Why Do People Start Businesses?

For the last 10 or so years, I’ve tried my hand in a few different businesses with varying levels of interest, effort and of course results… Through the process, I learnt a lot about people… Me… Relationships… Oh and yeah – business! For the most part, they’ve been ‘side hustles’ as I did the responsible thing pursuing the corporate career… But in the last year or so I’ve gone all in and committed to my business and my clients…  Since doing this, I haven’t had the split focus I’ve usually had between career and business. I think this is what’s led to me asking questions I don’t usually ask, or possibly just dismissed because I was busy chopping and changing between career and business…

The one that’s been on my mind the most is why people start businesses?  

It seems really trendy to be an ‘entrepreneur’ and all – but it just felt like there was more to it than that…  So I wanted to explore it further…

GROWING UP

Ever since I was in high school, I remember and am grateful to have both parents support me in any career choice I was interested in…. Whether it was me wanting to go into the defence force for electronic something or other…  Being an accountant (more on that another time)… Working in hospitality which I did all through uni… Or working in Human Resources which is ultimately what I did professionally when I left uni for over 10 years…

Whilst they were supportive of any direction I chose – I also remember dad always telling me “whatever you decide to do, make sure you build something for yourself”.  Whether he explicitly said it or not, I’ve always taken this as being a business… Or some kind of investment portfolio…

Are these early suggestions or examples the reason people start business?  Not sure – however if we look at a lot of the modern day business leaders – a lot of them came from working class families who followed in the foot paths of their parents, who followed in the foot paths of their parents…. So maybe, but doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of examples that come to mind…

FINISHING UNI

Like most I’m sure, I left uni feeling accomplished that I got the piece of paper and all…  But not really sure what kind of job I was qualified for… What kind of job I wanted to do… Or what companies needed those kinds of people…  Is it this feeling of being lost, or not wondering where we fit hat what makes people go into business? I guess there are examples of this, or where dropped out of uni and then created multi million or billion dollar businesses…. But I don’t think this was necessarily my reason…. As I mentioned – I did over 10 years in the corporate world and I guess I liked the idea of not working for someone, but really didn’t know what I’d do or who’s problems I could solve with all the assignments I’d submitted over 3.5 years…  

Wondering how I took 3.5 years to do a 3 year degree???  It’s funny you asked actually… In what should have been my second last semester, I was cramming for two units – Economics and Financial Management…  I knew I wouldn’t be able to pass both based on the time I had to study between uni and work… Ok and the odd social commitment… So… I made the decision to focus on Economics as there was no way I was repeating that!  Yes… Yes I failed Financial Management…

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GOING INTO BUSINESS

So I didn’t go straight out of uni into my own business…  I didn’t develop an app that broke the internet from millions of downloads…  To be honest, I’m only just getting clear and making progress on my business goals…  So why is it that I’m now working longer hours than I did in the 9-5… Sleeping less…  Seeing less of my family and friends… And wait for it… Doing it all FOR LESS MONEY… Yet still happily pursuing this whole ‘being in business for myself’ thing?  

It’s really been bugging me and sharing is caring right?  So I started sharing this question with others to see if I could get to the bottom of why people start businesses.

Thankfully I work around a bunch of great people who’ve been in business for a few weeks through to several years and it’s been good to have others in a similar position to bounce this off…  The usual suspects that came up were things like:

• Purpose
• Flexibility
• Freedom
• Control
• Contribution
• Solving problems

All great things…  And to be honest, they’re things that are in my list of reasons too…  But that’s not the response that truly resonated with me and ultimately gave me goosebumps…  In fact it still gives me goosebumps and I’ve since shared this with a few close friends and even they said it made the hairs on the back of their neck stand up…  

WERE WE MADE TO BE IN BUSINESS?

The response this incredible person and friend shared with me was:

‘Are we just getting back to our roots?’

At first I didn’t get it…  But he went onto explain how maybe this ‘going into business for ourselves’ is just us getting back to who we truly are…  In those times where we farmed the land to look after ourselves, our families and the people around us (this is where the goosebumps start)…  If we then developed a skill like carpentry, as a blacksmith or painting we’d maybe provide that service to people through bartering or maybe open a market stand or trade out of our house…  

I haven’t fact checked this or anything yet – but the whole ‘working for someone’ is something that I’m assuming was then created in the industrial era or something…  But prior to that… Whilst we probably didn’t call it ‘going into business for ourselves’… We did what we needed to do… We did what we enjoyed… We did what were skilled at, or were happy to learn off our elders…  And we then provided that to the best of our ability to the people around us…

NOW…  I’m not saying we should get into a barter economy or just swap skills – I’m a big fan of generating revenue…  If you have a skill that adds value to one or many – I truly believe you should be adequately compensated for it!  I think why this hits such a string for me is because for some reason, until this conversation, I think I’d had this unconscious belief system that ‘going into business for yourself’ is going against the grain, as in most Western societies I think we’re mostly told to get good grades and get a good job right?  I guess this conversation essentially opened my mind to the idea that ‘going into business for yourself’ is going with the grain!

SO WHAT

Well… If we were to draw a line between those who rebel and conform – you rebels don’t care about this…  And that’s cool – you do you… But surely it’s not just rebels that have the urge to go into business for ourselves?  For those who more naturally conform verse rebel – I share this because I think I found it extremely liberating to see this other side of the coin…  

Maybe it’s just human to go into business for yourself…