mathiverse's journal

[dustBowl]

Are you still considering going the small business route?

I wouldn't foreclose the possibility at some point, but it's not something I'm actively working towards. It became clear to me as I was looking at the possibility of starting something for myself that I was lacking in the two key categories of 1) vision and 2) sales / marketing skills.

Having watched a close relative start his own business over the last few years, I'm pretty convinced that vision and sales ability are the key skills required of someone who wants to launch a business, not the ability to put together a good product. My relative has essentially no technical skills but was able to successfully scale up a business quickly because he's charismatic - people want to work with him and he can convince them that what he's offering has value. When he needs something technical done, he just hires somebody to do it while he focuses on growing the business (i.e. coming up with new ideas / pitching them to people). To me, that's the mindset that differentiates a 'business' person from a 'technical' person.

I bring up this example because he and I are pretty much exact opposites personality wise, and it was obvious to me that the personality traits that made him successful were ones I would have a hard time emulating.

Of course, sample size = 1, and I might be over-indexing on this specific example because it's the only one I've seen up close. I'm sure there are more technically-oriented businesses that are successful. But it was still very illuminating to watch.

So anyway, I decided my best chance to be successful would be to partner up with someone(s?) who had a strong vision / strong sales skills while I contributed on the technical execution / financial / organizational side. And since I didn't have a clear path to finding those people, I put the whole idea on the back burner.

So to make this whole anecdote applicable to your situation, I would say: as you're thinking about this, consider which of the following roles would be a natural fit for you, and if there are some that you're not interested in, how you're gonna get those roles filled:

• Ideas / vision / figuring out what the business should look like
• Sales / marketing / convincing people that they should give you their money
• Execution / day-to-day running of the business
• Maybe more that I don't know about

[mathiverse]

I appreciate the run down, dustBowl. That makes total sense and your strengths parallel mine since the sales/marketing part and vision are certainly my weak points. I might have someone willing to help me on sales and marketing if I can get a viable vision. I want to develop the skill of having a compelling vision myself rather than working under someone else's so that will have to be an area for growth for me.

Execution/day-to-day running of the business is within my capabilities for the first few years. Though in the long term, if the business reaches a certain point that is to be decided, then I want to be able to hand off the work to a hired business manager.

[dustBowl]

I want to develop the skill of having a compelling vision myself rather than working under someone else's so that will have to be an area for growth for me.

I would be interested in hearing about your experience with this as you go along. I guess I've always considered this to be a more intrinsic personality-type thing, but maybe it's not? Insofar as 'vision' is a skill that can be developed, it's one I'd like to work on also.

[mathiverse]

I'll let you know how it goes.

[DutchGirl]

A report from the sideline... my partner has his own business and has a few employees, but he doesn't create a product. A business can hire them to create code as needed; they are not creating their own product. They are mostly the technical types, not salespeople. Although by delivering good work they now do get asked back if an old client needs more code. At one point they did almost create a product (the idea came from the fact that they needed this product themselves for a client's project), but stopped developing it when they realized selling it would also mean producing it, actually promoting and selling it, the maintenance of the product, handling complaints and requests etc. They didn't want to do that so they just made the item for this client and that was the end of it.

You could perhaps consider consulting, and then take on only projects that sound like fun and only when you want to. Say you never want to work in the winter, or perhaps you ONLY want to work in the winter - perhaps as a consultant you can make it happen.

[mathiverse]

Thanks for the information, DutchGirl. I've considered consulting, but it's not really something I want to pursue directly because I'm looking for something where I can contribute on my own schedule with very few deadlines and where my personal reputation won't be a factor. I would consider inbound requests for consulting work, if any, but I don't want my primary work or income to be consulting.

[Crusader]

I came up with a long list of requirements and desires surrounding my new work set up. I don't know if that list would be useful to share, but I could if it might be.

I would be curious to see this list.

[mathiverse]

EDIT: I posted the list, but on second thought, I'd rather not get comments on it so I removed it.

[Crusader]

Thanks. All of those will be hard to hit. But, on my way to EREfest, I am ashamed to admit that I took an Uber to the airport, but the driver was pretty interesting. He said that he only works for 3 hours a day (something like 6am-9am) and that earns him enough money to live (a frugal) lifestyle. (And he said that he used to make a lot more money before but he quit that life).

