Chasing Your Dreams Is The Worst Way To Start Business
Business isn't about fulfilling our wishes
My friend was a CFO of a multinational company, and she had a hobby. She made very nice, lovely elephants out of clay in her spare time. She made them for herself and gave them as gifts to her friends.
She was happy, her husband was delighted, and her clay elephants looked hilarious.
But then somebody told her that making clay elephants was her calling, and she should chase her dream instead of wasting her time at the company. So, she quit her job and began to sell her clay creatures online.
And this was probably the worst strategic decision in her life.
Before she turned her hobby into a business, she had made the elephants only when she had felt like it. Selling the figurines online meant everyday hard work.
All her elephants used to have unique personalities. But online customers didn't need different characters and wanted to buy copies of the most popular figurines. So, what had been creativity became a craft.
Her income shrank. She worked hard but couldn'…