I’m kicking myself right now for not writing more on the entrepreneurial journey that I’ve gone through this year. Suffice to say, it has been absolutely incredible. In fact, beyond incredible. 2011 as a whole has completely eclipsed 2010 in every regard.
Back in January, my 2 co-founders and I went full time on our itsy bitsy little SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company. I really had no idea how this would grow and what the end result would be. Fast forward 6 months and we now have an office with 2 other awesome startups, an amazing team in Hungary/UK/USA, a client list that most companies would drool over and are positioned to continue our meteoric rise to the top. We started this with zero investment and were profitable from day 1. We’ve never had a cash flow problem and nobody has sued us…yet.
13 month ago, I was an unemployed farmer. Yeah, seriously!
It’s very cool that this has all worked out so nicely, but I will say one thing. I honestly, was expecting something like this happen at some point around now. When I was 12 and started my first paper round, I immediately had a thirst for business. I moved upwards and became a Pokemon card trader, using my mums credit card to import bulk packs from Japan and sell them individually at local markets. Various other trades caught my eye, some not quite as legal at others (at least in the eyes of the MPAA).
Every personality test I did pointed towards entrepreneurial tendencies. It was like a calling in life, something that no matter what everyone else did or said, I just had to do. When I quit my job to travel the world, the intention was to end up starting my own business. There is something about creating something within an incredibly complex system that seems to be extremely appealing, at least to me.
I have worked every single day since January, but not a single day goes by when it actually feels like work. It’s something I want to do, something I get to do. A privilege even. Don’t get my wrong, I’m not knocking any of this down to luck, far from it. They say that fire-fighters are born, you either have it or you don’t. I think entrepreneurs are the same.
There is a big difference between someone who takes an existing skill or passion and turns that into a business, versus someone whose skill/passion is building businesses. It’s not so much “what” you end up doing that counts, but rather with “whom”. I think this reflects my views on travel at the same time. I am infinitely more interested in the people I meet and travel with, than where I’m actually going.
It’s also true that likeminded people seem to attract. I met a couple of guys randomly in the bar across the road from me and they turned out to run a start up company too. We ended up moving into an office with them. They introduced us to their friend from the US who ended up having a pretty crazy night out with us, and instantly decided to move (him and his company) to Budapest. The next night, we met another guy who was promoting his new start up social network. We became friends and he introduced us to his business partner, a former senior politician of a country.
Everyone here became friends and we hang out all the time. Our one commonality is we are all starting companies. As this is such a strong value for me, I feel like I’ve known these guys for years, when in fact it has only really been a few months.
The greatest thing for me is the lack of separation between work and play. For anyone with a job, you’re probably wondering what I’ve been drinking right now. In fact, loving what you doing (note: not just liking it, but literally not being able to get enough of it because it is so awesome) means that it’s more a part of me, rather than a function that I perform. For anyone who has been drinking now, I trust you are thoroughly confused at this point.
I guess I got a bit lost trying to get out all of these concepts but the most important thing I wanted to finish off by saying is to do with belief. If you can dream it, you can do it. Whatever you truly believe should happen, can happen. This is why it’s impossible to convince a religious person that there is no god. Ok, that’s another touchy subject for another blog post. Whatever feels right to you, ought to be what you are aiming for.
If other people are attempting to guide you off course, you will feel it and know it immediately. However, it is your responsibility to get back on the right path, and to keep your focus where you know it should be. I talk, of course, of the doubters/ney-Sayers/those that don’t share your belief. Quite simply, they can never be right. Only you know what it is you really want to do with your life.
The most difficult unbeliever to deal with is yourself. It’s easy to convince yourself you are happy when times are good. The test is, when you battle through tough times, when things aren’t perfect, where do you stand? If you end up doing something you don’t want for too many days in a row, you need to take a stand and change something. This might be about your situation, but most likely, yourself.
The only real way to figure out what you want is to be honest with yourself. It’s just so obvious when someone is lying to themselves about what they want (I’d caveat this by saying it is ok not to know what you want). If you can find it within yourself to truly challenge outside expectations of you then you have already won a great victory in the pursuit of happiness. On that day and at the end of your life, you look in the mirror and you know, you gave it everything you had and you gave it for a worthy cause.
