It’s one of those crossroads that I can’t seem to figure out how to cross. I’ve done so many career assessment quizzes that I know to-the-tee what I’m “supposed” to be good at. But I don’t think that any career assessment quiz can help you to answer the deepest internal questions you have.
Questions such as:
What is my unique talent?
What am I passionate about doing?
What have I done before that made me feel that I was really living?
Asking these questions and trying to find answers to them has been something I’ve been doing consistently now ever since I got home from my mission, so for 3 years this last September. I’ve pondered and pondered and pondered. I’ve read self-help books, from “Major in Success” to “Think and Grow Rich.” I’ve studied ancient philosophers, poets, and Prophets.
I’m not sure if I’ve come any closer to figuring out what I should be doing with my life.
I think part of it is that there are too many choices. My long term goal is to start my own company and create real value for others. But in what industry? With what product or service? Should I start a scalable company or do something local and from home? Should I work for a startup before I do my own? Or should I work for a big corporation before starting something up to get a feel for how the corporate world operates? Or should I scrap that and do consulting? But don’t consultants get a skewed view of business since they don’t have to ever stay anywhere long term?
Or I could just skip all these steps and start something right now. A few of the things I’m interested in:
1. Web Analytics (Omniture, Google Analytics, etc.)
Why I’m Interested in This Business:
It’s scalable; after building the initial technology I can work with hundreds or thousands of different clients with the same platform.
It’s very valuable to a web business. Knowing the behavior of your customers is huge. If you don’t know where they come from, which search terms are performing the best, which conversion tunnels are doing the best, if you don’t perform A/B tests, if you don’t understand your traffic you don’t understand your business. And if you don’t understand that, you don’t have any way to progress.
It’s sustainable. As the internet continues to expand, web analytics will only become more important. The growth in analytics will go with the growth of e-commerce and internet-driven sales.
Possible plan:
Partner up with somebody who understands technology at a much deeper level than most; somebody who can build a web app with his eyes closed and knows analytics. (All I know is Java, HTML, and some SQL & PHP. Hardly the technical ability necessary to build this kind of platform).
Charge small business with websites $100 a month to have access to the analytics data.
Charge small businesses who want 1 on 1 consulting from one of our experts a starting rate of about $2000 a month.
Continually upgrade and build our technology to make it the fastest, easiest-to-use analytics software available for small businesses.
2. Wealth Management
Why I’m Interested in This Business:
It’s interesting to try to understand how the financial system works. From buying chunks of public companies (aka buying stocks) to private equity, monetary policy, the pro’s and con’s of the Federal Reserve, asset preservation, the bond market, and hedging with gold and silver; it’s interesting stuff. I like reading about the world, its history and the current events.
I enjoy thinking about how political decisisons affect the economic world. I enjoy seeing how economic policies can affect entire countries, and even the world.
I like helping people, and the financial business is a people business.
Possible plan:
Get all necessary licenses.
Work for Euro Pacific or another firm that specializes in international investing in the developing Asian countries.
Learn everything I can about the business and work like a dog to grow up my clientelle.
Start my own.
There are several other ideas that I throw around, and I know that eventually I’ll figure this all out, but lately it’s been really stressful thinking about all of this. As I move forward it does get more clear; what I should do that is. But I’m impatient. I like seeing results. I like feeling that I’m creating something that is of value to somebody else – preferably from scrach, preferably with a group of people that I get along with like brothers and who are much smarter than I am (I want to be able to learn from others).
Any comments about what you think would be helpful!
10 responses so far ↓
Joseph // October 5, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
Both of these disciplines will be there when you finish school… there is no impending window of opportunity that won’t be there in 2-4 years. So unless school is simply not for you, why not just get that out of the way?
I think you should only *ever* consider dropping out is if you *already* have something going where the opportunity cost is huge. I know people read it in the news about the next 19 year startup CEO… but thats about the same chance as being a 1st-round draft QB by the NFL.
