As some of you may know, my wife and I (and our 2 kids) moved up to the Seattle area for a job last year. It's been my first real job since graduating from BYU and it's been a great experience.

Recently I was approached by a close friend of mine about starting a fulfillment business based out of Utah. He already has a successful promotional products company that will bring in close to $1MM this year, with projections to bring in ~$7MM in 2019. Some of his clients have already approached him about doing e-commerce/fulfillment for them because of his established supply chain. Out of our small group of close friends from high school, this is the friend that was always the most-likely to try and start his own business. It's who he is: comfortable doing sales, works his guts out, business-savvy, etc. He and I have joked for a long time that we would start a business together because of my background in engineering, manufacturing/warehousing, and process improvement and his background in sales and customer service. Part of me is surprised he has come calling so quickly, but part of me expected the call to come sooner than later.

My dear friend has offered half the company to me. I've always dreamed of being my own boss and getting to build a system of processes from the ground up, but I honestly don't know if I'm quite ready. I obviously don't have much real-world experience and I feel that I don't yet have all the tools I need to make this work. Plus I'm not even sure if I'm cut out for this type of business. Could I really run the operations and logistics of a fulfillment company? Am I willing to move back to Utah and take a few risks with a young family in tow? Is this a good way of accelerating my career, or will I regret the choice to walk away from a good resume-building job - albeit one that requires me to "pay my dues" to advance in the industry?

I think what makes the decision so difficult is two things:

1) I'm not quite sure what I want to be doing in the future. Be an Engineer forever? Or move into Operations/Management? Or something totally different?
2) I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to truly own something that I built.

Thoughts, CB?