Update 11 September, 2015: When originally written in 2005, this blog post accurately represented where I was. It’s not where I am today, nor would I endorse many of the choices I made years ago which led to the unfortunate circumstances I, my wife, and my team members went through. I’m not proud of the mistakes I have made, and I only share them so others can avoid them. Some of the experiences are humorous, but many are not. These days I’m happy to say I have reasonable work schedule that allows me to spend plenty of time with my family, be healthy, and run a better business. Now, here’s the original post:
A lot of people think they’ve got entrepreneurial experience. After all, they started or ran a business, and isn’t that what an entrepreneur is? Maybe, if that’s your definition of an entrepreneur. Here my definition.
You might be an entrepreneur if…
1. You’ve maxed out more than $50K in credit cards to fund your business.
2. You’ve taken any money you had in savings and put it into your business.
4. You’ve borrowed money from friends and family.
5. You’ve had to explain to your employees why there’s no money for their paychecks.
6. You’ve had an employee get angry at you for giving someone else their paycheck before them.
8. You’ve risked permanent bladder damage because you don’t take time to go to the bathroom.
10. In the six years you’ve been married you’ve never taken your wife on any sort of a vacation.
12. You’ve had to explain to your employees the concept of “no money.”
13. You’ve averaged 80 hours per week of work for the past several years.
14. You’re the lowest paid employee in your company.
15. You’ve had dreams about your employees’ wives yelling at you.
20. You’ve ruined personal relationships over business matters, despite the fact you thought this would never happen to you and you’ve always tried to not do this.
21. You spend 90% of your time feeling like a failure but you keep working anyway.
29. 6pm feels like 11 am.
30. You get rid of your TV and don’t miss it one bit.
31. Your wife attends family functions by herself, even when it’s your family.
33. You know which restaurants in the area are open until midnight, and which are open after midnight.
34. You’ve taken out loans on both of your cars.
37. Your wife’s car breaks down and since it costs more to fix it than the car is worth, you end up making do with one car because you can’t get a loan on a new car because you already have loans on both cars including the one that is now junk, and you can’t even take that car to the junkyard because that would require paying off the loan, which of course you can’t afford to do, so the car is sitting in someone’s driveway.
41. You feel euphoric just thinking about what it would be like to not owe anyone any money.
43. You’re not sure why any of your employees continues working for you.
44. You’ve invited someone to lunch and then asked him to pay for it.
45. Every time your credit card works you feel an overwhelming sense of relief.
46. You’ve had to ask your employees for rides to work because you have no money to buy gas for your car.
47. You’ve told someone not to start the same type of business as you, not because you’re afraid of the competition, but because you can’t bear the thought of someone going through what you’ve been through.
48. All your friends tell you they wish they had your job, and you tell them you wish you had their’s.
49. You’ve worked multiple Christmas days.
50. During the past year you’ve paid the federal government more in taxes than you’ve paid yourself in salary.
51. You’re able to get back all the personal taxes you’ve ever paid because you had such a bad year last year.
52. You’ve felt a sense of relief when an employee has quit because now you don’t have to lay him off.
53. You’re an expert on what does and doesn’t count as a business expense.
54. You have the desire to choke anyone who says “And you can just write it off as a business expense!”
55. When your wife gets pregnant rather than being thrilled all you can think about is “How in the world are we going to be able to afford this child?”
57. One of the major things keeping you from killing yourself is the guilt you feel about handing all this mess over to someone else who isn’t nearly as well equipped to handle it as you are since you’ve already been going through it for several years.
59. You’ve slept on the floor of your office more than once.
61. You’ve seriously considered buying a cot for your office.
62. You’ve told politicians that you’ll vote for them if they campaign for a 36-hour day.
63. You wonder if everyone who owns a business and is financially stable is dishonest.
65. You haven’t cleaned the inside of your car for over a year because you don’t have the time.
66. You wonder where the last five years went.
67. You’re amazed by how much you’ve learned in the last month, because you weren’t sure a month ago how you could learn anything else after what you’ve learned over the past five years.
