Marc at O’Reilly radar posted a article on his Entrepreneurial Proverbs that I think is excellent. He really covers all the bases and gives some excellent insight into the good and bad sides of being an entrepreneur. It’s interesting to look back at the expedition we made with Distro of the Month and the point that we are in now with it and see where we varied from these “proverbs”.
For instance, we have 4 partners. That has been a challenging learning experience. Two would have been much better. I’ve found that there are times that 4 is just too many cooks in the kitchen. One of the biggest things we ran into was a issue with each of the 4 partners having a different view of the directions that the company should take. We made compromises and while we ended up with the something that we feel is a good product, I don’t think that the company took the direction that any of us really wanted. And maybe it’s a good thing that it had a direction of it’s own. Time Will tell.
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Which reminds me. I have to reinstall gimp and work on rebuilding those graphics for the site.
I have not had the chance to check the link you provided for the “proverbs” but having stated that, I wonder if there is an advantage to having more than two partners. With more people, the work is spread out – and with the exception of having to work a little harder at communication and compromise – sharing in the responsibility and accountability demands prevent just one person from having to do ‘everything.’ Just a thought – and off the cuff, btw.
NG: I think that you are right. With 4 of us, the responsibilities get spread out quite a bit and it lightens the load on the other three. The “proverbs” states something like “two is divine” which I would agree with more. Entrepreneurism isn’t something for the weak of will but it also isn’t necessarily the best thing to try and go it alone either.