I am thinking that your work could be arranged in a similar way to Uber. i.e. you could be a worker drone among many, with some ability to select projects, maybe. Maybe something like:
https://www.toptal.com
(where you tell them you want to work part time)
((also, I've heard very mixed reviews of Toptal, so this is not an endorsement of that particular company))

[mathiverse]

Thanks for the suggestions, Crusader. However, that kind of work doesn't fit several of my requirements, though you are right it fits quite a few of them.

EDIT: Removed a few requirements that were listed

[mathiverse]

I read trailblazer's journal for the first time. More confirmation I probably need to look beyond getting another job whether at a big tech company or a start up.

In the end, it sounds like he started his own company. I hope to do that. I wonder how his business is going now.

[mathiverse]

I've always considered [vision] to be a more intrinsic personality-type thing

Would you mind elaborating on what you see as "vision"? I was surprised to read you thought it was an intrinsic personality-type thing. If this question is answered by E-Myth, then let me know and I'll wait to find the answer there.

[simplex]

> Could you provide a few examples of what constitutes a competitive advantage when it comes to lifestyle businesses?

A competitive advantage can be that you learned in your job about needs of larger customers, see example the indiehackers podcast #16 with the sidekick.org founder. Generally insight into an industry is a competitive advantage.
For example I provide software for specific compliance requirements. From a software standpoint, the coding is simple. However most coders don't know about the compliance requirements, and so can't replicate the software easily.

[mathiverse]

Further thoughts about vision and sales. It strikes me that there are some businesses which require much less charisma-based vision and charisma-based sales. Someone with more charisma may get better results with the same vision and sales techniques, but there are some visions and sales techniques that require little charisma to work out. An advertising campaign doesn't require charisma. Getting people to take a job that pays well doesn't necessarily require charisma. In tech and start ups, there is a huge focus on big crazy visions that might lead to unicorn start up status, but for smaller businesses or more quotidian businesses (eg trade services, accounting services, etc) the minimum necessary vision and charisma are much lower even if they must exist in some way.

[dustBowl]

Would you mind elaborating on what you see as "vision"? I was surprised to read you thought it was an intrinsic personality-type thing. If this question is answered by E-Myth, then let me know and I'll wait to find the answer there.

I'm using 'vision' here in a pretty business-specific way. Synonyms for what I'm thinking could be something like 'entrepreneurial spirit' or less concisely, 'the ability to come up with business ideas that you'll find engaging enough to follow through on and which have some realistic chance of success.'

My perception that entrepreneurial spirit/vision is at least somewhat innate is based on my observation that it seems to manifest in certain people from a fairly young age. E.g. the relative I referenced before has always been, for lack of a better word, a hustler. Ever since he was a kid, he would come up with different ways to make money. In high school he got into flipping street clothes, then in college he started releasing music (unsuccessful from a financial standpoint but made him a lot of connections that paid off later). Etc. etc. And I hear similar backstories among his other entrepreneur friends. Whereas I never did any of that stuff because I just... didn't find it interesting?

But again, this is just anecdote. Maybe it's possible for a person to improve their engaging-idea-generation facilities? Or maybe by getting in touch with their core drives / interests / needs they can get a better understanding of what they would find interesting to work on and what they wouldn't?

Further thoughts about vision and sales. It strikes me that there are some businesses which require much less charisma-based vision and charisma-based sales.

I agree with this. I don't think you need to be the archetypal [Silicon Valley founder / Visionary / Con Man] in order to start a successful business. That's just one archetype among many, and the one that I have the most exposure to. But I still think 'vision' is necessary in the sense I defined above: you have to come up with an idea that you'll find engaging enough that you want to work hard on manifesting it into reality for some significant period of time. And it needs to have a 'realistic' chance of actually finding some kind of user base (realism threshold subject to personal definition of each founder). This is where I failed. I just couldn't come up with anything that I cared about enough work hard on, at least in a business context.

[mathiverse]

Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification, dustBowl!

[mathiverse]

I finished Becoming an Entrepreneur. My next steps are to explore what I know and see if I can tease out a combination of work I might be interested in creating a company to do and potential business opportunity. Simplex explained the advice for idea generation from that book quite well earlier.

Before reading that book, I was pretty sure my background wouldn't help me at all because I'm not interested in being an employee doing the work I used to do or doing business with the types of companies I used to work for, but a quote from the book was:

Your fundamental objective as an entrepreneur is to make yourself redundant... You want to lose your job in within the production process as quickly as possible.

