Entrepreneurship is hard, really hard and a startup is often the most important part of an entrepreneur’s life. If you getting started with a new business, you know that you live, breathe it and think about your business every minute of every day of your life.
It is also hard because
- Convincing folks to believe in in your vision is not easy. That is the acid test of most entrepreneurs. Selling the vision to customers, partners, employees and investors.
- You’re always running out of cash. You’re always trying to get in new revenue or new investment. This cycle is never ending, especially in a high growth cycle. Financial insecurity scares a lot of people and easily breaks families.
- You’re probably working on a holiday weekend or evening and making a many personal sacrifices. The risk of burnout is real and ongoing unless you keep an active life. You could end up being seriously unwell if you’re not spending enough time working out and eating healthy.
- Getting shit done, is also hard. Building skills and following processes is non trivial. Whether it is a tech business or a restaurant, maintaining processes requires discipline.
- Hiring people in this competitive era is even harder, especially in saturated places like the Bay Area where companies pay $100k base salaries.
- There’s no set formula for success. Just because you’ve been successful in the past does not mean you’ll be successful again. Just because you’re failing now doesn’t mean you won’t succeed.
- It is hard to keep spirits high, all the time but you have to do it. You’ll have to learn to put on a show. You’ll have to learn to beat stress, avoid a burnout while yet working many a times for insane hours.
So what drives entrepreneurs? Why do people risk it all and dive in?
For me, I love building something that makes an impact. That impact is solving my customers’ problems. That impact is improving the lives of people who work with me. The long term goal is to make that impact at a much larger scale.
Katy Nelson, Executive Chef and Owner of Scenic Route Bakery from downtown Des Moines said,
“There are a whole bunch of reasons. I always wanted to own something. I’ve also worked in a lot of really bad work environments which led me to wanting to make an environment that people loved to work. I also absolutely love the challenge of managing people.”
Darryl Jose, my co-founder at Reduce Data said,
“Success is what drives me”.
Shashank Vaishnav, Co-founder of Vatasana said,
“It is fun to create something about which you think day and night. It gives you immense pleasure to bring your thought to reality. I love it when I see people using stuff created by us.”
Dinesh Kumar, CEO of Railsfactory said,
“The freedom to choose my path and chase my dream, no matter what it takes..is what drives me.”
Karthik Raichura, CEO of Management paradise said,
“It is the drive for making a difference in peoples lives and be remembered and cherished for your contribution.”
Matthews Babu, Co-founder at Datafactors said
“I am addicted to the freedom of building a product from an idea which can at least solve a real problem irrespective of how big or small the problem is.”
Finally, there’s one over-aching message that came out of my conversations with many entrepreneurs. And that is — this shit is hard, but we will never stop trying.
