Work as a VA and learn the ropes OR Start your own business and figure out along the way

It really depends on what you're capable of doing and what type of business you're trying to create. If you're prepared and financially able to start a business now, I would do that. If you need to learn the skills and acquire the ability to own and operate a business, I would look for opportunities to do that.

I spent two years working for a small business with 4 retail stores and it was easily the best business experience I've ever had. The company has two owners, two managers and about 25-30 staff members at any given time. It gave me hands on experience to plan marketing strategies, customer acquisition, growth forecasting, accounting, and whole lot more. But mainly, it gave me the experience to learn, grow and believe in my ability to make decisions and lead people while gaining an appreciation for the hard work of small business owners and what they mean to society and our economy.

I've worked for large corporations and agencies for over 12 years and received a degree in business and none of that even comes close to the experience I gained working in a small business.

If you're hesitant about it, I would guess that you're not ready to start a business. But, I wouldn't just work as a VA just to do it. Work somewhere that is going to give you the experience to get where you want to be.

Hi Ben,

I love diving in and being the person who builds the venture, the entrepreneur. Because you will never learn something like you will learn the concept in the lab of life. Being a VA is OK for the internship route. But when you have 20 plates to balance on sticks, and 5 fires to put out, and your fears seem to be taunting you around every turn, this is when you really find out what it takes to be an entrepreneur, to run a thriving business, and this is where you really learn how to happy hustle your way to success.

VAing could be a smart move too to study from a success but I'd cut my learning curve, follow a mentor, and devote all of my attention and energy to growing my own profitable business. Because where your attention and energy goes, grows.

Much of the answer depends on your role as VA. Will your duties actually help you later in your business? Or are you simply picking up tasks the employer doesn't want to do?

As a wild example, how much would you learn about building/running a search engine by delivering carts of mail at Google?

On the other hand, if your role is more of the "right hand man" with a toe in every pool, it could be a valuable experience - for a while.

Like Ryan said, there are some things you can't learn working for someone else.

John nailed it.

Often a VA isn't doing everything from A-Z.

You want the VA to stay and work, not run off and do it on their own. So the employer may structure things so no one is doing everything.

At the same time, there are plenty VA's that just want to work and there is no ulterior motive to go out on their own. Which is why I never post a position, I search out those with the right qualifications and contact them.

I've had people that would contact me and ask if they could work in exchange for learning. I would never hire that person because they are telling me they plan on eventually leaving once they learn what they are after.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi! I'm not certain it works that way or that you'll gain much if you do work as a VA. Not all of the important tasks are handed to VAs, it's the boss who usually keeps those. VAs jobs are usually the tedious ones that the boss doesn't like to do.

I think when working as a VA you can learn basic operational things. But when your end goal is to run your own company there is no better "training" than starting your own.

It really depends on your situation: Do you have any working experience? In what roles have you worked previously?

If you have never worked before I would advise you to get some experience first. But not as a virtual assistant but maybe as an assistant to the CEO of a local company. After learning the ropes there in 2-3 you could start thinking about branching out on your own.

If you have the necessary experience, start your own company. The learning curve will just be tremendously higher. Even if you fail the first time, you will have gained so much knowledge and just become better at these thing.

I would advise you to go through the VA route as this will make you to experience the business itself without having anything at stake but establishing your business without knowing anything about the business is setting yourself up for failure.

i have 3 VA and man are they good.

LEVERAGE is the key if you want to do well onine. I train them with camtaisia videos.

Its like have 3 of me at times...... and that is very cool.

I have them doing stuff I do not want to do. They say the mistake of people is they work in their business and not ON their business. I agree.