I could live with being the point person for technical matters similar to my old work until I no longer have to be. After a short period of considering who my customers could be, I also noticed that parts of my technical expertise and experience could be scaled down to smaller companies that I'd be more interested in working with even if the exact types of projects that I worked on don't translate to anything smaller than mega-scale corporations.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I can creatively reinvent what I used to do in a way that meant a one person company could manage everything. I have more thinking to do.

[xmj]

Lately, I've been considering going back to work once again. In an effort to find options beyond returning to salaryman life at a high paying tech company, I considered xmj's questions that can be used as a guide to find a work life that I don't want to leave.



I came up with a long list of requirements and desires surrounding my new work set up. However, the idea that popped out was doing a business-to-business software as a service or software product company. It seems as though it would hit most of my requirements after a few years of getting the business going.

The goal would be a lifestyle business that could turn into a more hands off affair in the next 3 years. It's not a goal to match the income I would make as an employee at a top tech company nor is it to become the next unicorn software company. The goal is much more around having flexibility in my work schedule and work style while still earning plenty to pay for the ongoing operation of the business and my own lifestyle expenses with savings on top.

This idea is completely inchoate. However, I wanted to ask if anyone had suggestions on how I can move forward in pursuit of this idea. I'm open to any thoughts and ideas. I will check out any reading recommendations.

What I see as my biggest problem at the moment is the lack of ideas about what to build for customers. So in particular, I'd appreciate advice or guidance on how to find business ideas that might be viable, how to test those ideas, etc.

Thanks for the shoutout! Good to see I've left a lasting positive impression

Thanks for the information, DutchGirl. I've considered consulting, but it's not really something I want to pursue directly because I'm looking for something where I can contribute on my own schedule with very few deadlines and where my personal reputation won't be a factor. I would consider inbound requests for consulting work, if any, but I don't want my primary work or income to be consulting.

I will note here that with the lifestyle business you want to focus on, you either do something bland like dropshipping watch straps (where the straps sell itself, pretty much), or some info product where your reputation will be the main driver.

Think Tim Ferriss' 4 Hour Workweek inspired portfolio of digital assets. It's completely built around his persona.

[mathiverse]

Yes, xmj, I've thought a lot about your post since I first read it! It went in my list of all time favorite posts on the ERE forums even back then. I've been considering more seriously now though since I have been feeling compelled to earn a significant amount of money again and I need to change my approach if I want it to last.

I think there are other business options besides the two you listed which result in a lifestyle business. A lifestyle business is really defined by the flexibility it provides its owner to live the lifestyle they prefer. The first idea that I had was creating a suite of SaaS products where the sales are due to the value proposition for the user rather than the reputation of the creator. Think building and selling tools.

That is, I'm talking about the difference between buying Tim Ferriss's online course because you like his blog (or book or podcast) and paying for a subscription to a marketing tool because you found it increased sales when you tried it out (or your colleague recommended it to you because of their increase in sales). Or paying for a consulting service because the owner has a reputation from going on the talk circuit, writing books, and having a podcast like Jason Turner and C++ consulting versus paying for a consulting service because the business has a reputation for doing good work like hiring BCG for management consulting (where the particular person doing the work isn't important).

Also, despite my last paragraph which may seem like evidence to the contrary, I recognize that every business requires sales and marketing. I am willing to go on sales calls, write advertisements, cold call and cold email customers, and so forth. I'm not willing to do marketing like Tim Ferriss or Dan Koe who put a lot of details of their life out in the open as a part of their personal brand building. That was more the point I was trying to make.

After reading more, it sounds like many successful small businesses get to the point that the owner can consider it a lifestyle business as long as they have a continuous focus on factoring themselves out from the operations, sales, management, and administration. So maybe what I'm interested in is starting a successful small business which has the potential to be run by someone else down the line rather than a lifestyle business and whatever that connotes.

EDIT: Also on further thought, maybe I do agree with you. I'm not going to build a business based on my persona, so, in your dichotomy, I'm stuck with building a business around selling something bland. It'll be bland software tools that sell themselves because they actually solve a problem for the user.

[Crusader]

Reading this, mathiverse, I got reminded of this idea/company that was very successful at selling something "bland". I think they were bought out by Amazon in the end (this was in 2001, also skip the first 10 seconds):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6kR7xkCAQg