You need to build a business divorced whose ins and outs are divorced from your passions. Yep, you heard me. This is heresy to most of the “make money doing what you love”ers. But then again most of them make money telling people how to make money doing what they love… which is just a repetitive loop of nonsense that plays on suckers. You can love what you do and you can build a business that you love… but rarely is it fueled 100% by your passions and by that me-me-me mentality.
Instead get smart and get outside of yourself. I hate to break it to you but 99.99% of the World doesn’t give a rat’s about your passions. You know what they do care about though? Their passions, their needs, their wants.
1. Ditch Passion.
People are so self involved as of late and the trend of “build a business based on your passions” (something that I fell pray to early on) is only making it worse. Because of this mantra of “passion-based” businesses, would-be entrepreneurs across the world have tried and failed at businesses they started only because they were interested in the idea and assumed that the rest of the world would follow suit.
Let me tell you what you should have passion for… hobbies and goals. If your vegan, cupcake bakery is going to be your hobby, not what sends your kids to college, great. But if you plan on it pulling your family out of bankruptcy and growing into a thriving and profitable business… you better not focus on what you love but what the market craves. And maybe that is a vegan, cupcakery… but often it’s not your first instinct. So save yourself lots of toil, time and trouble and find out what the market wants before you sink your life savings into vegenaise and unbleached flour.
If you remember ONE thing… let it be that there is a MASSIVE business-breaking difference between what you’re interested in and what the market you are targeting craves.
The funny part is that all you have to do to see if your business idea has legs, is to get out of your head and start talking to potential customers. Even if you don’t know who your target market is (hint: that’s a problem) you can start chatting up people at Starbucks and asking them what they think of your business idea. Would they buy X if you made it like Y and Z? Do they even need X? If they don’t need X what would they give their first born for?
That’s changing a stupid “passion” based business into a profitable and not-so-stupid startup that has actually been influenced by the market you are planning to sell to. Now you’re getting smart. Thinking that just because you’re interested in creating a social network for panda bears means the rest of the world will be is dumb… unless you plan to make no money off of it. Then knock yourself out, panda lover.
So cut the hippy, feel good crap about how “passionate” you are about your business and that’s why no matter what people tell you you’ll just keep going on and hammering away until you’re $30k in debt and divorced. Do yourself a favor and gain passion for the goal… not the road that gets you there.
2. Develop a Deep, Burning Fire for the Goal.
Physical trainers never tell the people they train how much they are going to love waking up at 6 a.m and working out until it hurts for the next year. Instead they help their clients envision the end goal – how happy they’ll be with themselves when they are fit and in shape.
No one says “listen, if you don’t absolutely LOVE every second of strength training… well heck, find an exercise that causes you no pain and is enjoyable and then do that until you’re in killer shape”. You know why they don’t say that? Because 99% of the time you have to endure pain to get to the end goal. It’s not easy to look like Adonis, but it’s doable if you put yourself through pain with a persistent goal in mind.
You’re reading this blog so I’m assuming you either want to quit your job and start a business or you are in the middle of starting your own business. You may be starting this business to change the world, which is awesome, but you probably want to at least be able to pay your bills with it too. Some of you may want to sell your startup for $100 million dollars and move your whole family to Fiji, while others just want to bring in $5k a month and call it even.
Whatever your goal is, it’s vital that you know it now. Just like you wouldn’t start working out and think “Well, I’ll see where this takes me, mayble I’ll lose 10 pounds or maybe I will win the next Iron Man”. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to have a well thought out goal so you can constantly adjust course to get there.
3. Focus on the Bottom Line.
Your business must be profitable or it’s just a hobby. If you want to start a hobby, that’s great. Go find a hobby blog… this one isn’t for you.
If, on the other hand, you want to start a successful business (whether it’s $100k a year or $100MM a year successful) you need to focus religiously on your bottom line.
It’s pretty simple when you break it down: Money In – Money Out = Profitability.
So instead of measuring your social graph, how many hits you get to your blog a month or rolling around in the glossiness of your new business cards, why not start meticulously, compulsively measuring your bottom line and constantly finding ways to improve it?
If your current business is not profitable (i.e. you money is out less than your money in) you need to find a way to get it profitable, fast. Maybe your product or offering is all wrong or maybe you are targeting the wrong customer? Once you start delving into the crux of the matter and finding out why you aren’t bringing home the bacon you’ll be able to start adjusting and making up for lost time.
Always Remember the Athlete…
I’m realizing that keeping yourself in good physical shape and building a successful, lean startup are very similar paths. As an entrepreneur and also as an athlete you must learn to love the burn. The burn of starting a new business, the burn of trying to figure out your customer base before your meager funds run out, the burn of consolidating and minimalizing so you can actually start the business of your dreams on a shoe string.
Usually when it hurts for short sprints, it means your building business muscle. If it hurts for years, you are in the wrong market or you are working out using poor techniques. Both are fixable, but get to the bottom of the problem now, before your mentally and physically burned out.
Hope that helps, I’ve spent 3 years learning those tough lessons and I sincerely wish that each and everyone of you can avoid that painful path. If you disagree with me or have more to add I’d love to hear back from you below.
