06/21/2009

I just read an interesting article entitled “Entrepreneurship Is Not Sexy” by Rob May. The article is summed up pretty well in this quote:

People often tell me that they want to start their own business, they just need an idea. What they really need is to just start doing something. Entrepreneurship isn’t about wild launch parties and billion-dollar IPO’s before age 30. Those types of things are rare, as is most of the entrepreneurship that is portrayed in the media. Most entrepreneurs, and the stuff that they do, isn’t featured in magazines because it isn’t really sexy.

That’s spot-on. I’ve been an entrepreneur for ten years now, and I can say that for most of those ten years it’s been a real grind. Late hours, weekends, pulling my hair out, pounding my head against a wall, worrying about where the next paycheck will come from, figuring out how to get deadbeat clients to pay up, taking on the role of the programmer, the sales guy, the marketeer, the accountant, and the manager. It’s an unbelievable amount of work, and there have been many times when I was ready to throw in the towel, find a nice geeky programming job somewhere, and let someone else tell me what to do so I didn’t have to figure it all out for myself.

Yet there are rewards, and it’s those little things that make it all worthwhile in the end. Having a client thank me for a job well done, or praise one of my guys, or say they’re surprised and immensely pleased that we were able to figure out such-and-such a problem that their other agency wouldn’t touch… rising to the challenge and accomplishing something like that is a darn good feeling.

We don’t win all the battles, and these days things are pretty tough. Rob May is right: entrepreneurship is definitely not sexy. But I’m glad I did it, and I hope I can continue walking this road.