I’m fine with failing. I’m going to limit initial capital and if I fail, I’ll try again. That simple. I think I’d rather spend my whole life failing over and over than rotting in a cube 5/7 days every week waiting for life to resume on the weekends.
This attitude works in theory. If you have deep pocketbooks, then you can afford to fail a lot. Otherwise, just one failure can put you out on the street. And when that happens, people won’t say “ah, he was an entrepreneur, how noble his failure.” They’ll say “he wasted his money on some silly dream.” Sort of the way people on AF do.
You can say “I don’t care about that,” but if it limits your other options in life, you will. If you’ve failed in a business, you may have some experience, but you are also a lot more dependent on other people’s opinions of you: your employability, your credit rating, your desirability as a mate.
If you are independently wealthy and can afford to fail, then by all means try your fortunes, but I think your argument was that everyone should be willing to be a failed entrepreneur: independently wealthy or not.
I’m not saying that entrepreneurship is bad… but you have to look at it realistically, and not idolize it the way Ayn Rand does.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
BS - you fail to see a lot of things. starting a business will be good for your vision. i hope you do it.
Good deal man. I mean, I grew up my entire life working for a small family manufacturing business as the right hand man and made $60k a year through college starting and running my own landscaping firm, but obviously I’m the uneducated one here, and not the dumb@ss who has no background and can’t back up his claims.
I’m fine with failing. I’m going to limit initial capital and if I fail, I’ll try again. That simple. I think I’d rather spend my whole life failing over and over than rotting in a cube 5/7 days every week waiting for life to resume on the weekends.
This attitude works in theory. If you have deep pocketbooks, then you can afford to fail a lot. Otherwise, just one failure can put you out on the street. And when that happens, people won’t say “ah, he was an entrepreneur, how noble his failure.” They’ll say “he wasted his money on some silly dream.” Sort of the way people on AF do.
You can say “I don’t care about that,” but if it limits your other options in life, you will. If you’ve failed in a business, you may have some experience, but you are also a lot more dependent on other people’s opinions of you: your employability, your credit rating, your desirability as a mate.
If you are independently wealthy and can afford to fail, then by all means try your fortunes, but I think your argument was that everyone should be willing to be a failed entrepreneur: independently wealthy or not.
I’m not saying that entrepreneurship is bad… but you have to look at it realistically, and not idolize it the way Ayn Rand does.
My situation will allow for some failures. But moreover, I think a conservative business model that uses low capital, like starting a local outdoor clothing company would work well. I basically already have some guaranteed press and distribution through the local whitewater and adventure racing outfitters. I’ve been looking at this off and on for the past 5 years. Honestly, I think you can drastically alter the statistics by eliminating bar and restuarant as well as other “glam” startups such as vineyards.
My main point wasn’t so much that everyone should be an entrepreneur but that it has become much less common because people are more risk averse. The essence of the point was that the headline “America no longer land of opportunity” is misleading. Individuals are simply not willing to undertake the risks (which are not significantly different than historical levels) associated with seizing the opportunities.
I grew up in the country, and most people were self employed. Either doing their own cleaning service, or plumbing service, or maybe operating a small hardware store or wheel and tire shop, mechanic outfit, whatever. These are the small businesses I’m refering to, and they’re the fields that are still paying well and seeking new people. There doesn’t seem to be as much of that now. And I also believe the failure rates for said businesses are significantly lower than the glam startups or the swing for the fences ideas most people aim for in urban environments.
It seems like repeated business failures over many years would be far more demoralizing than working for a big company.
Different points of view I suppose. The guaranteed outcome of spending 5 days a week doing something I don’t believe in is a certainty I’m unwilling to accept.
BS - you fail to see a lot of things. starting a business will be good for your vision. i hope you do it.
Good deal man. I mean, I grew up my entire life working for a small family manufacturing business as the right hand man and made $60k a year through college starting and running my own landscaping firm, but obviously I’m the uneducated one here, and not the dumb@ss who has no background and can’t back up his claims.
i guess your internet search for Turd Fergeson didn’t reveal my experience. i prefer not to whip it out and measure here, so i’ll leave it at that. good luck to ya.
