Recently I had a discussion with my friend about building own business. As he’s very ambitious he described the vision of quite an established company with a couple of dozens employees as his goal for a first couple of years. Nice vision, indeed. My advice was: “Start small, and then grow whenever there’s a good environment around you. If there is any. Two people on the beginning are enough. You’ll go big later, when you can afford it.”
It’s easy to have big plans, fight on many arenas and then run out of gas. It’s much easier to work on vision and strategy than to solve all small everyday issues or keep cash flow above water level. It’s easy to forget about all costs of growth or overestimate chances of getting a contract. Hiring a bunch of new people in marketing department won’t help when your developers can’t finish current projects. Adding a million bucks in an income forecast by increasing success chances isn’t a self fulfilling prophecy. It just doesn’t work like that (as far as I know).
We forget how much can cost us living beyond our means. Even when we lose just a lousy 100$ per month. No matter if you’re big or small, spending more than you earn and waiting for a hero on a white horse with a big bag of VC money isn’t the best business strategy I’ve heard of. Alas, quite a popular one nowadays.
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