Dumb, Lazy And Greedy: Three Reasons Why You Started That Business

Someone might easily say that he/ she started business solely to make money; whereas another may say that it is his/ her passion - money is not the main thing.

What would you say? Why did you or do you want to start a business?

Actually, before you answer that, think about it deeply. Could it be that the real reason you started a business has absolutely nothing to do with what you think?


No, am not playing games with your mind. Just think of the number of times you've ever done something with ulterior motives of which you were totally unaware of? Like the time:

• you fell in love with acting, but in reality, you were head-over-heels in love with your high school crush who just happened to be part of the drama club
• or the time you hated physics because you were totally pissed off with your teacher
• you tried your hand in clothing design, but you soon realized that the only talent you had was putting on fashionable attire, rather than actually designing it
• or maybe, when you became a serious exercise enthusiast - taking to the gym every single day and observing your diet carefully; but then it all fizzled as soon as your guilty feelings of being a fat couch potato faded away

So, I'll ask you one more time: do you really know why you got into business? Take note that some of the reasons which get you into business may not be strong enough to keep you there.

Now that we're reading from the same book, let's figure out this thing together. Here are a few pointers to help you determine the truth:

You're In It For The Money

Being the faulty human beings that we are, we subconsciously label a money-minting business venture as something that we have great passion in.

This can be easily illustrated with an example. Let's say that your passion is in drawing, sculpting and painting. You're really talented in it - something that you enjoy doing all the time, every time. However, you have serious misgivings about the viability of starting a business related to such skills.

So, what do you do instead? You go into marketing (did I hear someone say SEO?). Yeah, because everyone knows that there's real big money to be made in it. And when the money starts rolling in, what do you say?

"I love this job!"

If that is you, you're in it for the money.

So what happens when the money dries up? Well, your sole reason for getting into business is literally dead and you start frantically searching for other alternatives. You try your hand in self-publishing, writing, accounting and any other thing that has a lot of "money". But, it rarely works out.

Since you've already tried your hand in just about everything you could, why not try out something related to your true passion. It wouldn't hurt just to try, would it?

The good thing about your talent is that it never runs dry, simply because it is who you are. It is like an unlimited renewable resource that you can tap into and generate income from. You can hardly say the same thing about money.

You Don't Know Anything Else

Just because you are a talented computer technician doesn't mean that you should automatically start a laptop repair business. You might also love pets, but it doesn't mean that starting a dog shelter will be the best thing to do. Even if you're an expert linguist, that doesn't necessary mean that providing language classes is what you have to do.

What then should you do? Unfortunately, there's no clearly cut out answer to this question.

Fortunately, there are ways in which you can discover your best business fit. Here are several options:

1. Find out what others with a similar talent to yours are doing. What businesses are health professionals/ accountants/ mathematicians/ anthropologists/ historians/ musicians/ lawyers/ economists getting into? Find this out and you'll have a better idea of the rich variety of options available to you.
2. Look out for niche areas within your area of expertise that are not too saturated. It's not enough simply checking what your peers are doing. You also need to be smart and select areas that are least saturated. In fact, you should make this a continuous assessment, in order to ensure the long term viability of your business venture.
3. Try to create new business concepts by introducing your skills into unrelated fields. Why should you be stuck with what everyone else is doing? Why not create your own unique business concept that will stand out from all the rest? Take note that this might require a lot more effort, although it may be the only option if all the available options are highly saturated.
4. Make the best of what you have by incorporating your skills and talents to what you already have. For example, what would you do if you were an accomplished engineer, who ended up in the farming business? For starters you could utilize your construction skills to design and build innovative infrastructure for your farm at cheaper costs compared to buying it. In fact, you just might end up supplying your custom-made designs to other farmers, which would provide the perfect opportunity to shift from farming into design of farm infrastructure.

You Are Lazy

We've all heard people who say they just want to start a small business that will bring in just enough to live on.

Congratulations for discovering your best-fit business and venturing into a lucrative and unique niche area. If life was like a JPEG/ PNG image, you could easily lie down and relax while churning in large sums of money for the rest of your life. But we all know that life comes in video format - so get ready for the roller coaster ride!

Am sorry to say this, but anyone who works hard on developing himself/ herself can do much better that a talented person who doesn't. Therefore, watch out: your little Lazy Enterprise Inc. might end up losing clients to new and innovative start-ups.