Nothing better than annoymous internet hints of grandeur. You must be one of those super successful startup entrepreneurs who made mega millions and decided to recently get a CFA for no apparent reason and then start spending your billionaire time posting on AF? Did I get it right?
yea brah. nothing better than basking in the glow of daddy’s success and parlaying that into a successful weed picking venture and calling that entrepreneurship. i think i saw your resume in my stack. you were the summer intern who was “responsible” for investing over $100 million in the two months you were at JT Marlin. nice picture bro, you look like a real winner. see that, it’s easy to be a d-bag on an annonomous forum.
yea brah. nothing better than basking in the glow of daddy’s success and parlaying that into a successful weed picking venture and calling that entrepreneurship. i think i saw your resume in my stack. you were the summer intern who was “responsible” for investing over $100 million in the two months you were at JT Marlin. nice picture bro, you look like a real winner. see that, it’s easy to be a d-bag on an annonomous forum.
So I was right after all? lol
Weak try son, shoe doesn’t fit. Better luck next time.
BS, I see what you mean, and as I was writing this, I thought about things like plumbers and bicycle shops and legal and medical practices and figured that the failure rate on those would be lower than bars an restaurants and things.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I think the difference is most people are looking for companies tha require large startup and trying to hit homeruns. A lot of the small businesses I’m referring to are more like freelance, although some are actually manufacturing. For me personally, I would be happy if I could make 80-100k a year just to trade the personal freedom of working for myself and doing what I believe in.
I’m fine with failing. I’m going to limit initial capital and if I fail, I’ll try again. That simple. I think I’d rather spend my whole life failing over and over than rotting in a cube 5/7 days every week waiting for life to resume on the weekends.
I agree with this. I actually have a lot of friends who tried to have their own business in that way - and probably none of them had your business knowledge. Some failed. Some managed to succeed. As long as you don’t leverage your life on your business (and don’t have four kids to put through school or obligations like that) you may fail and try again.
Just remember that having your own business is a lot of work - if you want things to go well you’ll probably work more than at almost any job, at least for the first couple years. Of course its better to work hard when the profits will be reaped by you/your company, so that’s motivation as well.
I think the difference is most people are looking for companies tha require large startup and trying to hit homeruns. A lot of the small businesses I’m referring to are more like freelance, although some are actually manufacturing. For me personally, I would be happy if I could make 80-100k a year just to trade the personal freedom of working for myself and doing what I believe in.
I’m fine with failing. I’m going to limit initial capital and if I fail, I’ll try again. That simple. I think I’d rather spend my whole life failing over and over than rotting in a cube 5/7 days every week waiting for life to resume on the weekends.
You’d be lucky to make that much money, extremely lucky. Like you I know alot of young entrepenuers and even the successfull ones are lucky to crack 60K because they simply don’t have the scale to their business that allows them to earn that much, also they put in 60-80 hours a week. I think you may not have fully assessed what being a small scale enterpeneur is like, alot of people have a romantic notion about working for themselves but it takes extreme focus and the ability to happily eat ramen noodles and face constant rejection until you add scale. As for scale, well, it also takes capital.
One thing to have in mind is that the entrepreneur must be able to be very very humble. He needs to be able to satisfy (kiss as*) every single client no matter how crazy they are, and some people find that harder than “satisfying” a couple bosses.
No, you don’t have to satisfy every single client. You have to satisfy the good clients, and you have to be reasonable about what you and they should expect. In the beginning, you might need to let people lowball you just to prove yourself, but once you do, you need to get rid of lowballing clients as soon as you have enough other work to do so.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
You don’t have to start something on your own. I got out of a big corporate shop and to a smaller scaleup company with great product, leadership, and culture, and couldn’t be happier (although it was disappointing that we didn’t 3-peat in the Friday flip cup tournament - at least the team we lost to in the finals had a couple hotties on it). There are things out there in between corp/starting your own shop.
Good luck bros. Life is too short to do something you hate.
