After speaking at Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth 2.0 Conference in Long Beach last Tuesday, I headed up to Los Angeles to catch up with some clients and friends.
On Wednesday night, I had dinner with an old friend of mine from the internet marketing business. Though his company made millions of dollars at the height of the dotcom boom, he turned down several lucrative offers to sell it–and ended up walking away with a fraction of the cash he could have gotten before the market collapsed.
Now don’t feel too sorry for my friend. He lives in a pricey beachfront community, he’s running another promising internet company, and he just got engaged to a smart and beautiful woman who works at a local internet startup.
But memories of the good old days still linge, and now my friend is aggressively pursuing the next billion-dollar idea that will put him back on top. He asked for my advice.
“You may have to wait a long time,” I told him. “I’ve learned the hard way that so much of success in business involves luck and timing. It’s not all about you and what you can do.”
Hardly reassuring words, I know. But the reality is that few of the people I knew in the internet business cashed out in a big way and far fewer went on to build another company that was as successful as their first one. And dotcom superstars such as Steve Case of AOL, Jerry Yang of Yahoo and Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com have all seen better days.
My point is this: While the purpose of every company is to make a profit, the goal of every entrepreneur has to be more than just making lots of money. Especially in an economy like this one–where startup companies are struggling for survival and an IPO or acquisition could be years or even decades away–it’s important to enjoy what you do at your business. Because you’re probably going to be doing it day in and day out for a long time to come.
That’s why I was so impressed when I heard Devon Rifkin, 33, speak last week at the conference. Rifkin is CEO and founder of The Great American Hanger Company, a Miami manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of high-quality clothes hangers whose company rang up over $10 million in sales last year. Rifkin was honored as Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Here are some of Rifkin’s thoughts on life, business and entrepreneurship:
- Secret to success: “People commonly ask me why I work so hard. And the reason I give them is that it’s one of the only things I can control. There are very few things in business that you can control, so I try to master the things that I can control.”
- Advice for other entrepreneurs: “I would tell them not to focus on making money. If you believe in the idea, you need to focus on the equation and your business.”
- When he knew he’d made it: “I know this business has had a good run of success, but I’ve never felt like I’ve ‘made it’ because I feel like there are still a lot of things we have to improve and a lot of things we have to obtain that we haven’t obtained yet.”
Unfortunately, goals like these can’t always be measured in dollars. But when you’ve climbed the mountain of business achievement and reached the peak of personal satisfaction, I think you’ll know that you’ve arrived.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Responses to “The American Dream: Not Just For Dreamers Anymore”
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December 17th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I can’t agree more with advice number two: “not to focus on making money.” Starting a company is way too hard and frustrating and time consuming to focus simply on making money. You are much better off taking the easy way out and getting a job.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] The Vest Pocket Consultant: The reality is that few of the people I know in the internet business cashed out in a big way and far fewer went on to build another company that was as successful as their first one. And dotcom superstars such as Steve Case of AOL, Jerry Yang of Yahoo and Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com have all seen better days. [...]
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:05 am
I agree that the ‘American Dream’ is not just for dreamers. Yes, absolutely today’s economy will present a challenge to the entrepreneur but key qualities of success along with persistence are a strong adversary to the current economy. I also agree that money, of course is very important, but success is not only measured by the amount of money generated but by the degree of happiness, self-worth and accomplishment that is felt and achieved.