One reason entrepreneurs start their own company is because they simply can’t work for someone else. There are plenty of great, inspiring books extolling the virtues of “entrepreneurial independence”. Another motivation for owning one’s destiny is the opportunity to create wealth. You have a set amount of time on the planet and entrepreneurs choose to use theirs to create wealth for themselves as opposed to shareholders of a corporation. All good stuff!
And there there is the issue of control. Entrepreneurs who demand control of everything will struggle…for two reasons. First, you can only control a fraction of the variables you encounter. You can’t make customers buy the product and you can’t make investors invest. You have no control on how your competitors react and let’s not get started on employees. And then there’s a little thing called the world economy that can eliminate profitable markets overnight.
The other reason for the stuggle over control is you’ll never get there by yourself. You will need partners, investors and key employees. You will have to share equity with these people and in doing so, you are sharing control. With apologies to Bob Dylan, if you’re building a high growth startup, you’re still going to have to serve somebody; customers, investors, shareholders.
If this is going to be a problem, then you should take another look at the Food Truck (but then there’s the Health Department…)
Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson
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