"43% of Americans planned to start a business in 2022, one-third are first time entrepreneurs."

I came across this statistic last week and realized:

A lot of people want to start their own business

And I'm sure a lot of you reading this want to start your own business too.

I spent the past 4 years of my life starting at several businesses (Most of them failed). This newsletter is one of the businesses I'm currently pursuing.

I've learned a lot about building things from scratch, and want to teach you all how to avoid the trap of creating the worst job in the world.

A job where:

- You are constantly juggling responsibilities

- Nobody would buy this job from you (not a business)

- You only make money if you continue to show up every day

This is the trap a lot of people fall in to (I did several times), and why most businesses fail.

3 Personalities

You might have seen my post last week about having "3 personalities":

And I wanted to elaborate on it here.

Every business owner has 3 "personalities"

- The entrepreneur

- The manager

- The technician

The entrepreneur sets the vision of the business (the purpose)

The manager defines the systems (the means)

The technician does the work (the execution)

A majority of jobs are hiring technicians – people who do the work.

This is what most people are familiar with.

If you don't understand how to play each role, you will create a nightmare situation where have a job that 100% relies on you, with no days off, and working 12+ hours a day.

The Difference Between a Job and a Business (Larry's Tacos)

The difference between a job and a business is simple:

A job is something you do for income

A business is something that you can build and sell

In most scenarios – the value of a business is determined by how much money it generates. (sometimes not)

Let's take a real world scenario to explain.

Assume there is a business called "Larry's Tacos"

The Job Version

Larry buys a truck, sets the menu, buys all the food, pulls up to the beach, takes orders, cooks all the food, cleans up, and does all the accounting.

The Business Version

Larry buys a truck, defines the philosophy of the business, sets the menu, creates systems that can teach other how to make things on the menu, creates a protocol for knowing when (and what) to order more of, leverages software automation or a person to do the accounting, and defines systems for how to clean up the truck for the day.

Marketing aside – the difference is clear.

In the job version Larry is working in the business.

In the business version Larry is working on the business

In both situations Larry is free to cook tacos if he likes.

But only in the second situation has he created a business that he can replicate, hire employees, or sell to somebody else.

A business is not the work. It is a vision with a system that people (or computers) can execute to produce a result.

Neither of these are right or wrong.

If Larry loves the job version and has no interest in systemizing his operation then power to him.

If Larry wants to start a taco truck to spread what he loves, do it when he wants, as much as he wants, with whomever he wants – then he is in for a rude awakening if he only works in the business and never on the business.

How You Can Avoid This

The best way to avoid this is to understand what you are creating.

If you want a job for the sake of taking on projects, doing some work, and the love of the game in pursuit of income: That is fine.

If you want to build a business? The build a business.

That means

- A clear vision of the purpose

- Repeatable systems that can be execute by people or code

- The ability to sell your business to anybody and have it continue to work

It's just a different method of thinking that school never taught any of us.

And I wanted to share it with all of you.

_______________________________

Thank you for reading this week's newsletter.

I appreciate all of you who read to the end.

Email me at swdlodonnell@gmail.com with any questions

Check out my free course if you are learning to code

Book a free 30-minute call with me if you want to chat or have any questions.

Until next week!

Sources

Opening quote:

Article posted by Zapier

All Ideas in this are taken from or inspired by:

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E Gerber