Being an Entrepreneur
In the exciting bubble that is the Web 3.0, all of a sudden it is hip, cool, and even fashionable to be an entrepreneur again, especially a web entrepreneur. Even one girl asked me, with almost stars in her eyes,
How does one become an entrepreneur???
While the truth is, there’s not a lot different about being an entrepreneur from being a researcher or a scientist — you see a problem that you want to solve, and imagine ways to solve it — what often gets lost is the sheer bullshit that one has to deal with. Amongst all the glamor surrounding Zuckerberg, the Tweet-Peeps, and all the others, it just seems so awesome to have so many people depend on you in some small way, and have the wake of fame following afterwards. But if you just scrape the surface, you’ll find all the people talking about all the hard work that it is, how most startups fail, and the frustration. And you’ll see the crestfallen look that people get, when their initial excitement about you being an entrepreneur is replaced with disappointment as they think your idea is :
- dumb
- too easy
- not impressive, or
- they just don’t understand it. (or why you would follow it).
Being an entrepreneur is a bit lonely. But what people rarely make public, and what I think makes being an entrepreneur unique, is the totally rando shit that you have to deal with, that makes every day different, and an adventure of the kind that you don’t want to be on — like being lost at night in a safari, covered in bait, with only a flashlight, and pride of lions around you. Or when the power goes out at Jurassic Park. (Pic 1) In my years as an entrepreneur, running SR, I’ve been threatened to be sued 12 times (hiring lawyers to defend myself), both by universities and individuals but still defended peoples’ opinions and their anonymity, been contacted by the FBI, subpoenaed for data, and most recently had a lien placed against me by the IRS, who claim that I owe them $95,000 for an old tax year where I only made about $50K. Sorry Miss Strole, I almost had the $100,000K you required for me to marry you, but then the IRS made a power play, so I married her instead. Fortunately, it’s a clerical error, so it’ll get cleared up somehow (I hope?), with lots of paperwork. The important question is… does this put me in the same class as all those rappers who owe 6-digits to the IRS? (Fig 2) Soon I’ll release an album and it’ll go double platinum. Being an entrepreneur means that you have to be willing to love dealing with a class of bullshit like most people can never dream of, and spend more time running from one flaming pile of manure to the next, stamping it out, splattering your well-worn jeans with shit instead of running your business, all the while knowing that everyone else will use the adjectives, “stupid”, “thief”, and “moron” to describe you.
As in Ratatouille, anyone can be an entrepreneur… just honestly, most people shouldn’t want to. (Pic 3)
