What’s your definition of success? Is there a magic number, lifestyle, number of people helped, families supported (including your own)?
Everyone has their own goals. For me its financial freedom and not worrying about any bills with a property paid off.
Just started making over 500k a year (with multi year contracts) and still not satisfied. I’m thinking at 1m/yr I will be, but maybe not. Need to buy that property free and clear. Btw, my metrics on home have changed. Had a 4/3 house with a large pool in the backyard. Now want a house with a view of the ocean. The idea that will somehow make me happier is part of this post.
Did you hit your goal and level of success? Were you satisfied when you did?
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I like working so a part of my success is always having something to do. Also having freedom and control that allows me to work on whatever wherever. Nobody tells me what to do. Financial freedom has a lot to do with it and that means a strong cash flow. So $$ is never a problem. It’s like I have a money faucet. When I need or want more money I just open the faucet and out it comes. So I always need to protect the faucet. That is success. I don’t need to be there working constantly. But if I’m not involved the faucet can be compromised. So my focus is on the faucet. And that creates many opportunities for me to have something to do.
For me it’s 10k months. Felt over the moon when I had those.
But I’m also only 22 and about 3-4 years in. So I’m sure that will change as my business expands
For me it’s 3 parts:
- Freedom to spend time with my family and do the things I love without worry/stress.
I feel it’s actually 20% resources; 80% mindset to achieve this though. - Ability to give to and support people and causes I care about in a meaningful/impactful way. Hard to measure this, but I’m currently measuring it in how much % of my income can I live off of? Want to get it down to living off 20%. Investing 40%. And giving 40%.
- My employees are happy and fulfilled. They helped me get here. I want to make sure they’re well-taken care of.
All good points. Its definitely a mix. I have found that its much harder than it originally seemed to keep employees and contractors truly happy as well.
I think a part of keeping employees happy is finding the right employees. I love my team, and they’re a big part of why I love doing what I do everyday. But it was definitely a journey making sure we had A-level rockstars - both in performance and personality/mindset.
I also realized that I played a large part in my employee’s mindsets and work/life balance. If I overworked, they would feel compelled to do the same (well, I guess you have to first find people that do that) - which would then lead to burnout. I found one of my most meaningful and most difficult job was being, in some sense, a mentor to my employees. Money definitely played a role, but growth was something they all consistently sought. Some even went on to “graduate” from my company to excel at another much larger one.
- Freedom to spend time with my family and do the things I love without worry/stress.
I want to never look in my bank account & wonder if i can afford things. Then create some great company to solve alot of problems. Then I want a family.
Thats success to me
I started my business with probably the same dream that probably every other entrepreneur does, to generate potentially far more income than you can from being an employee. But over the last 10 years, for me the financial milestones never really felt special or gave lasting satisfaction. We went from doing 10k per month, to 100k, to 1M, to 1M net and beyond. Eventually I realized that the reason I love being an entrepreneur has nothing to do with the income. It’s about creating new things and having customers validate that the creations have value. Overcoming the constant challenges. The satisfaction working with and learning from my team. Getting positive feedback from clients and hearing that we are the best at what we do. Having a positive impact on the planet through our work. Creating a fulfilling career for our employees. I’m in my late 30s now and could retire, but don’t want to thanks to all those things.
I was 19 when I first started my business. I was devastated back then. For me, success, is having the work-life balance and yes, financial freedom. I almost had a burnout, and thankfully, I was past it. I have my savings, but I don’t want to call myself successful just yet. I still have bigger dreams. You can read read how I was able to survive the almost burnout. https://www.cuppa.so/post/breaking-entrepreneurial-burnout-understanding-signs-and-recovery-strategies
Hello, I am 19 right now and I would like to start my own business. Do you have any advice? Am I learning to code. I have made some projects but didn’t manage to get any client. Maybe the product wasn’t good enough or the idea. I also have seen that many people start with an MVP but I still can’t manage to get people to try my MVPs, there are supposed to focus on the functionality and not the design but I haven’t got any success
Hi, I also started my first business at 19. Before that I played live music at wineries Fri-Sun and taught guitar lessons. Unlike most of my friends I did not attend college and taught myself. In fact, I have been programming for the last 10 years :)
While not impossible and I can attest you can make great money with programming services it is a tough road. The problem is there is a lot of competition.
For music, I wrote my own and got a lucky break when looking for a job as a server. They asked if I had any experience which I didn’t and ended up asking if I played music (the odds of that are probably pretty low). So, it was the right time and luck.
For the property Preservation company I was 19 and had worked at another company for only a few months before starting my own. This was in early 2011 and the foreclosure boom was still running strong. There were lots of contractors, but they were clueless in how to get these jobs for themselves. The bigger part was that the banks and property management companies wanted to work with someone that could cover a large area – so I just had a list of contractors and knew the requirements for work orders.
So, the same thing applies with coding or anything else. You need to find a niche you excel at (within programming), can offer at a great price, have better service, or whatever the customers care about. You can always grow from there and add on services, but you need to build trust and recognition first. The more saturated it is the harder it is to break through (example “web development”). To start you will be competing with others on price – that’s fine as long as you don’t get stuck long term. You need reviews, word of mouth, other services you can charge more for after getting in.
Good luck!
Success for me is an inner feeling as I know by experience that money does not make you feel any different. So, for me, success and happiness go hand in hand.
Yes, I can relate to that as well. I think the impact you have and how you make others around you feel is important.
I don’t think you will find happiness chasing materialistic things, work on yourself, make some art, do some exercise, travel, watch movies, collect something, help the poor, look into religion etc, if you have a family spend some time with them, give your girlfriend or wife some attention and affection, I’m only 20 but I don’t think I even want to earn that much, 70k a year is a sweet spot for me.
Business is art. Im a musician to the core, i should know.
Good advice. I used to play guitar and piano live – that was my first “job” friday-sunday and taught guitar lessons. Those were great days and was in the 70-100k range just doing that. I do still play for fun, work out, and travel occasionally.
Interestingly, my initial goal was around the same. Then it always changed 100k,120k, etc. It wasn’t all about money, but it certainly was always a goal. Time will tell if your goal remains the same, but if you’re happy at 70k and can live the life you want, there isn’t much point of moving the needle.
Freedom to launch and build more products and projects!
The fun part is always the process not the end.
Yes, love the process and what you’re doing – you’ll never work a day in your life (or so they say lol)! I love building as well! Even have some patents :)
Getting an idea to the starting line, selling the idea and doing the next one.
Yes, I love doing this as well. I believe entrepreneurs are those that love building.