My idea is *not* just another business.
How I detest being an entrepreneur
Hi. This is a rant against just about anyone who calls MathHarbor a business, and me, an entrepreneur. So bear with me. Or don’t read it.
What’s an entrepreneur? Let’s check out the Oxford Dictionary — Queen’s English. An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit. Note the last part: in the hope of profit.
Right. For those of you who don’t know about me — Check out my Twitter bio or the MathHarbor website. I’m into a lot of different things at the same time — things that don’t exactly have the profit motive attached. Take my research on Vlad the Impaler, or my upcoming work on a definitive book on the Axis powers, all of them. Then, tech. MathHarbor, which aims to make numerical modeling on the cloud more awesome, for students, professors and institutions. I’m not exactly out there, to make a profit. I’m there, because I love MathHarbor, and I’m certain it will add tons of value. Other ideas I’m working on — an app to share the love of coffee with others, another app to help out when it comes to learning a foreign language — it’s because I feel they can genuinely add value. Or maybe, make life a tad more interesting, for me, and for the people who use them.
So, when people ask me how I feel, being an entrepreneur, I recoil. When people ask me what kind of disruption does MathHarbor promise, or what the traction is like, or the tons of other fancy words they throw, to imply that my startup’s a profit-making startup — NO. If we make a profit, great. If we don’t, I just hope we make enough, to keep the lights on. Because we’re not in it, to profit. We’re in it, to add value. Where are the good old days, when it was all about learning, and being something people aspire to, instead of just being a business entity that gets funded by all the big names in the VC arena, and goes on to make a profit, but not really do something awesome?
You might say I’m naive, an idealist. I stand guilty, as charged.
