Ever want to start your own business?
It is one of my life goals to one day own my own business (and make enough money for it to be my full time job. I actually started a company in college which didn't work out - lost a few thousand dollars on that one - but I learned a lot about what I need to learn...so I moved to Boston and got a job working for a big multi-national company, then a small start-up and then back to another multi-national takes-6-weeks-to-get-anything-done company. Yesterday was my last day of work at the last multi-national company and monday will be my first day of work at a small software shop.
On my honeymoon I read You need to be a little Crazy: the truth about starting and growing your own business by Barry Moltz. (Great book for a plane ride!). I found it really interesting that Barry got his career started at IBM (big multi-national company). I have known for awhile that getting promoted and moving up the ladder in a large company may or may not really mean you know your stuff, but never could articulate it. Barry puts it this way:
“At IBM, I did not realize that my success was largely attributeable to my being able to successfully adapt to the artificial system that a large coporation like IBM can set up and maintain from within. Promotions and awards were distributed. I worked hard, and I did get some of them. This was not recognition of my achievement from the maket, rather it was recognition from members of a hierarchical management team. This is neither good nor bad, it is just the way large corporations work.“ - page 41
When I read that paragraph, I thought “wow, that is it! that is exactly how it is!“. My mental summaraization of what Barry was saying is this: You may work hard (or not), get promoted and move up the ladder in a large company, but if you have to answer to the market (say a layoff or something), you might come to realize that the artificial system (company ecosystem) in your large company was much like the Matrix!!! Maybe it is just a system designed to make human beings into just another happy cog in the machine ;) The things that protect you from the real world (the market) create a lot of risk for you if that protection is ever taken away.
Ok, maybe my summarization is a little dramatic, but I am sure you get the idea.
The book is not a how-to book, it is more a warning label. Not every story in there is a peachy one, but it is real!
If you haven't read the book and are interested in starting your own business (any type of business), you should go and buy his book before you do start it. Throughout the book he writes of his experiences from IBM and all of his companies he has started as well as some other people who have started companies. At the end of each chapter there is “A True Tale“ - which is a real tale of other people who run their own companies.
WARNING: Not every story about small businesses have a happy-ending .... and what is great about Barry is he doesn't try to tell you that they do!