksa, founder of BookingKoala, an online booking software designed to help businesses to handle appointment scheduling, lead generation, billing, marketing, and other operations. Boksa became an entrepreneur at 19 years of age having started a home cleaning company with his best friend from high school. The company skyrocketed generating a revenue of $5,000,000 by the time Boksa was 23.
He shares with us his life outside work and some tips to maintain a work-life balance which would be helpful for all the budding and aspiring entrepreneurs out there. Boksa says that long hours are inevitable when starting a business, and the less money you have, the more you have to sacrifice. At the early stages, Boksa and his partner did everything themselves to save on the hiring costs. They divided the work for a year wherein Boksa would answer customer calls from 8 am to 7 pm, even on Sundays, while his business partner managed the cleaners and helped with email and live chat support. Then together, they would work on marketing, hiring, and growing the company.
During that time, there was very little life outside the business, but it didn't matter, Boksa says. It never felt like work because of the company of his best friend. They discussed business, dreams, and goals whenever they'd go out to eat or hang out. It was fun and time never felt wasted because their focus stayed true to what they promised each other.
Today at age 29, Boksa admits to working long hours and still working every day, but his work is different. The daunting tasks he had to do are outsourced, and his time is spent elsewhere. He still enjoys working all the time, but he works on tasks he enjoys and ones that are most important and aligned with his and his company's goals. He can also take a break whenever he wants, but he admits he doesn't unless he's tired or is spending time on meaningful things like family.
Boksa’s obsession and hard work made him reach a certain stage of his business where a majority of the tasks are taken care of by others, but before this happened, he used to take care of everything himself and learnt a lot in the process. Running a full-fledged business demands sacrifice and an intelligent strategy.
Boksa has a far-fetched goal of making BookingKoala a unicorn company without the support of any outsourced funding. He has already set himself on a self-funded initiative inspiring the budding entrepreneurs that they don't need outside capital to make big things happen.