Entrepreneurship

[wait_out]

To cut a long story short, I have close to 100K in capital, no real attachments, a decent brain in my head, and enough life experiences to make me credible to most people. I am in a good position to accept a little risk into my life.

Next, after suffering through a year of terrible mismanagement while deployed in the military (and seeing the same superiors "fail upwards", which is irritating), I've become very attracted to the idea of being more independent. Your successes are your own, your failures are your own -- perfect. Someone who is capable, competent, successful and reliant on nobody is an attractive person to know, right?

I am not necessarily locked into the security sector, so anyone here have experience either starting a business (of any kind) or have friends who've done the same? What do you think of the quality of life? Is it worth going after, despite the risk? Apologies if this topic has come up before. Thx all

 

[Brownrice]

Start a business in something you know well and would do for free just because you enjoy it. You will need that mentality to survive as an entrepreneur.

If you know the security sector and love the work, then it's your best bet.

Investing money in a business you don't know well is extremely dangerous and will fail you 90% of the time because you will give up 100 times faster when things get rough.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Defense contracting seems like a huge business right now, even in a bad economy. There is no shortage of war. Especially if we invade Libya.

 

[Julian]

start small dude...who says you need to blow 80k to start a biz. Use a minimalist approach..pretend u dont even have the capitol there an get your brain in a hungrier state of mind...once u start makin money with what your doin you can use the extra capitol to expand.

 

[caporal]

start small dude...who says you need to blow 80k to start a biz. Use a minimalist approach..pretend u dont even have the capitol there an get your brain in a hungrier state of mind...once u start makin money with what your doin you can use the extra capitol to expand.

Depending on how you look at it 80k is small money for certain businesses. I wanted to have my own bar and getting the place ready from scratch cutting corners costs around 100grand. IT's a huge investment but if it works well you will be making money in no time. I decided not to do it for now but that's just my personal situation. Being an entrepeneur is my goal long-term. If you can make it happen I say go for it.

 

[synergy1]

Defense contracting seems like a huge business right now, even in a bad economy. There is no shortage of war. Especially if we invade Libya.

agreed, companies that contract with and sell to defense are doing okay. A company I was working with during my temp contract did this. They sold LED material to the US, and other contractors. its a 20 billion dollar market, and they are one of the only shows around. The owner started it a long time ago in his garage because he saw the need ( while working as an engineer within a govnt role), and started his own production facility. While its many years later, the raw material market has grown during this recession.

don't start a business because you have money. Start a business because you see the need. Keep the money around for hardships, or investing in your own business if you have a solid plan in place and want to execute.

 

[Don Juan the Fantastic]

I started an Internet company with a few of my friends and no startup money except what we charged to a credit card, and now our company is doing millions in revenue each month and I get to drive a Maserati around (extremely overrated). Yes, I slept on the floor of the office and worked some 36 hour days in the beginning, but that was relatively short-lived.. just months, compared to the year and a half we've been in business. However, I am definitely one of the lucky ones.. plenty of people work way too hard and don't see the benefit they're expecting.

What I learned: talent, college degrees, academic performance, ability to work.. these really mean nothing in the world of startup companies. Success is 99.999% who you know.. and that's it. You can have a phenomenal idea and even execute it well, but good luck without having the right connections. Likewise, you can suck, have a mediocre idea, but with help you can still land exclusive contracts and that kinda thing. Kinda sad, but that's the way it is.

 

[synergy1]

@DJTF, without disclosing anything important, what did you do? 10 mil + annual revenue is impressive, so I am curious what you do.

and yes, it seems that 99% of how one can succeed is on who you know, not what you know. However, i think there is a baseline level of intelligence, curiosity, and drive you need to be successful, but you can get away with a lot more if your well connected for sure.

 

[Brownrice]

I started an Internet company with a few of my friends and no startup money except what we charged to a credit card, and now our company is doing millions in revenue each month and I get to drive a Maserati around (extremely overrated). Yes, I slept on the floor of the office and worked some 36 hour days in the beginning, but that was relatively short-lived.. just months, compared to the year and a half we've been in business. However, I am definitely one of the lucky ones.. plenty of people work way too hard and don't see the benefit they're expecting.

