Startup Spark

How To Balance What’s Right, Making Money, And Worrying

by Ben Yoskovitz on December 27th, 2006

Entrepreneurs are nothing if they’re not failures. Yup, we fail. And it’s more common than you might realize.

Truth is, failure is part of being an entrepreneur. Trial by fire and all that nasty stuff. Although it’s not necessarily that entrepreneurs are huge risk takers, we are doers. And doers make mistakes.

When you do fail, it’s important to learn from your mistakes. It’s the best way to avoid them and improve things in the future.

Chris Pearson has made some mistakes and openly discusses them in his blog post. Dumb Move #3 for Chris is a tough lesson and one that requires a fair bit of skill in balancing a business. The crux of his point is:

If you’re going to traverse the road of an entrepreneur, you need to play it smart by avoiding distractions and obstacles.

What he’s talking about specifically is how he worried too much about money. It distracted him from doing the things he needed to do in order to make money. Worrying about money is easy. We need money to pay bills, and if we don’t pay bills we get in trouble.

Here’s the balancing act:

Worrying about money. Making money in any way possible. Doing what’s right for your business.

How do you balance those three things for the most success possible?

In order of importance, focus on:

1. Doing what’s right for your business.
2. Making money in any way possible.
3. Worrying about money.

A little worry never killed anyone, but let it consume you and you’re screwed. Either you’ll be paralyzed or you’ll go towards doing whatever it takes to make a buck, and there’s no vision or success in there.

Ultimately, bills have to be paid, so if opportunities arise to make money, go for it, but do what you can to align those opportunities with your overall strategy and goals. And again, focus too much on this and you don’t really have a business anymore, you’re just working for hire.

At the end of the day, with a vision and plan in-hand, you need to do what’s right for your business. Short of that and you’re hampering your own success.

Photo courtesy of Havana2006.

Share This

POSTED IN: Business, Business Failure, Entrepreneurship