Does the money motivate you?
Most of the startup founders have a vision to change the world but the major gameplay is the money that can come with the success.
How important is the role of financial success and achieving financial freedom with your startup?
Before now,
I listen some gurus and startup authorities teaching the startupers that it is
important not to think only about money from the very start. That you should
start from the idea, provide a value, do other obvious things, etc.
And that was very confusing for me. Because the money is a measure of success.
Because you need money to make your startup continue to work further.
That you need to pay yourself for your work. And so on, for many other reasons.
So I as always was opposing to this type of their sayings, noting, beside that,
they were not poor men, they are wealthy enough while convincing us -- as it
looks to me -- to be away of money, persuading us keep away from money.
But suddenly now,
reading this post I thought about that and get a notion, what they probably
meant.
Earlier I have imagined what they mean but not articulate very well is a concept
of so-called real value, it is a concept from the article
"How to Make Wealth" by Paul Grahem, 2004
http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
But I am not sure they share the same knowledge and know what it is at all; or
they share the same attitude to real values, while really neglecting the money
exactly the way they are publicly saying that.
And so I had no real explanation.
For me, they were always contradicting to themselves.
And now
suddenly I got new understanding, and I will try to share it here.
(And this idea currently serves as a better explanation for me now. )
As a such, startups have 2 major stages:
are satisfied.
And persuading the early startupers not to put money as the main and most
important objective, they strive to prolongate the 1st stage. They do this, as I
now think, for the following reasons:
this will help founders to find better or more profound business model for a
startup, and because of that they will go into a deeper and more stable track,
find a better business model, find a better niches etc, overall found a more
stable startup.
this will prolongate the runway of startup. (This could particularly well
explain behavior of investor type "gurus", but nevertheless.)
And speaking about investors, beside all of this, part of those "gurus" were
actual investors, VC people, and because of that they would strive for keep
startupers "hungry" for obvious reasons of having more control over them.
(While the real value that they provide in such a case is not of obviously
high volume.)
Money is important from day 1 for each startup.
Yes, from day 1 it is important to calculate your runway. This is like fuel, like consumables, like housekeeping activity. But I spoke about goals, about motivation, not about everyday chores.
What I saying is I never met or listened about a startupers who initially thought about money as their first goal and succeeded on their venture (not speaking about those who had money as they only goal, what I saw particularly these sank very fast.)
But maybe I am wrong, and maybe you know such cases?
They preyed for money, they had other goals than their product/service at first place and they succeeded as a startup. Would love to learn about.
Definitively important!
Nope not really, I think life would be boring to not be working.
Does it motivate you?
It does help with certain things in life 😁
True, I would like to think less about how much food costs :)
I've solved that problem by moving my family to India, what usually cost me 10$ now it's 1$ 😀
Dang those are some solid ass savings
Money is certainly a driving factor for many startup founders, and there's no denying the importance of financial success and achieving financial freedom. After all, money can provide the resources needed to bring your vision to life and make a real impact in the world.
However, it's not just about the amount of money, but also how you wield it. It's like playing Monopoly - sure, having a stack of cash is nice, but if you don't have control over how you use it, you could end up bankrupt in no time.
That's why I believe that having less money but more control over it is better than having a ton of money with no control.
So, while money is important, let's not forget that it's just a tool to achieve our vision, and the real power lies in how we use it strategically to create positive change in the world. After all, as the saying goes,"money talks, but financial freedom whispers" - and I'd rather be the one in control of that conversation.