I was thinking about the reasons why someone might want to be an entreprenuer
1. Freedom: You want to be the king (or queen!) of your kingdom. No more 9 to 7/8/9 weekdays working for someone else. You are ready to even sacrifice your weekends, if it means that you define what’s work every moment of it – because that is freedom for you!
2. Passion: You are really passionate about doing something in an area that interests you. This may be something that you pursue as a hobby, take out time for on weekends, read & think about..and now you feel its time to take that decisive leap!
3. Idea: You have what you feel is a super idea, and you want to take a shot at realizing it!
4. Money: You want to make money real fast and for some reason you feel that charting out on your own is worth the risk!
Your reasons could be any, some or all of the above – but one of them will always be a primary driver!
I was also thinking what are the chances of someone being successful against each of these primary drivers (Caution Note: Success definition is something which has always been a matter of debate, and i will not even attempt to do so here! Just consider something that a layman would be say – yaah that’s successful!)
The money driver seems to be the weakest one. You will probably end up making money, but you will still be one among many – and when that’s the case simple economics says that the upside is always limited . The Freedom driver is very abstract – because you are jumping on the bandwagon without any idea of where it is going to take you – its more like ‘lets enjoi the journey and if and when we reach the destination, just wake me up buddy!’. The Idea driver is the one which is most dicy, because unlike freedom & money which are more broader concepts, you r defining your success criteria very narrowly. Someone pokes holes in the idea, and your inflated notions go for a toss! Which leaves us with the passion driver – i think this is most important simply because when someone has the passion for something, he or she is willing to look beyond temporary obstacles like an idea failing or money not coming! Passion gives a person the tenacity or perseverance which is important to have as an entreprenuer.
So my suggestion. For any venture to be successful, you need a bit of all of it, but above all passion. So assemble a team of people which have motivations that cover all the above and yet can see a common dream. As a friend of mine said once in a very Forrest Gumpish way..’The thing about even the best fruit salad is that it has to have many kind of fruits!’
Reams of Dreams in a Tale of Heads 