| After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time. Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo: * A "lumpy" income stream that is hard to model or predict * The feeling of being on call 24/7 * Having to make a large capital outlay or hire an expensive professional like a lawyer * Seeing a well-funded competitor appear and start hiring Anxiety is an odd meta-problem in that if you worry about it, you just make it worse, but some strategy for long-term coping is necessary. |
I remember after leaving a full-time job for the company we started in 2005 being really freaked out by the idea that I didn't really ever have vacations or sick days or any kind of paid time off, since it was all coming out of my pocket. It was a freaky feeling.
We'd have weekly partner calls, and we'd get to the part where we'd run through the pipeline and cash flow situation, and I'd hold the phone away from my face so I wouldn't hear any of it, which did not overly endear me to my partners.
Also: to this day, neither Jeremy nor Dave can call me on the phone without me having a small panic attack (a post-traumatic reaction to several business dramas we had); it's almost exactly the feeling you get when a family member calls at 1AM. Jeremy I understand, because we still work together, but Dave called me a few months ago, and I freaked right the fuck out.
Yeah this seems like the big important entrepreneurial essay someone needs to write. It's a much bigger deal than most of the advice you get about starting a company.