Staying in school also help you develop relationships of those “brothers who are smarter than you” too… its much more difficult to cultivate those relationshps when you’re out o f academic campus.
NewWorldOrder // October 5, 2008 at 5:32 pm |
Trying to answer such huge life questions will get you nowhere. I’d suggest you check out this post from Cal Newport (http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/21/the-most-important-piece-of-career-advice-you-probably-never-heard/).
The basic idea is that you start by defining the type of lifestyle you want and then find the vocation that will help/allow/produce that type of lifestyle.
Dan McGrady // October 5, 2008 at 8:33 pm |
I’m finishing my last year of college, building my 2nd startup. I dedicate about 50% of my time to school and 50% to my start-up, both are healthy.
2 notes… (sorry its long)
1) Focus on finding an opportunity to start a business not the specifics of the your product/service. For example, if you believe there is demand for a web analytics product for small businesses then start a business in that area. Its a waste of time trying to decide on the exact idea to build a business around, mainly because its nearly impossible to predict if it will be successful or not.
The best strategy is to find an opportunity, start building a product, test the market and adapt. Almost every entrepreneur talks about how their business was completely different then what they started out doing.
2) Being in school is a great time to start forming a business and shaping the idea. There is no constant pressure to build something that brings in revenue right away.
If you spread it out over a year (or two), then you have plenty of time to learn everything you can about the industry and building a working prototype. Doing both of those should be enough to validate whether or not its an idea worth pursuing.
I’m happy to continue this conversation via email.
phil dewey // October 5, 2008 at 11:40 pm |
Learn. Learn. Learn. The two areas you mention are so over it’s not funny. Stay on your path of learning and by the time you graduate there will be new, exciting fields that you’ll actually have a chance to be a pioneer in. Learn so that you can lead, not follow…
aristonesa // October 6, 2008 at 2:29 am |
In my opinion to finish our education is a must. Currently, is rarely an entrepreneur can be successfull unless, he/she has adequate knowledge or education that can support their business in the future. Besides a good education is a tool to gain respect from others, it helps us to get a job if our business is falling apart.
Currently, I have my own consulting firm and continue to seek out any other business opportunity. When my business has not grown as I expected, I took a part time job as a lecture. It helped me survive and payed my monthly bills. During our education time, we can develop a networking that might be usefull for our business. Lots of advantages that we can gain from our education. But it’s not a mistake to bulid your business while finishing your education. Good Luck.
robfitz // October 6, 2008 at 6:31 am |
i’d finish the undergrad, then skip (or drop out of) grad school, and get something started.
i did a year of a master’s, and i found that the % of top-notch people was about the same as in undergrad, but the pool was far smaller.
i’d still run side projects while in school. ace-ing everything isn’t so important. meeting the right faculty & students and launching little products is better, imo.
Olivetta Chavez // October 6, 2008 at 10:45 am |
I think the above comment of Joseph’s is valuable. I marvel at what goes on in that mind of yours. All the best to you.
learnsmallbusiness // October 6, 2008 at 10:58 am |
I would finish school while working on your company part time. It is possible to do both. This just means that you might be doing less “fun” stuff than your counterparts, but it will be worth it when you have a definite job when you graduate (being your own boss) rather than having to wonder where you’re going to work.
carlossera // October 6, 2008 at 11:25 am |
You may enjoy reading a “Twenty Million Dollar Tale” at http://www.financialtales.com
Ty Denton // October 7, 2008 at 9:29 am |
Some good advice has been posted so far. But may I offer a slightly different view of an undergraduate education? Think of your undergraduate degree as less some sort of guaranteed path to success, and more of a chance to broaden your horizons, to think critically about business, society, politics, economics, art – humanity. Use this experience as a springboard to being a better person. The degree can give you a structured, liberal (not the bad sense) and humanizing education. And you get to focus on information systems as well. What a great opportunity.