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

"Mike Turco" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> "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?
</snip>

I'm just trying to understand what you are saying here.
If the phones rang today at Microsoft and no one was there, the world would
be doomed. If Bill Gates was not there, who cares. I'm only using Microsoft
as an example. It could be any company. Bill Gates drops out of college to
write a BASIC interpreter (or whatever). He and his friend are just two
nerds and not a business at this point. They hit a deal to get their BASIC
interpreter packaged with an Altair. They make about $50,000 (gotta crawl
before you walk). They open an office next. Are they in business yet? I
guess so, because if they walked away and started another venture, they
would still be bringing in revenue from that first deal. But what if they
had to support each copy of that software? What if they had to answer the
telephone to help people load the BASIC interpreter into the Altair? (and I
think they had to do that - to the best of my knowledge, from day 1). They
are suddenly *not* in business? Instead, Bill Gates and his partner are
"self employed". Correct? Ok. So then for a while nothing happens and then
Bill Gates makes another similar deal with IBM. Albeit a much larger deal,
but the same structure. Bill's newly acquired MS-DOS gets shipped on all new
IBM PCs. He has to support the software. But this time he has enough cash to
hire tech support employees, and so he does. He brings on a few people so he
can focus more on business. It snowballs from there. Bill has a title.. CTO,
CEO, whatever he will be, he now works *for* Microsoft. He is technically
employed to this day. Is this the point where a self-employed person
officially becomes a business owner? Or is he owned by the business? Does it
matter?

Rich