We’re getting ready to incorporate our business. Part of the expectations-setting process on my team was fleshing out the personal reasons for wanting to commit to building a new business. Here are my reasons.
- Build something that I would really like to have/use (satisfy a personal need; understanding/tracking health, in my case)
- Benefit large group of people (make a difference in the world)
- Feel in control of life (bypass corporate agendas)
- Pursue own creative ideas
- Make own decisions (or at least have a major say)
- Have fun, be passionate (thus be able/motivated to really be devoted to making it successful)
- Make enough money to pay mortgage and support family (but maintain frugality/minimalism perspective with children), and give back
- Contribute to FOSS (many projects require new tooling/libraries, some of which can be used by others)
- Work with excellent people: friends, role models, apprentices, visionaries of my choosing
- Create jobs for capable people, for my (evolving) definition of capable
- Learn new technologies, follow cutting edge developments (data mining/visualization, programming language/tools progression, web frameworks)
- Better understand users/crowds (and how to make sense of the huge data sets they generate)
- Have something interesting to write about
- Take a rollercoaster ride; experience the extreme/rush/thrill
- Make contacts/friends/future partners around new technologies
- Justify getting ridiculously connected on social networks
- Get further experience in all aspects of running a business
- Gain the wisdom (business savvy, engineering, writing, presentation, art) to pass on to my children and anyone else who will listen
- Build reputation and equity to enable pursuit of larger future projects
- Optimize the business creation process (be able to start up many more quickly with discretional insights)
Some books that I have found to be influential in getting started: Tribes, Career Renegade, The Big Moo, Founders At Work. And blogs: Paul Graham, Seth Godin.
Are you thinking about taking the plunge? Done it already? What are your reasons?