Saturday
Want to understand the blood, sweat and tears of a real entrepreneur? Check out the following article from Keith Weiner, C.E.O. of Monetary Metals. It was published at Keith Weiner Economics
The life of an entrepreneur is not what most people would call “normal”. I don’t refer to the guy who buys a fast-food franchise. Nor to the gal who builds a chain of hair salons. Nor to the folks who have law or accounting firms. These are all entrepreneurship. I don’t know a lot about how these businesses work, but I do know one thing. They should reach cash-flow positive very quickly, and if not, then something is wrong. And most of them reach their capacity fairly quickly too. They do not have the open-ended upside of a global corporation. Nor the ever-looming possibility of utter failure.
I refer to the entrepreneur who starts something Big (something like 3D voice or a gold monetary system). And the challenge is that Big things necessarily have to get… well… big. They don’t work at the scale of one person in a home office, or a few people in a storefront. They require inputs of lots of capital, talented specialists who are willing to buy-in to the mission before it’s realized, and early customers willing to take a chance on not just an unknown company, but an unproven concept.
This kind of entrepreneur is only certain of chronic uncertainty, he must be comfortable with chronic discomfort. He rides a roller coaster that soars to manic, euphoric highs one day, and crushing, despairing lows the next. He usually doesn’t know where his next problem will come flying out of, who his next customer will be, who will want to come work for his company, or where he will find his next round of funding.
Lots of things could come out of Left Field to derail your vision: a manager could go bad, a key employee could quit, a vendor could decide it doesn’t want your business any more, a regulator could decide the public would be safer if he distracted you for a few months and bled you of a hundred thousand dollars. Did I mention there was always uncertainty?
In the early days, in this kind of entrepreneurial venture, the whole world agrees on one thing. You’re wrong. Your whole concept does not make sense. Actually, two things. You are not just wrong but a damnfool. You better be OK with that, because you are going to have to work very hard. Not just hard, tirelessly, relentlessly, doggedly to prove yourself right. You, a damnfool working on an idea that the whole world agrees does not make sense.
Read it all HERE