It's easy to start a business, but is it easy to make positive net profits consistently and make enough not to regret the time and effort expended?

That's very easy for an armchair quarterback to say. But am not sure if you have really thought thru it when you put out a throwaway line like that.

I have an MBA and that's the exact calculus I had to navigate before I jumped into it.

Long and short of it is, both paths are not easy. But if you put in a huge amount of time and effort for both, it is a lot easier and less risky to earn SGD150k to SGD500k a year via the MBA route than via a business route.

Yes, you have to get a top GMAT score, navigate yourself to a top MBA school, and pull out all your connections and your family's and friend's connections to get a good job, but once you get there, you are getting SGD150k to SGD500k a year just via salary and bonus.

To draw that quantum in business is possible but really not easy. And unless u have mentors and strong financial backing, its not easy to succeed. If you start small, there is a good chance you stay small, and never get the chance at SGD150k to 500k salary ever. If you swing for the fences, its very possible for you to lose your first SGD200 to 500k within 6 months. Then the question is whether you have enough financial backing and self belief to try again.

Now if you swing for the fences and you succeed, then the income is likely to be in the millions (which is possible but unlikely in front office banking - need to hit MD which takes many years, and may not be in reach for many).

Investing in yourself is better than investing in your business.

You sure about that?

Would you share where you are now after you got your MBA?

Am in front office in a bb. But believe me, it was an incredibly difficult and frustrating process to get here since i was a career switcher .

But you made it. Was it worth it?

well its worked out for me, so i cannot complain.

but then again, success and failure are both within the spectrum of possibilities. the key to not regretting a decision is to establish, on a pre-decision basis, a set of potential outcomes and probabilities of each decision branch, then where ever you end up, you do not regret because u recognize that it is within the spectrum of possibilities you had allowed for when you made the decision to go in.

so if i ended up with a $4k to 5k pm job, i still would not have allowed myself to regret the decision because its a potential outcome I had envisaged going in

Mind sharing your income level? Is it true that FO people can make 500k and more a year?

Possible but Heavily dependent on bonus.