No, you don’t have to satisfy every single client. You have to satisfy the good clients, and you have to be reasonable about what you and they should expect. In the beginning, you might need to let people lowball you just to prove yourself, but once you do, you need to get rid of lowballing clients as soon as you have enough other work to do so.
Well, it really depends on the type of business, location and what not, but dissatisfied clients can deal a lot of damage to a small business. You gotta be careful on “getting rid” of clients since you may want them to go away, but you don’t want them to badmouth you or worse.
If I recall correctly, Kotler’s marketing book says something like a dissatisfied customer tells 9 people about it. Since they usually tell that with rage, that’s a pretty big issue for small diners or gyms, for instance. Also, what I’ve seen from friends who tried the entrepreneur rote is that the clients who are easily raged are often the unreasonable ones. You may not want them, but anything that might be interpreted as a “screw you” may backfire.
I understand your point, but in practice I think its sometimes hard to be reasonable enough about what they should expect. Basically, you need to underpromise and overdeliver to some extent, but to also be ready to deal with a bunch of weirdos - you may not waste money on them, but you’ll almost certainly need to sweet talk people that you may not like all that much. Not to mention that some very profitable clients can be jackasses too, just to remind the entrepreneur how finance was like.
Marketing books often use the terms satisfy and delight. Delight is for the customers you really want. Satisfy is for everyone else so they don’t go out hating on you. So even if you want to de-market it’s usually best to do it in a way that all clients still think you love them.
I don’t think there’s much room for pride when owning a business - suddenly everyone is your boss.
I don’t think there’s much room for pride when owning a business - suddenly everyone is your boss.
I like this and find it true.
I see your point, Crazyman. I was thinking about my own consulting, but for restaurants and gyms and other businesses, you are right that unsatisfied customers can do a lot of damage. I didn’t mean that it’s ok to piss off customers, but simply unreasonable requests do not always need to be honored as if you are their slave.
I did some consulting for a major IB/AM firm. When I got the job, I thought it might be a nice route to a possible full time gig there. Everything looked good. Then I started interacting with the head guy, who was definitely a DSM-IV type personality. It was pure hell, and everyone in the unit was constantly on tenterhooks with him. For me, as a consultant, it was great to be able to deal with the hell for a few weeks, knowing that - at the end - we could shake hands and I’d never have to deal with him again.
As a full-time employee, my only choices would have been to knuckle under, or quit.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I don’t think there’s much room for pride when owning a business - suddenly everyone is your boss.
I like this and find it true.
I see your point, Crazyman. I was thinking about my own consulting, but for restaurants and gyms and other businesses, you are right that unsatisfied customers can do a lot of damage. I didn’t mean that it’s ok to piss off customers, but simply unreasonable requests do not always need to be honored as if you are their slave.
I concede there’s a point you simply can’t help anymore. My friend who had the gym had a customer who got extremely angry because my friend did not hire some guy she recommended - and the candidate was not even qualified for the job (a degree was required by law for the function). You can’t really satisfy that.
So this customer would complain about the smallest craziest things, and he would just smile and tell her how grateful he was for the input and what not, but never accomodated her unreasonable wishes - he said to me that everyday he did a conscious effort to not send this lady to hell…
This attitude works in theory. If you have deep pocketbooks, then you can afford to fail a lot. Otherwise, just one failure can put you out on the street. And when that happens, people won’t say “ah, he was an entrepreneur, how noble his failure.” They’ll say “he wasted his money on some silly dream.” Sort of the way people on AF do.
You can say “I don’t care about that,” but if it limits your other options in life, you will. If you’ve failed in a business, you may have some experience, but you are also a lot more dependent on other people’s opinions of you: your employability, your credit rating, your desirability as a mate.
If you are independently wealthy and can afford to fail, then by all means try your fortunes, but I think your argument was that everyone should be willing to be a failed entrepreneur: independently wealthy or not.
I’m not saying that entrepreneurship is bad… but you have to look at it realistically, and not idolize it the way Ayn Rand does.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
It seems like repeated business failures over many years would be far more demoralizing than working for a big company.
“I’m a CPA! I got money b***h!”
