Written in 2014.
Friends who know me well know that I own several businesses, not just the two I talk about here most. There’s a real estate investment business, a couple of smaller holding companies, alongside the home care business and the Care Patrol of the Triangle franchise.
The joke is that I’m starting yet another business, just because I can.
I’ve also got involved in several friends’ businesses — sometimes as an advisor, sometimes as a sounding board, occasionally as something more integral. Business is a subject that genuinely fascinates me. It keeps me busy. I can’t claim it keeps me out of trouble, but it certainly keeps me entertained.
Launching something successful takes expertise, knowledge and grit. It also takes cash, patience and persistence, which get mentioned rather less often.
My business partner laughs at the things I get myself into. She dared me to write about yet another one here, so here it is.
Why it becomes addictive
Once you’re hooked on building things, it’s difficult to stop. I find digging through a friend’s advertising, or their website, or how they’ve structured an offer, genuinely interesting. I invite myself along for the ride fairly regularly, learn a great deal, and contribute what I can.
Because that’s what I do.
What I’d add now
Two things, written some years later, because “I start businesses because I can” is a sentence worth examining rather than just enjoying.
The addictive part is the beginning, and the beginning is the easy part. Starting something is genuinely exhilarating — the blank page, the plan, the first customer, the sense that anything is possible. What follows is years of unglamorous maintenance, and the two require completely different temperaments.
People who love starting things frequently have a graveyard of half-built projects behind them, and they’ll tell you it’s because the ideas didn’t work out. Usually the ideas were fine. What ran out was interest, at exactly the point where the work became repetitive.
Worth knowing which kind of person you are, because it’s a fact about you rather than about the opportunities.
And every additional business costs more than it looks like. Not in money, in attention. Each one needs decisions from you, and decisions are the genuinely scarce resource in an owner-run company — not hours and not capital. Two businesses at half attention frequently produce less than one at full attention, and it takes a surprisingly long time to notice, because both of them are technically still moving.
I’d still say yes to most of it. But I’d say it knowing that “I can” and “I should” are different questions, and that the second one is the one nobody asks when the idea is new and exciting.
The offer stands
I’d genuinely like to hear about what you’re building. If you want a second opinion, I’m frequently available for one.
Fair warning: I have strong opinions and I’ll tell you what I think. Most people say they want that. Rather fewer mean it.
