The Freedom - Responsibility Trade-off for Entrepreneurs | Hacker News Reader

The Freedom - Responsibility Trade-off for Entrepreneurs

jacquesmattheij.com

59 pointsjacquesm18 comments

I disagreed with this when it was posted as a response to one of my comments last night [1], but didn't say anything because it was sitting below that comment, which had already addressed it.

But since it's standing on its own here, I'll pipe in again and remind folks that all that responsibility is entirely optional. You can design your business such that it can grow arbitrarily successful without ever requiring your full attention.

I can understand why the author feels that success and workload go hand in hand, because, well, that's what happened to him. If, on the other hand, you design your venture from day one to ensure that it won't ever drag you away from the beach, it's certainly possible to achieve that. Because, well, that's what happened to me.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6374125

I've seen a couple of entrepreneurs that did not have a sense of responsibility about them, they did not strike me as particularly nice people to be around. As soon as you have just 1 employee, 1 customer or 1 supplier you start having responsibilities. If you know how to run a business without all of those then you're a very lucky outlier.

I think the employees are the things that bring responsibility. Customers come and go, and so long as you have a good product they'll accumulate over time. If you make it a primary goal, you can get your product to the point where it doesn't generate much in the way of customer service burden. I field maybe one email per week per 500 paying customers.

The added advantage of a low customer service product is that you don't need to hire employees. (Which, I agree, would add all that responsibility you talk about).

I disagree that you need to be an outlier to do this. There's nothing particularly special about the formula, and there are several people doing it here. It's not really a sense of responsibility that's lacking. It's the actual responsibilities. Most weeks I just don't have that much to do.

> Most weeks I just don't have that much to do. This isn't the same, though, as not having responsibilities.

You have a responsibility to build a good product. You have a responsibility to make your paying customers happy with your product.

It does not have to require a lot of work to meet those responsibilities, but that doesn't mean the responsibilities don't exist.

Not sure why so many people are telling you that you have to do this and that as opposed to doing it themselves and letting you do things your way, which sounds like they're working. Would you mind sharing what this business of yours is that requires so little day-to-day management?

Have you ever met the owner of a restaurant franchise location? Their only responsibility is to pick a good store manager, and leave everything else alone. Effectively, they get the business off the ground, make it self-sustaining, and then extract rent (in the economic sense) from it.

I think that it can be true that "hard work and success go hand in hand", but it kinda depends on how you define both "success" and "hard work".

As for the freedom thing... I'll just observe that there are different kinds of "freedom". In that earlier thread, I made the point that, as a founder, I have FAR more to do now, which seemingly means I have more responsibilities and less freedom. Well, yeah, no. I mean, I have less free time now, in a sense. But I have more freedom in that I am the one making decisions about marketing, sales, product roadmap, strategy, etc. In other words, by founding a company, I'm at least a little more free to call my own shots. I decide (well, along with my co-founder, so it's not only me) what markets to pursue, what customers to chase after, what parnterships to engage in, etc.

I'll argue that being a founder means both more responsibility and more freedom, even though that may sound paradoxical, given an intuitive notion of what "freedom" entails.

Also, for what it's worth, in my comment on the other thread, I took the parent comment I replied to as using "freedom" more in the "free time" sense, which is why I agreed and made the comment I made.

i believe the sticking point between the two views is the very definition of what you are selling to customers. someone says product and half of us thing "app store download" and the other half think "custom software services".

if you're in the business of selling services -- prepare for the op's difficulties in a revenue-per-hour world.

if you're in the business of selling digital widgets -- you can work it to a point of relaxed maintenance where you only need to grow if you want to grow.

m3mnoch.

There is a difference between "free time" freedom and "autonomy" freedom. You may actually have a lot of free time at a 9 to 5 job but you have little autonomy. Your boss can dictate working hours, schedules, tools, etc. As an entrepreneur you may have less free time but you have significant autonomy to decide you're going to work on Sunday and head to the beach on Tuesday.

This was my main takeaway, freedom doesn't necessarily mean time away from work...it's the freedom to change the direction of your business at any point or not to take on more customers (or even to hire people) or sell the business. It's the feeling of being in control of your destiny (not to be cheesy).

That jibes with my take as well. The "freedom" in being an entrepreneur is the freedom to shape your company, and have more control over your path going forward.

Time is a lot like shelving. When you have empty space, you want to fill it.

Filling your time with the right responsibilities and being strategic about how you qualify what is a "right" responsibility relative to your personality, is "Doing It Right" IMHO.

I would never turn in what I have now - I have a startup, a lot of responsibility, a structured day, obligations to fulfill, and people that look to me execute on my promises. More so than I ever have at any point in my life. Is it stressful sometimes? Sure it is. Do I have less freedom? Only in the sense that I knowingly structured these responsibilities and obligations in such a way that yes, they are binding, but they are also enhancing my ken ineffably. That is my ultimate goal, to ensure my responsibilities aren't void of meaning for me - I also aim to not repeat them and when I do it usually means I wasn't paying enough attention.

The experience that you have less or more freedom is always relative. Freedom is always in the mind (sorry if that sounds wishy washy but my argument for that is not appropriately short for a comment).

We are bound by our own nature, we are impelled by archetypal forces (psychologically, biologically) most of us aren't even conscious of and realizing that you can structure what responsibilities or obligations you think will serve you the most is exercising freedom in the face of that which you cannot change.

Of course you could avoid the responsibility of the company by simply not hiring people, and raising your prices until the demand for your work fits how much work you can do. And that may leave you more time and money to do what you really wish you could do.

Personally I became freelancer to work on my own ideas. I do paid jobs for others, but it's the time between those jobs that it's really about for me. Working for someone else, I never had that freedom. Now I do. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Good point. Anyway personal freedom is not exactly the same as freedom of choice. I mean you could be personally less free because you have to work a lot making decisions, and still it's you who call the shots.

Jacques, back in 1986, you were looking for more freedom... but 27 years is a long time. Have you not changed since then? Do you still have that desire for freedom, or do you rather like the increase in responsibility?

I deal with it a lot better than back then. 27 years indeed is a long time and there were plenty of opportunities to learn life's lessons.

Good article. The point applies to the corporate career man as well. The further up the ladder you go, the more responsibility, cash and prestige you get, but with the trade-off of less freedom and more work.

I don't think pure freedom. As in a fully funded party for life would be ever possible without secure routine monthly income, taking care of you while you do whatever you feel like.

Until then its just a trade off. A few days back I read a article: http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacun...

From the last paragraph: "Do not quit your day job. When you're starting your business, you need to make decisions from a position of strength. If you're making decisions because you're strapped for cash, you're almost certainly going to make the wrong decision. ..... if you haven't created new revenue streams by the time the previous ones dry up, you'll be right back at the problem of #1: making decisions based upon financial hardship rather than what's best for the business."

This thing explains the true deal about freedom in our lives. Once you have all the money in the world to take care of you, you will have the freedom to experiment and fail without dying along the way.

The key is financial freedom.

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