Good deal man. I mean, I grew up my entire life working for a small family manufacturing business as the right hand man and made $60k a year through college starting and running my own landscaping firm, but obviously I’m the uneducated one here, and not the dumb@ss who has no background and can’t back up his claims.
I used to smoke pot and go to class.
Sneak in ten minutes late with a bullsh*t excuse.
Slink down low at my desk.
Pray to god nobody asked me any questions.
I was the best teacher ever.
My situation will allow for some failures. But moreover, I think a conservative business model that uses low capital, like starting a local outdoor clothing company would work well. I basically already have some guaranteed press and distribution through the local whitewater and adventure racing outfitters. I’ve been looking at this off and on for the past 5 years. Honestly, I think you can drastically alter the statistics by eliminating bar and restuarant as well as other “glam” startups such as vineyards.
My main point wasn’t so much that everyone should be an entrepreneur but that it has become much less common because people are more risk averse. The essence of the point was that the headline “America no longer land of opportunity” is misleading. Individuals are simply not willing to undertake the risks (which are not significantly different than historical levels) associated with seizing the opportunities.
I grew up in the country, and most people were self employed. Either doing their own cleaning service, or plumbing service, or maybe operating a small hardware store or wheel and tire shop, mechanic outfit, whatever. These are the small businesses I’m refering to, and they’re the fields that are still paying well and seeking new people. There doesn’t seem to be as much of that now. And I also believe the failure rates for said businesses are significantly lower than the glam startups or the swing for the fences ideas most people aim for in urban environments.
I used to smoke pot and go to class.
Sneak in ten minutes late with a bullsh*t excuse.
Slink down low at my desk.
Pray to god nobody asked me any questions.
I was the best teacher ever.
Different points of view I suppose. The guaranteed outcome of spending 5 days a week doing something I don’t believe in is a certainty I’m unwilling to accept.
I used to smoke pot and go to class.
Sneak in ten minutes late with a bullsh*t excuse.
Slink down low at my desk.
Pray to god nobody asked me any questions.
I was the best teacher ever.
i guess your internet search for Turd Fergeson didn’t reveal my experience. i prefer not to whip it out and measure here, so i’ll leave it at that. good luck to ya.
KISS MY CONVERSE.
Nothing better than annoymous internet hints of grandeur. You must be one of those super successful startup entrepreneurs who made mega millions and decided to recently get a CFA for no apparent reason and then start spending your billionaire time posting on AF? Did I get it right?
I used to smoke pot and go to class.
Sneak in ten minutes late with a bullsh*t excuse.
Slink down low at my desk.
Pray to god nobody asked me any questions.
I was the best teacher ever.
Studying With
I’m a billionaire tech entrepreneur, but I still did CFA for the knowledge. Now I don’t need no family offiz, dawg.
“Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money and people are willing pay us a lot to make money for them.”
yea brah. nothing better than basking in the glow of daddy’s success and parlaying that into a successful weed picking venture and calling that entrepreneurship. i think i saw your resume in my stack. you were the summer intern who was “responsible” for investing over $100 million in the two months you were at JT Marlin. nice picture bro, you look like a real winner. see that, it’s easy to be a d-bag on an annonomous forum.
KISS MY CONVERSE.
Studying With
Just like you to make fun of a baby panda, Turd.
“Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money and people are willing pay us a lot to make money for them.”
not you. that was for BS.
KISS MY CONVERSE.
So I was right after all? lol
Weak try son, shoe doesn’t fit. Better luck next time.
I used to smoke pot and go to class.
Sneak in ten minutes late with a bullsh*t excuse.
Slink down low at my desk.
Pray to god nobody asked me any questions.
I was the best teacher ever.
BS, I see what you mean, and as I was writing this, I thought about things like plumbers and bicycle shops and legal and medical practices and figured that the failure rate on those would be lower than bars an restaurants and things.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I agree with this. I actually have a lot of friends who tried to have their own business in that way - and probably none of them had your business knowledge. Some failed. Some managed to succeed. As long as you don’t leverage your life on your business (and don’t have four kids to put through school or obligations like that) you may fail and try again.
