Business can be much more than the exchange of material considerations. It can be art, a labour of love, an extension of creative ego. It can be socially beneficent. And it can even be fun.
Ideas from Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
It’s strange looking back now to when it really hit me that my life had permanently changed and that I - and my partners - were actually starting our business and becoming full fledged entrepreneurs. It wasn’t when we pre-sold our first few clients that allowed us to start and not worry about revenues. It wasn’t after we had deep discussions with other people who would join us in the initial few months, ensuring that we had people to do the work. It wasn’t when we put together financial progressions and plans that showed that we were viable for at least 6 months.
No, it was after lunch in a restaurant, the five of us grinning at each other, when the quite young graphic designer we had hired had finished presenting her overall design to us and left us to review. She had given us samples: our colours, logo and nameplate, our letterhead, our brochure. Our business cards. They seemed the most important as we handled them
This memory is nearly 35 years old, before the digital first and digital only eras, so variations of paper was what we had in our hands. We loved the look and feel she had created our fledging company, and the rich recycled stock was exactly what we had asked for.
It was the tangible nature of what really was just marketing collateral that somehow declared: We were legitimate! We were going to be alright. We definitely started off on an adventure.
For me the impulse to start and run my own business arose during my teenage years. Of all my family, friends, and neighbours I knew only one adult who ran their own business, my cousin. His wife was involved in with it, and they seemed to live a different life than any other adults I knew. It seemed exotic and exciting, unique and uncommon, especially compared to the routine 8 to 4 lifestyles that were known to me. My cousin and his wife seemed to have an alternate view on life: more powerful and less restricted. I know some of that was because of their financial success, but it was the “why not?” attitude I found so compelling. So I added reading Fortune magazine and the business section of the newspaper to my normal fare of Mad magazine and Sports Illustrated. A little odd for a thirteen year old.
In high school, we were given the opportunity one fall of joining Junior Achievement. I hardly knew what it was or what it meant but older students said it was a lot of fun and you got to meet other kids from all over the city. Sounded great and it was. Besides meeting my first wife there, I learned about the entire life cycle of starting, growing and ending a real business in the course of one school year. It was hands-on not theoretical, making products and selling them, with a couple of advisors from the business world to guide us. I eagerly ponied up for a second year as a senior. It completely changed my way of thinking about my Post-secondary educational prospects, opening up a third pathway beyond the standard Arts / Lawyer vs Science / Engineering / Doctor dichotomy that was available to me in 1972. But it took another 18 years before the Entrepreneur’s Adventure started.
It has been a real adventure since that day after lunch in 1990. My life has been lived much differently than other people; even from the first 14 years of my vocational life which was as an employee for conventional business organizations.
Adventure doesn’t mean it was all a constant bliss, easy going, or totally fun.
Definitionally we have “an unusual, exciting, and possibly dangerous activity”, “an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks” and “an exciting or remarkable experience” to serve as guideposts for what to expect on the entrepreneur’s trek.
There are many reasons on why people become entrepreneurs, on why they should not become entrepreneurs, on what they want want from their adventure, and how they should start, stabilize and succeed on their own terms. These and other topics are what we will be exploring in the Trupreneur newsletter. I hope you will join me on this journey.