it’s real hard

June 24th, 2014 § 2 comments § permalink

A supernova remnant about 20,000 light years f...

A supernova remnant about 20,000 light years from Earth (Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution)

building a company is incredibly hard. so hard, that it often drives some of the smartest and most capable people i know mad, because in the spur of the moment they dont understand what is wrong with them that they are still ‘unsucessful’. truth is, they are pretty sucessful comparatevily, and they are doing all the right things, but building a company is just hard.

it takes 5-9 years to build a company said eric 7 years ago. i was shocked, because i lived in a techcrunch bubble, just like 80% of young ambitious entrepreneurs i meet. i guess this bubble actually enables creation of at least half of the startups, because it fills them with optimism.

2 years later, after blind optimism wears out, all you are (hopefully) left with is groundworks for the actual future company and the burning ambition to prove everyone that you weren’t wrong. in reality, if you survived 2 years, that probably means you have a team or some market validation or some traction, or some angels, or some advisors, or any combination of them, and you are actually light years ahead of where you’ve been. but it still feels dissapointing.

dissapointments is a function of expectation often said my brother and our first ceo ales. and he was right, entrepreneur must at some point in time suspend her expectations and face the reality – your company will be something else than what you imagined on that cocktail night, but it’s going to be real, and shaped by thousands of interations of other people with it, where you are merely a sheppard. observe, react, nudge, endure.

if the only thing that’s missing is ‘success’, you’re probably on the right track. forget your ego and enjoy and learn.

can entrepreneur really work ‘virtually’ ?

May 15th, 2012 § Comments Off on can entrepreneur really work ‘virtually’ ? § permalink

Indonesia

Indonesia (Photo credit: zsoolt)

this article suggests that it depends on the type of a business, which sounds like a safe bet.

Entrepreneurs: Do You really Need Virtual Offices?

In today’s business world, working in a location independent manner is possible – thanks to the enabling technologies, such as mobile technology, the Internet, and such. You are now enabled to, say, live in Bali, Indonesia while having your business operates in, say, Canberra, Australia;…

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via: www.noobpreneur.com

… however, my experience is that you have to, you really must be close to your clients (or users). if being close means hanging out on their IRC channel then fine, but more often it means at least a local phone number and ability to take them out for lunch/coffee.

if you’re thinking about a startup, assume that you will have to relocate to where your clients are. period.

 

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