I noticed the other day that some of the organizers in The Scene (ie. Atlanta startup culture) are hosting a meetup to talk about the next steps needed by the startup community. In big bold letters are instructions detailing that possible attendees should evaluate themselves according to these criteria:
Who SHOULD Attend
If one of the following phrases describes you then you SHOULD attend this event:
- Entrepreneurs who “Swing for the Fences”
- Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists and Institutional Investors
- Service Providers that service the Startup Community
- Other Supporters of the Startup Community Ecosystem
Who Should NOT Attend
If one of more of these labels describes you more than one of the previous labels then you SHOULD NOT attend this event:
- Lifestyle Entrepreneurs (emphasis mine)
- Small Businesses using the Web for marketing
- People who prefer the security of employment
- Developers, Designers, Freelancers
- Internet and Network Marketers
- Interactive Agencies
No Lifestyle Entrepreneurs?
As a recovering wannabe “Swing For the Fencer”, I’m dismayed at the specific exclusion of lifestyle entrepreneurs. When did running a successful-but-not-Google-size business become a failure? Wouldn’t The Scene be much better off with dozens or hundreds of successful small businesses as opposed to a handful of mega hits and hundreds of failures? Let’s keep this list growing at a healthy clip, while keeping this one as small as possible. I know people love to throw around fail-fast as a mantra, but I prefer to win-slow. Successful small business that pays the bills? Put me down for one, please.
In my own experience, I was only able to truly get a shot at success when I stopped swinging for the fences. When I stopped dreaming about VC money, IPOs, and a Google buyout, I set about to actually building a revenue model for my projects. In addition, I stopped pursuing ventures that had no underlying business model besides the get-big-get-bought prayer. All of a sudden, I started making money. It’s not a lot, but it’s growing. I bunted my way to first base, and now I’m trying to figure out how to steal second.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Well, you know my favorite joke — “Whats the only difference between a startup, and a small business?”
A: Small businesses make profits.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:54 am
And what about those that are married and/or have kids; By definition wouldn’t we be “lifestyle” entrepreneurs?
June 18th, 2009 at 7:24 am
I’ve got to agree with Micah on this one. Maybe the original poster has a different definition of “lifestyle entrepreneur”, but if all he means is an entrepreneur not going for “swing-for-the-fences” ideas, that’s a horrible class of individual to block.
I have worked at some crazy “swing-for-the-fences” startups, and frankly they act like idiots a lot of the time. I have also done a lot of the slow-grow startups, and frankly they do much better. On top of that, the people involved in slow-grow are often much *better* at what they do than the “swingers” as they actually have time to learn to do things right rather than grow as fast as possible with no thoughts about sustainability of product, people, or profits.
My personal definition of a lifestyle entrepreneur is more of an “entrepreneur lifestyle”. I love starting and growing business, and will do that as a lifestyle. And I’m also highly involved in the startup scene, trying to connect everyone in Atlanta that is looking for an “entrepreneur lifestyle” as well. Why? Because it’s a social good, and because I need these folks to work with me! I’ve found in Atlanta so far the biggest limiting factor to success is quality people.
No action should be taken to exclude “slow growers” from the startup community.
Finally, if the OP actually means “people that scruff up just enough money to live on w/o having to work much” then fine, forget those guys.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:25 am
And Micah, you should go anyway tonight
Maybe put Lifestyle Entrepreneur on your badge 
June 18th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Heh, well, I actually can’t go because I’ll be at home working on my startup. I do wish everyone the best of luck, though, and I’ll be curious to read any writeups that come out of it.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I think that the “swing for the fencers” actually resent the groundedness of lifestyle entrepreneurs, because reality checks crack the bravado and single-minded focus they feel is necessary to actualize their dream. Probably a better name for the group would be “Atlanta Wile E. Coyote Entrepreneurs”.
Speaking of which, I think I’ll cue up “Roadrunner” by The Modern Lovers.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:02 am
This is just a leaky abstraction. The organizer of the Web Entrepreneurs Meetup knows the makeup of his usual attendance, and about 80% of them aren’t the target of tonight’s gathering. He was just trying to say things that would cause them to self-identify.
I totally agree with you and Alan re: lifestyle entrepreneurship/entrepreneur lifestyle, but this is really just a semantic quibble. Any of us would be considered indispensable participants at tonight’s event.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:25 am
@lorennorman, good point. Probably just a way to filter out the not-true-startup types, but still worth pointing out or maybe even getting clarification from the hosts.
Frankly I would be terribly surprised if there are people that only want big VC-money ventures involved. I wouldn’t think that the hosts would fall into that category, but I’d like to know.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I can’t speak for Mike but I have spoken with him several times and am attending the event tonight. I think what he means by lifestyle entrepreneur are people who aren’t trying to really start a business but are either playing at a hobby or working as sole-proprietor consultants. The focus of the meeting is what can we do as a community to help people who are trying to launch businesses – at least that is my understanding and personal/professional agenda for attending. Whether that company is large or small isn’t particularly the issue.
And I don’t think there is any desire to exclude “lifestyle entrepreneurs” from the conversation – more an attempt to save them from coming to a meeting that wouldn’t particularly interest them.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thanks for the clarification Bill. I’m curious to see what comes out of this meeting. I’m all for a healthy startup community, even if I’m not really much of a participant.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:44 am
I *just* found this, thanks to Google Alerts, albeit a tad late. Thanks Loren and Bill for coming to my defense and clarifying in my absence from the comments here.
Micah, I certainly intended no slight to you nor anyone with similar interests. I wrote those words after discussions with several people, one in particular who I will not name, and those people who feared that the room would fill with people who were interested only in advancing their own agenda and thus fail to attract the people who are interested in selflessly contributing to advancing the Atlanta Startup Ecosystem.
What’s more Bill was right in that I was also trying hard to ensure everyone who planned to attend the event was actually happy they did attend the event. I was trying to describe with labels the people I envisioned would not be interested in a discussion of how to grow the startup ecosystem.
More specifically to your concern about my use of the term “lifestyle entrepreneur” I’ve struggled for years with the terms to describe those in the community who are true “startup” and community oriented people and those who only really care about growing their own business. I wanted people to attend who want to contribute to improving the ecosystem and are willing to give freely of themselves to help others in the “rising the tides to floats all boats” kind of way. Using the word “lifestyle entrepreneur” was my way of trying to define one type of entrepreneur who wasn’t interested in helping others.
So if I erred please take me to task for poor word choice but it’s my hope you can appreciate the complexity of concerns from multiple sources I was trying to address and not take me to task for bad intentions.