Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about the twice-shy entrepreneur.
In the article he writes more about the difference between entrepreneurs from Bubble 1.0 who watched everything disappear down the pan…
The intense pressure entrepreneurs were under to get revenue at any cost led them to make decisions that, with hindsight, were blatantly foolish. And when the market crashed on April 14, 2000, those same entrepreneurs had to lay off most or all of their employees after making those decisions. And face outright humiliation on FuckedCompany, the site that chronicled the downfall of the Internet bubble.
It left a bit of a scar.
…and current entrepreneurs who may not carry the same sort of baggage.
But what if you were not directly affected by the Bubble? I was in Nortel and yes, the bubble was responsible for thousands of layoffs but I took voluntary redundancy in 2003, much later than the bubble. Nortel was still in it’s death spiral (which hasn’t changed, the curve just got asymptotic).
Setting up MacSys took blood, money, sweat, tears and friends. It used them up pretty much in equal quantity. The sacrifices I made are not sacrifices I would make again lightly. That’s why, even though I have a successful, profitable business under my belt, I’m still ultra-conservative.
But I’m interested in how to break out of this rut. My SO thinks I could do so much more with Mac-Sys. I’d like to do heaps more with Infurious (as well as with wow4kids, macheads, ukwifi) but time is definitely limited.
Winston Churchill – Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm
This is what I’m concerned about. I have heaps of energy for ideas but I’m currently too busy worrying to actually go through with any of them (plus the holding down a day job that I’m loathing doesn’t help).
Hi Matt, thought you might appreciate this quote from Theodore Roosevelt http://banjax.tumblr.com/post/21246927 (don’t look too closely at this site – I was just trying it out and while I thought it was cool, Tumblr that is, it just wasn’t compelling at the time… but at least it stored the quote I came across!!)
You sound like you are a bit lost. My advice is to find people you respect who have been on a similar journey and just talk, compare war stories, just talk. D
I guess I feel there isn’t a community of risk in Northern Ireland when it comes to this sort of thing. I took risks with Mac-Sys, took more with Infurious (which, after 2 years, may start to pay off in 2008) but as responsibilities increase there’s a need to take less risk.
I’m getting married this year, moving house next month, getting on with life – stuff that has been on hold while I cradled my business. Do I have room for running something else while entertaining 4 kids and an SO on the weekend?