No Risk No Reward (Subtitle: STFU)

Friday night..

I am coding, debugging the shopping cart code for purchase of upgrades to page.ly.

Thinking about how much time

and money

and diversion of resources

and missed opportunity

and stress

and sleepless nights

and…

Startups are hell and joy, defeat and glory all at once.

Nearly seven years and 4 legitimate (all money making.. even if some are not profitable) startup’s, and dozens of late night ideas turned into websites later and I still don’t know why I do it.

Thinking about my close friends and business colleagues.. estimating how much time and $ they put into their own projects.. $1 million dollars totalled before I get to the 4th name on list of 8.

Thinking of the bitch ass punks that talk trash with their hand out. Cashing their paycheck while at the same time thinking they can to it better than me.

Are we a service business, or a product business? How many client projects do we need to float us, to buy us the time to work on the internal projects?  How fast can we get product to market, how quickly will it scale, when will client work no longer be needed? Gotta make payroll next week. Will I go broke before then?

Everyday it is looking for the next client gig or spending those earnings developing a product.

If none of this makes sense to you, STFU and punch your time card.

EPILOGUE (30 minutes later):

So yeah.. that sounded a bit harsh. I am not busting on the honest working man.  I put my self thru college on various construction crews. Nothing wrong with working for someone else.

Just reflecting more so on the sacrifices entrepreneurs in general make to realize their dreams.. huge sums of money and effort that go into starting, running, and building a business… employing others, taking the smallest paycheck, working 18 hours a day – forever.

Risking it all..