A yellow Ferrari raced down the street and fantasies automatically appear in my head, what would have happened if I had been in his place. For sure, you would definitely not fall face down in the dirt, you think that if only there was an opportunity and you would definitely use it to the maximum. But is it so? Everything in life has its price and are you ready to exchange your time for the ghostly prospects of entrepreneurship?
In my deep conviction, everyone can do business, while enjoying and making a profit. By myself, I know how difficult it is to leave the familiar places in large corporations (I worked at KPMG, ADIDAS, WEATHERFORD) and make a difficult choice in favor of my passion to create a company with almost no start-up capital and on naked enthusiasm.
In this post, using my example, I want to tell you what you will have to sacrifice in order to enter the slippery slope of entrepreneurship.
For myself, I have developed a rule of 24+ months. I have seen from many examples of my projects and from the entrepreneurial experience of friends that in order to bring a young enterprise to the level of decent income and profit, you need to work hard on it for at least 24 months and devote 3/4 of your time only to him. Of course, you can make a profit earlier, but I'm talking about a relatively stable company that has regular customers and a more or less predictable income.
If you start your entrepreneurial path only with the goal of working less, then I have to disappoint you — 10 out of 10 successful businessmen who started from scratch work 70+ hours a week. In the first year of my main project's life, I had to wake up at 6 a.m. and go to bed at 12 a.m. Although, to be honest, the only difference compared to corporate employment was that I didn't notice the time at all and was absolutely absorbed in what I was doing.
It is very good if your environment supports you, but often you will not be understood. Previously, when I received a salary twice a month, I was insured and, in addition, had clear prospects for annual career growth, I was loved and respected, but when I realized that I could realize myself much more in another field and took several drastic steps towards my friends and colleagues became “delicately” not to call me, so as not to disturb the peace. Most of my entourage considered me weak and someone who could not maintain a high standard of corporate life. Despite the fact that after several years a huge financial and intellectual gap has formed between me and my former colleagues, I prefer not to keep in touch with them, since many of them have not added an understanding of why and why I went into my business.
The myth never ceases to amaze me — “I'm starting a business, I'll put the right people and I'll smoke bamboo, watching how everything works without me.” Surely the motivation of those who say this is definitely not the full realization of themselves, but something else. Business as a child requires constant presence and every minute attention and care. You can forget about vacation in the usual sense for 4-5 years. Even if you manage to escape somewhere, you will constantly monitor your phone, mailbox, social media groups, and so on. Personally, I still haven't been able to learn how to be completely distracted — recently I was in the Crimea and all I did was correspond with partners and clients on Skype, sitting on a chaise longue and forgetting where I am and why I came here.
Do you want to buy yourself a car or new furniture home? It seems to me that you will soon forget about this, because you will have super cool opportunities to buy advertising, purchase goods at a great price or hire a unique but expensive employee. You know, it is at such moments that I understand the true value of money. I had a kind of phase shift — money should make money and now every time I evaluate whether it's worth buying something, I think what long-term value this purchase will bring me.
A few years ago, my family and I were on the threshold of the fact that we could lose the apartment mortgaged for business. We were threatened, harassed with constant calls, stress accompanied us 24 hours a day, but no matter what, we continued to believe that the company we started was really unique and potentially very profitable. Now that we have paid off our debts, returned our apartment and brought the business to an acceptable level of profitability, I realized that I would not start any such project again without great faith in what I was doing. There are a lot of ideas floating around us and if you want to check whether you can really build a business on one of them, ask yourself the question are you ready to risk your housing for her. If your answer is — no, keep searching and analyzing.
All these difficulties and shortcomings, which I wrote about in this post, are nothing compared to the freedom that you can gain after. Today I am looking forward to a new day, I am surrounded by the smartest and most interesting people on the planet and I clearly know what I want. I have achieved a kind of enlightenment and removed from life all that does not matter. The path that I had to go through is not easy, but if I had to repeat it, I would not think for a second.
About the author:
He worked for several years in large Western corporations (KPMG, ADIDAS, WEATHERFORD). At the moment I am engaged in several online projects (the main direction is the creation and promotion of online games). I am trying to show by my example that everyone can become a profitable entrepreneur.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dmitriy-dmitriyev/16/a24/16a
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