Preserve the dream at all costs
After reading David's post about The Burden of the Entrepreneur on Flush the Toilet, I started reminiscing. His post reads exactly like something I would have written earlier this year. I WAS that entrepreneur that said f*ck the salary and the company perks. There's more to life than working 40 hours/week doing something I don't really believe in. When I quit my job, I even told the director of engineering that I wouldn't stay if he doubled my salary (and I was making a lot of $ for a 22 year old). Ballsy, yes...but it didn't matter to me.
Fast forward nine months and here I am. I have had some amazing things happen, especially with iPrioritize, and the fire still burns as deep as ever. But some harsh realities are setting in. Many businesses take YEARS to become profitable. Even most of the best of the best aren't successful right away. Perseverance is as important as anything else when it comes to being an entrepreneur.
So a month ago when I started to realize that my self-funded business ventures weren't going to bring in enough income for me to comfortably live off of for at least the next several months (and possibly the next year or two), I had a few different options.
I could get a job and run my businesses on the side (which would be a step back to my engineering days, and a step back toward permanence in the corporate world), I could borrow money or seek funding (I'd rather not take on any more debt than I already have), or I could do a few more side jobs per month doing SEO and site design.
I obviously chose to go that route, and the biggest reason is that it kept the dream alive. Jobs I do give me some cash, but aren't permanent. And I can reduce workload (or add workload) as necessary. So later this year, when I decide to take two weeks off to work on an application upgrade for iPrioritize, I don't need to clear it with a boss. And as volume increases on iPrioritize, I can decrease the number of side projects I work on.
It's not always easy. Sometimes you have to make real hard decisions when the road gets bumpy. You will have a lot of different options, and there's times when that $60K salary and 50 hour work week looks pretty good (especially when you're working 70 hours/week for a $0K salary). But I'm telling you, whatever you decide, preserve the dream at all costs. The dream only dies when you let it.
Fast forward nine months and here I am. I have had some amazing things happen, especially with iPrioritize, and the fire still burns as deep as ever. But some harsh realities are setting in. Many businesses take YEARS to become profitable. Even most of the best of the best aren't successful right away. Perseverance is as important as anything else when it comes to being an entrepreneur.
So a month ago when I started to realize that my self-funded business ventures weren't going to bring in enough income for me to comfortably live off of for at least the next several months (and possibly the next year or two), I had a few different options.
I could get a job and run my businesses on the side (which would be a step back to my engineering days, and a step back toward permanence in the corporate world), I could borrow money or seek funding (I'd rather not take on any more debt than I already have), or I could do a few more side jobs per month doing SEO and site design.
I obviously chose to go that route, and the biggest reason is that it kept the dream alive. Jobs I do give me some cash, but aren't permanent. And I can reduce workload (or add workload) as necessary. So later this year, when I decide to take two weeks off to work on an application upgrade for iPrioritize, I don't need to clear it with a boss. And as volume increases on iPrioritize, I can decrease the number of side projects I work on.
It's not always easy. Sometimes you have to make real hard decisions when the road gets bumpy. You will have a lot of different options, and there's times when that $60K salary and 50 hour work week looks pretty good (especially when you're working 70 hours/week for a $0K salary). But I'm telling you, whatever you decide, preserve the dream at all costs. The dream only dies when you let it.
posted by Adam McFarland at
10/10/2006 05:51:00 PM
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