

How To Be Your Own Boss - muerdeme
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/10-ways-to-be-your-own-boss.html

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wallflower
Summary:

(1) Sole proprietorship. Own boss, Only employee, Do everything

(2) Two-person Partnership. Couple has very complementary skillsets (business,
the detail person, the creative one). Friends, a team. Neither one of them
would probably be able to do it on their own. But they are together,
successful. Rely a lot on each other, do their business together. Cons: Have
to split money two-ways instead of one. and People can stop getting along. But
when they work they're beautiful.

(3) Husband & wife team. Assuming that the marriage is a good one, you know
that the partnership already works. Money already goes into one bank account.
Lots of designers married to software engineers with web-based businesses.

(4) Boutique. Small office. More than a partnership. Very small. 6-8 people.
The right small number of people together creates a very warm almost family-
like culture. Scope of what you can accomplish is relatively limited. But
knowing that you're not worrying about growth frees up cycles. Since most
companies, focused on growth. Client relationships - very strong, very deep,
can pay attention. Most boutiques are bootstrap businesses, not a lot of
startup capital. Fun businesses.

(5) Investment-bank type. Federated model. People operate their own P&L's
inside the larger organization. Shared office. Shared infrastructure. Good
year, you benefit. Bad year, you struggle. Law firms, consulting firms,
investment banking firms. You want to be your own boss but don't have the
capital or you don't want to take the risk.

(6) Project. Film-makers, authors, musicians, really - many people can do
this. An entrepreneur who goes from project to project to project. 100%
project when on, 0% in-between project. Good model for people who are good
enough to get work whenever they want. Serial entrepreneurs - 4-5 yrs build
company, sell it, sabbatical/downtime, repeat, rinse. If you are the kind of
person who gets deep into something and it's the only thing you can do (on).
And need downtime when you're not working 100% (off).

(7) The sole-proprietorship lifestyle-focus. Travel around world, run business
from laptop. People can live vicariously through you. Sole proprietor but also
using business as way to live lifestyle. Young, not married, no kids.

(8) The Startup. Hustling every day. Moving fast, lots of energy, fun group.
Successful or not - who knows? Challenges. Maybe they'll be successful. Maybe
not. But they're giving it a shot.

(9) The Breakout. Idea inside another company. Build it. Might take a life of
its own. Incubate another company. Spin out into another company. Become a
business.

(10) The Company

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patio11
Without knocking any other business model, there is a lot to be said for sole
proprietor plus freelancers/suppliers/etc. I can only do what I do because of
about a dozen other folks who pitch in from time to time -- but if needs
change and their business and my business need to go our separate ways, it
feels like merely not calling someone back, rather than like a divorce.

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pvdm
Nice quote - "The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and
a monthly salary."

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quickpost
Reminds me of:

"A regular paycheck and crack cocaine have a lot in common." - Felix Dennis
(How to Get Rich)

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iheartmemcache
Hmm, the concept of a federated structure is particularly appealing to me.
Does anyone know of Allen & Co type setups for tech entrepreneurs? Co-working
spaces like BetaHouse and Work Bar Boston come close, but I'd like something
even more structured. If anyone in Boston or NYC is interested in starting
something like this, e-mail me!

For everyone else, this is really an interesting talk well worth your 20
minutes.

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inmygarage
This is a great talk - I planned to only watch the first 3 minutes and then
ended up watching the entire thing.

What I admire about Fred Wilson is that he really does live and breathe
entrepreneurship, which is very evident in this talk.

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briancooley
Somehow this has a much bigger impact on me than the 37Signals series as far
making the case for bootstrapping. Most likely it is because FW is a VC
himself and presumably has a vested interest in seeing startups take capital.

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garply
I really want a transcript because the video is going to take like 5 hours to
load here in China. Or maybe the video hosting company just needs to get some
servers in Asia.

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ddewey
Anyone still looking at this besides me?

Applying the "project" model (6) to a programming career: with 3 or 4 small
projects a year on Kickstarter or App Store(s), you might be able to make a
modest living. I guess that the special challenge of (6) would be to build up
a good enough reputation and get people's attention.

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thecircusb0y
Encore, small business is what drives the economy!