Just remember that having your own business is a lot of work - if you want things to go well you’ll probably work more than at almost any job, at least for the first couple years. Of course its better to work hard when the profits will be reaped by you/your company, so that’s motivation as well.
You’d be lucky to make that much money, extremely lucky. Like you I know alot of young entrepenuers and even the successfull ones are lucky to crack 60K because they simply don’t have the scale to their business that allows them to earn that much, also they put in 60-80 hours a week. I think you may not have fully assessed what being a small scale enterpeneur is like, alot of people have a romantic notion about working for themselves but it takes extreme focus and the ability to happily eat ramen noodles and face constant rejection until you add scale. As for scale, well, it also takes capital.
One thing to have in mind is that the entrepreneur must be able to be very very humble. He needs to be able to satisfy (kiss as*) every single client no matter how crazy they are, and some people find that harder than “satisfying” a couple bosses.
No, you don’t have to satisfy every single client. You have to satisfy the good clients, and you have to be reasonable about what you and they should expect. In the beginning, you might need to let people lowball you just to prove yourself, but once you do, you need to get rid of lowballing clients as soon as you have enough other work to do so.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
You don’t have to start something on your own. I got out of a big corporate shop and to a smaller scaleup company with great product, leadership, and culture, and couldn’t be happier (although it was disappointing that we didn’t 3-peat in the Friday flip cup tournament - at least the team we lost to in the finals had a couple hotties on it). There are things out there in between corp/starting your own shop.
Good luck bros. Life is too short to do something you hate.
No quote needed
Well, it really depends on the type of business, location and what not, but dissatisfied clients can deal a lot of damage to a small business. You gotta be careful on “getting rid” of clients since you may want them to go away, but you don’t want them to badmouth you or worse.
If I recall correctly, Kotler’s marketing book says something like a dissatisfied customer tells 9 people about it. Since they usually tell that with rage, that’s a pretty big issue for small diners or gyms, for instance. Also, what I’ve seen from friends who tried the entrepreneur rote is that the clients who are easily raged are often the unreasonable ones. You may not want them, but anything that might be interpreted as a “screw you” may backfire.
I understand your point, but in practice I think its sometimes hard to be reasonable enough about what they should expect. Basically, you need to underpromise and overdeliver to some extent, but to also be ready to deal with a bunch of weirdos - you may not waste money on them, but you’ll almost certainly need to sweet talk people that you may not like all that much. Not to mention that some very profitable clients can be jackasses too, just to remind the entrepreneur how finance was like.
Marketing books often use the terms satisfy and delight. Delight is for the customers you really want. Satisfy is for everyone else so they don’t go out hating on you. So even if you want to de-market it’s usually best to do it in a way that all clients still think you love them.
I don’t think there’s much room for pride when owning a business - suddenly everyone is your boss.
I like this and find it true.
I see your point, Crazyman. I was thinking about my own consulting, but for restaurants and gyms and other businesses, you are right that unsatisfied customers can do a lot of damage. I didn’t mean that it’s ok to piss off customers, but simply unreasonable requests do not always need to be honored as if you are their slave.
I did some consulting for a major IB/AM firm. When I got the job, I thought it might be a nice route to a possible full time gig there. Everything looked good. Then I started interacting with the head guy, who was definitely a DSM-IV type personality. It was pure hell, and everyone in the unit was constantly on tenterhooks with him. For me, as a consultant, it was great to be able to deal with the hell for a few weeks, knowing that - at the end - we could shake hands and I’d never have to deal with him again.
As a full-time employee, my only choices would have been to knuckle under, or quit.
You want a quote? Haven’t I written enough already???
I concede there’s a point you simply can’t help anymore. My friend who had the gym had a customer who got extremely angry because my friend did not hire some guy she recommended - and the candidate was not even qualified for the job (a degree was required by law for the function). You can’t really satisfy that.
So this customer would complain about the smallest craziest things, and he would just smile and tell her how grateful he was for the input and what not, but never accomodated her unreasonable wishes - he said to me that everyday he did a conscious effort to not send this lady to hell…
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