Re: IPO? Investor? Sell the business? or what?

"Rich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "There is a big difference between being a business owner and being self
> employed".
> I am convinced that I have a business - not a job. Yes, if I walked away
for
> 60 days the business would still be running just fine. Now do I have a
> business or a job?

Rich,

If this is the case, you should walk away from your business and let it run
itself (with some monitoring by you, of course). Then you are free to start
another venture and at the same time, you have this $2 ~ 8k (or whatever it
is) flowing into your pocket from your existing business. By George -- this
is the heart of entrepreneurship! Forget the investors. Forget the
programmers. If what you say is true, then your business is truly an asset
in your portfolio: this is a rare and special gift! Don't change a thing.

> To my knowledge, most businesses start out small. Yes, I have a very SMALL
> business - but it is a business none the less.

Really? OK, if you walked away today and the phone rang, who would answer
it? If it was a service call, who would answer the technical questions? If
it was a request for consulting or for the addition of a feature, who would
add that feature? Who will read the mail? Who will file your taxes? Who will
reconcile your checkbook? Who is going to sell to all of these word of mouth
customers, and who is going to keep that word of mouth business flow coming
in? More important, what systems do you have in place to do all of these
things?

> My question is better asked this way... How did Dell start out? How did
> Apple, Microsoft, Pepsi, etc. start out? in a garage perhaps - whatever,
it
> must have been a humble beginning.

It doesn't matter where they started or with what they started. What
mattered was that when they started, they were already big companies. (E.g.
Simba was The Lion King from birth.)

> What were the common steps they followed?
> How did they go from garage to big companies?

There is a book called _Built to Last_ sitting on my bookshelf (I can see it
from here). The author(s) studied several big companies and looked at their
history to determine what things all of these companies had in common. It
looks like a pretty good book! I just haven't gotten to reading it yet.

I understand the frustration you must feel with everyone pointing their
finger at you and "accusing" you of being self employed. Hey, denial is the
first phase :)

Mike

P.S. Here's a passage for you from one of my favorite books, _Illusions of a
Reluctant Messiah_, by Richard Bach:

"Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal
river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich
and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own
crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the
river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current
what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see
it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall
let go , and let it take me where it will. Clinging I shall die of boredom.

The other creatures laughed and said 'fool! Let go, and that current you
worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will
die quicker than boredom!

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was
tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him
free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried 'see a
miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to
save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more messiah than you. The
river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is
this voyage, this adventure!

But they cried the more, 'savior!' All the while clinging to the rocks, and
when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends
of a savior."