What I learned: talent, college degrees, academic performance, ability to work.. these really mean nothing in the world of startup companies. Success is 99.999% who you know.. and that's it. You can have a phenomenal idea and even execute it well, but good luck without having the right connections. Likewise, you can suck, have a mediocre idea, but with help you can still land exclusive contracts and that kinda thing. Kinda sad, but that's the way it is.

There is only 24 hours in a day, how the heck do you manage to work 36 hours in one day?

With an internet business ( specially with ad revenue leading the way), you don't need to know anyone to succeed. You just have to create something that people like and once it starts attracting large amount of visitors, people will want to pay you to advertise for them and eventually want to invest in your business. Some of the biggest internet sites started as projects by young tech wiz friends.

 

[Don Juan the Fantastic]

@DJTF, without disclosing anything important, what did you do? 10 mil + annual revenue is impressive, so I am curious what you do.

and yes, it seems that 99% of how one can succeed is on who you know, not what you know. However, i think there is a baseline level of intelligence, curiosity, and drive you need to be successful, but you can get away with a lot more if your well connected for sure.

We started an Internet marketing/advertising agency with 4-5 of us.. now there's about 30 of us, and we're on track to do 70+ mill in revenue this year, which is absurd. I agree that it does take some ambition and intelligence, but honestly I consider myself just a decent web developer (my actual skill for this company) who would be making about $70k a year if not for getting extremely lucky by becoming involved with massively talented and connected people.

And Brownrice: I just meant occasional days where I literally would not leave the office for 36 straight hours, maybe catching a couple 10 minute naps in the stairwell, but this was really rare and more towards the beginning. Also I guess I should make a distinction on needing to be connected to succeed.. from my own personal experience, I've always been entrepreneurial, and I've surrounded myself with super smart tech guys - among all of us, we probably had 5-10 "great" projects fail.

Even if you build something that is better than the competition in every way, it was nearly impossible to compete with companies that had an advertising budget and all that. On paper, it seems like "if you build it, they will come" should be enough, but unfortunately it tends to go way beyond that. Of course there are exceptions, but damn it's a lot harder for people to find your site and project than you'd expect. In this new company, we're not even building some fancy new tech, we're just doing things other people are already doing - but now with lots of connections in the right places, it was immediate success. Disillusioning for sure, but I'm glad I got lucky

 

[Drdeee]

I'm too opening a business, going to do what I know how, repair computers, remove viruses, install networks, configure servers, create websites. I'm in Russia, and was making 30,000 at work. But work is work and it sucks bad to be there from 10am to 6pm. Office environment just stinks. I had an opportunity and I'm taking it now -- I say I can make that 30,000 and then some. 30,000 is just one website, and I think I can do at least one website per month.

What really will help is your army discipline.


Who knows what kind of work you'll do. I suggest you create a website for yourself, then business cards and a few posters you could hang here and there.

I'm starting without legal registration of business, a first month I'll work illegally, but then I'm getting it registered, because I don't want my business name to be taken by someone else.


What kind of work you'll be doing?

 

[wait_out]

I won't be doing anything right away! I'm still overseas, and I am going to need a long vacation so I feel like myself again before making any major decisions. There is a lot I would like to do though: either providing security to or managing civil development overseas, opening a surf camp/alpine guiding business, running a bar/restaurant/music venue, etc. Having too many options is its own challenge but it is a good one to have. I'm sure there is more money in technology/mass media but as DJTF said I think it is probably one of the most vulnerable sectors to good and bad luck.

Any of you gents (or ladies) read anything useful in reference to this discussion?

 

[Drdeee]

You have that money now?

Invest into gold bullion. This no joke, the people that provide you with work to do, guns to shoot, are going to default the dollar, that 100k will be worthless soon. I'm telling you this so you have heads up and in case you get mad after wards you know who to shoot.


You don't have to wait till you get back and get decompressed from all the death. You can play a game right now, if you have a notebook. Try to imagine what you want to do, pick a company name, create a logo, build a website. Because when you will be ready to do it, it's a month long process. Get it right and you would create right first impressions in client's heads, get it wrong, or hurry with it, and you will fail.