What is the motivation for your business?

Discussions
#1

I’ve been struggling with coming up a clear vision of why I like building the business I’m building. I love the strategy/building process of it but I’m fuzzy on the why.

I was curious to hear why do you do bootstrap, why do you work, what is your goal/vision for your business?

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#2

I’m doing it because I was broke and if I won’t rebuild my wealth before I’m not able to work anymore I will be placed into some senior’s house where I will slowly rot until I die.

How’s that for a vision, clear enough?

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#3

Lol. Yes sir, it’s clear enough.

It’s not politically correct to say so, but my motivation is money. I don’t want to be stinkin’ rich, just have enough so I no longer need to work for Da Man.

The only *Terms and condition is: I need to be able to sleep peacefully at night. So nothing sleazy or manipulative, nothing growth hacker-y, no tricks or short cuts that sound dishonest.

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#4

I started out with money in mind but I feel like that motivation doesn’t stay for very long personally and isn’t fulfilling in the ‘spiritual’ sense.

Currently leaning towards the cause and effect my business will have in our industry if we keep pushing forward.

Would love to hear want @ian has to say about this. He’s been with his company for 9-10 years?

#5

So, my initial motivation was primarily:

  1. Formalizing my creative outlet
  2. Replace my day job

I never really considered the idea we’d grow big enough to have employees and such, if I was able to replace my salary that was enough.

I really wanted to optimize for success (meaning stay in business) so I never really viewed it very realistically in terms of changing an industry (though maybe we were a bit of a precursor of changes that were coming). That’s something that I do think about a bit more these days perhaps, my problem though is that my ideas tend to be very practical and practical ideas usually aren’t the type that disrupt industries.

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#6

I’m with @ian I’m far too focussed on ‘superior’ execution, due to my ‘developer nature’.

I’m not shooting for the moon, I’m trying to create stuff I want to see in the world and make a good salary doing it!

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#7

I’ve worked as an employee of a web agency (1 yr), as a freelancer (4 yrs), and as a developer at a venture-backed startup (2 yrs). Having had those experiences, I’ve decided to bootstrap moving forward for a few key reasons:

  1. To have the most freedom to try out & measure new ideas
  2. To have the most freedom in how I structure my day
  3. To build things that I’m proud of
  4. To build things that secure my future income, not someone else’s (with the exception of customers)
  5. To not have to compromise to please a misguided client, board member, or employer

It’s definitely not the money, as I made a respectable income in every other type of employment; It’s the freedom to put into practice what I read about and discuss with others, as well as the ability to engineer my lifestyle.

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#8

My motivation was pretty straightforward as a developer in his 40s:

  1. Create a stream of income that I control 100% (can’t be laid off, or the project terminated because of random management reasoning, the curse of consulting!)
  2. Get complete control over my time and life (work when I want, take time off when I want)
  3. Generate income that allows me to be location-independent
  4. Stop trading hours for dollars

Like @ian, I’m a practical guy so I’m not swinging for the fences either. I’m looking for full consulting income replacement and then I’ll figure it out from there. The business is taking on a life of its own as I build it, which is great–there’s always something new to learn or work on, so I don’t get bored.

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