I've said this before, but I'll be honest: I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Well, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur when I knew what being an entrepreneur was. Back when I was like 10, I wanted to have my own car company. I used to draw cars and I'd make annual reports on our computer using Harvard Graphics. I called it Impulse. I liked naming the models.
When I started working in private equity, it didn't seem nearly as appealing. It seemed like a huge pain in the ass for not a lot of reward--on average. Sure, I had done entrepreneurial things in college, like start a business newspaper, but I was never any good at delegating and so while I enjoyed my experience, it was kind of all for naught. The paper died when I graduated, after two years.
What I didn't realize then, and what I'm realizing now, is how much I enjoy the challenge.
People ask me if I stress--if I stress about the fact that I know the very day we run out of cash. Do I stress when investors turn us down or when we need to make difficult product decisions? Do I stress when something on the site doesn't work as its supposed to? Do I stress over the hours I put in?
Not in the least.
In fact, it's fantastic. The challenge of it all has been enormously rewarding. So as I sit here getting ready for a big investor meeting... a "go/no go" final meeting... one where I'll be giving a pitch that could be worth nine more months of life for the company, for my partner, for my employees, for our investor's capital... I'm really loving it.
This is way better than the day that I was interning at a big company and I left for the afternoon after lunch and no one noticed that I was gone.
I live for this.