How much does an entrepreneur work?

Posted on January 15, 2007

Here I am again, after my forth coffee today, staring at the screen while I’m heading with big steps towards my third year of running and owning Energybyte - my part time Web Design and Consulting Company - and starting a Media Shop and PR Agency spin-off called Inprogress.

Ask an entrepreneur, any entrepreneur, how much work he put into the business just to keep it afloat. How much does an entrepreneur work? And how does he know that he worked enough today?

After the initial excitement goes away, if you are really made to be an entrepreneur you will keep going most likely for one of the reasons that made you start in the beginning. Might be personal pride, or simply money. Or anything else that makes you feel good about your business.

If you’ve read some of my earlier writings about the business cycle at some point you will get to the growing step. If you are just a simple business owner, you will expand your business. If you are an entrepreneur you will expand your business and look for other businesses, ideas and undertakings.

Either way, you will get some more work. And that’s not easy, the family is probably complaining about not spending time with them, you have let go some of the things you love because you lack time, or you simply ask yourself: “How much work is enough?“

That’s the question that pops up in my mind in the last 2 weeks. As I don’t have any clear answers, I’ve thought about some ways to measure the level of work that needs to be done. That greatly depends on the business type, the environment and the entrepreneur commitment.

But that’s the great formula to find out How much work is enough:

Case A: you have your own business and you want to know if you work enough
How much work is needed = imagine that for some reason you need to shut down your business. I mean full stop without preparation and without being a planned exit strategy. Now think if you could have done more while you had the business running. Is there something more that you could have done and you just didn’t since you started and till tomorrow? More deals? More money? More anything? If yes, you’re not working enough.

Case B: you don’t have a business and you want to know how much work you need to start and run one
How much work is needed = imagine that a new law appears and opening a new business is impossible starting tomorrow. So what have you done in the last 2 years -supposing that you worked at a company? Could you have more things done by owning a business? More money, more pride, more anything? If yes, think about the busiest person you know (personally) then multiply by 2.

That’s the formula. But now let me tell you something. If you have a goal in life, you can never put enough work into it…

Related posts

» Filed Under Entrepreneurship Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply




  • Archives