Business Urban Legends - Part 2 - Myths 1 & 2

Continuing my last post regarding a great article on Entreprenur.com about startup myths, here are the first two myths that they discuss:

Myth #1: Do What You Love, and the Money Will Follow

At first glance I thought that I would have a problem with them dispelling this "myth." After all, I'm a firm believer in doing what you love. However, after reading their interpretation of the myth I couldn't agree more. It's not enough to ONLY do what you love, you have to do something that people will actually pay for. You need customers!

You also need to have realistic expectations, something not everyone who's extremely passionate has. The article goes on to say "Successful entrepreneurs seem to blend passionate belief in the destiny of their venture with practical realizations."

Now, that said, I have yet to hear of something that someone loves to do that CAN'T be monetized in some way. One of my first blog posts was entitled Life is Short - Love What You Do, Do What You Love. In that post, I said that I believe that there are three steps to a successful and satisfying career - figure out what you are passionate about, find a way that you can make money doing it, and then do it. What the article is saying is that you can't skip over the "find a way that you can make money doing it" step and expect to be successful. Obvious - yes. Something that everyone does - not so much.

Myth #2: You'll Miss the Security of a Job

My initial reaction to this one is the exact opposite of the first myth - NO WAY do I miss the "security" of a job. I have always made the argument that it's MORE SECURE to run your own business. Jeffrey Henning, co-founder of Perseus Development Corp, says it perfectly in the article "When I quit my job, people were telling me I was crazy. I told them they had the illusion of security."

See, employees can lose their job at any time, for reasons completely unrelated to individual performance. When that happens, they have lost their ONLY source of income. "We have 20,000 customers, if I lose a customer, it isn't 100 percent of my income," Henning adds.

Not to mention that if I decide to quit my business, I can sell it and get some serious money - can people sell their jobs when they decide to leave? It's like the difference between buying a home and renting one. This is one of those things that I've tried over and over to tell people, but I just get blank stares from them and they think I'm crazy. I really don't see how this can't make sense to people, but it's not worth the fight so I don't even bother anymore. It really doesn't matter what they think...