68. You’ve gone to that furniture store on Saturdays where they give out free hot dogs in order to save money on meals.
69. You’ve tried to convince your wife to let you cut her hair.
70. You realize your wife must be a very special person because what other woman would put up with all this and still like you?
71. You’re jealous of a school teacher’s salary.
72. You look at a paperclip that costs a slight percentage of one cent and think “I bet the guy running the company that makes these is making a lot more money than I am.”
73. You see all the big houses around you and wonder “What in the world do all these people do?”
75. You’re able to write a list like this in a half hour right off the top of your head.
You know Josh, you might be able to sell this to some magazines, wall street journal, etc.
They say artists have to suffer. You’ve done that.
I only got to about number 20 or so before deciding it was not healthy for me to continue reading.
That is so hillarious man.
While not the guy at the top, I have been the code monkey working for a start up like this … I can relate to half of this and I would still jump at the chance to do it again… Perhaps I should seek help.
Yep! That would be the life of an entrepreneur- lol
I was reading INC magazine, and they did a personality test on 250 former and current leaders of Inc 500 companies to see what made them stand out.
One findig was that these successful entrepreneurs scored 45% higher than their CEOs counterparts in general on ‘performance under pressure’.
When I read you list I think how it’s really only the entrepreneur that can handle that kind of stress for their vision.
Thanks for sharing your list.
Would you mind if I post this list on my blog. My readers would love it. I will of course give you full credit with a link to your blog
Sure, you can repost this content anywhere you like as long as you give full credit and a link back. That goes for anyone else who might want to use or link to my content.
I was afraid it would be this way.
Well I guess that counts me out as I am female and therefore unlikely to ever have a wife 😉
Oh my… I still have a long way to go… facing the same experiences, minus the ones where a wife is involved, plus im staying with my parents. No smilies for that
But, there is still this sense of satisfaction as I discover and achieve more… bit-by-bit
Would be looking forward to hear this coming from u in maybe lesser points, off the top of ur head but sure will fill your heart
Hi Don Loper
I really enjoyed reading this about “What it Means to Be an Entrepreneur”
Is there a way that you could send me an doc/pdf/odt file with the entire text(from 1-75)
in it.
How can I save this.
Could you send it to info@tavsans.se
Nope, sorry. But feel free to copy, paste, and reformat it all on your own if you want it for your personal use. I simply don’t have an hour or two to spare to do that.
This is one of the best things i’ve ever read about being an entrepreneur…. 100% true – i’ve been through the same process and like a crazy fool and doing it again.
Hurrah!
Hello, am a 3rd year student in the University of Manchester and i have to make a report of what are the criteria for the best entrepreneur to be chosen. I have read all of the above Its funny although its true but i think if i include that on my assignment am definitely getting a zero.. because is 100% true.
Never, I repete never, put yourself before your employee. (Especially when that employee is your wife).
Great list
Damn Josh!
I had no idea. Sorry about all those times I’ve asked how your business is going and naively added how fun it must be. Wow! you’re my hero!
Damn Josh!
I had no idea. Sorry about all those times I’ve asked how your business is going and naively added how fun it must be. Wow! you’re my hero!
Is this remotely serious? Because I’m praying it is….
If it is that means my business is doing really, really well…and here I was worried everyone else was doing so much better than I was.
Of course, I didn’t want to say anything to anyone because I was worried that they would say that I was a bad entrepreneur and to shuck it all and go work at McDonalds (they have benefits!)…but if even 10 of the above are true, really true, then I’m an entrepreneural ROCK STAR!
Thanks for my self-esteem…I’d been wondering where that ran off to!
This post brings relief. I’m not the only one.
At this point, can you appreciate having suffered so much? Would you wish a similar experience on your son?