I went on a bike ride with a friend the other day. He started a company 8 years ago. His company has been growing over time, and he now has a sizable team.
Recently, he has hit a rough spot. He has been working with a large customer who promised 50x his existing business over the last three years. This customer turned out to be running into financial trouble over the last year. Their attitude began to turn, and the relationship soured.
Now they are in a legal dispute over millions of dollars. The customer wants to cancel an order and get a refund of what was supposed to be a non-refundable prepayment.
The whole episode has caused distress to my friend. Not only has his effort not turned into business growth as expected, but he is also spending a significant amount of time dealing with lawyers and court cases.
My friend looked tired. “Sometimes I just want to be an employee. Get my salary and forget about the rest,” he said.
The comment struck me. There’s often a halo around entrepreneurship. It seems like a “cool” thing to do, and in my view, it’s endlessly fascinating to build an enterprise, especially for a worthy cause, solving a problem you are called to solve.
But what we often don’t see is the risks, the headaches, and the uncertainties that go behind the seen. It’s not all glamorous.
Nothing is.