Starting your own business is something that many people dream of doing, but not many people actually achieve. Starting a business takes a great deal of hard work, time, and often money, and these are the reasons that many people opt out of entrepreneurship.

Starting a business also comes with many risks, such as the risk of failing and losing all the time and money you just put into it.

If you are considering starting a business, buying an existing business, or if you already have done either one, it’s important to know what rewards come from the risks. The following are the top incentives for starting your own business, and they may just outweigh the risks.

You get to be your own boss.

One of the biggest incentives in starting a business is that you get to be your own boss. You don’t have to do your job the way someone else wants you to, and you don’t have to listen to someone who is less skilled than you are. Instead, you get to be in charge, and you get to make all the decisions, and you have nobody to answer to but yourself. You get to decide the hours you work. You get to decide what marketing collateral you use. You even get to determine the dress code for the company. For some people, not having to answer to anybody else is the biggest reward or entrepreneurship.

You get to (possibly) work from home.

As long as your business doesn’t require the need for a warehouse or manufacturing plant, you can likely do your job from home in a virtual office. You don’t have to worry about sitting through an awful commute, you don’t have to get out of your pajamas if you don’t want to (as long as you’re not seeing clients), and you don’t have to worry about paying for a storefront or utilities, which can decrease the cost of the business. As long as you have a professional workspace to do your job, and the technology solutions to help you do the job successfully, you’ll enjoy not having an office to go to every day.

You get the recognition and reward.

As a business owner, it’s a major accomplishment to take a business from scratch and turn it into something successful. Doing this can earn you respect in your industry, especially if your company becomes extremely successful and expands.

You also get to enjoy the rewards of owning a business. For example, if you’re the sole employee of the company, you get to keep the profits (aside from what you need for taxes and to put back into the business). This could be significantly more than what you’d make being someone’s employee. You also get to enjoy the rewards of expansion if it happens for your business. Who knows? In a few years, your in-home company may turn into a franchise, and you’ll certainly enjoy all those perks.

Starting a business can be a major accomplishment, so if it’s something you really want to do, weigh the risks and rewards and determine if the rewards outweigh the risks.