STARTING a Business and RUNNING a Business are Two Very Different Things!
This morning, I got thinking about how starting a business is really vastly different from running a business — even if it's a new business.
I say that from the perspective of having done both, and I would have to say that it doesn't matter whether you're Steemit or someone starting a knife-sharpening business in your garage.
Different Dynamics
Starting up tends to be a very dynamic and exciting and busy time.
Pink waterlily
There's constantly stuff needed to be done, and planned and experimented with... and then you launch and some things turn out to work magnificently and some have to be completely redone.
In the earliest running, you're really still in "startup" mode; it's a very creative process.
But then you get a couple of years in... and this strange sense of "drudgery" seems to set in. The business becomes a matter of daily routines, thinking of tiny upgrades and changes and adding little tweaks here and there.
But on the whole? A Certain "sameness" sets in.
Where "Creative Geniuses" Leave...
Once the business has found its place and is "operational," we have also reached the stage where we sort out the "creative geniuses" from the managers and worker bees.
Thistle
The truth is that most creative geniuses are pretty lousy at running companies.
In fact, most of them -- like our own Dan here on Steemit -- tend to run off and do something else, because they soon become chronically bored with the daily nitpicking that's part of running something.
It's not that they don't love their creations anymore — far from it — it's that daily accounting and order filling and whatever just isn't what their gig in life is about.
At this stage in the game we usually see a "changing of the guard." Some people interpret the "creative geniuses" leaving their companies as "abandonment," but it really isn't — it's more a case of them seeking their highest and best use in life. And why wouldn't you?
Et Tu, Steemit?
Sometimes I can't help but think that some of the slightly "stale" and lethargic energetic feel of Steemit these days is due to exactly this issue... we're a couple of years into the process and the day to day running is a bit boring to some of those who arrived with fanfare and excitement.
Water waterlily
Sure there's a bit of hope on the horizon for "an exciting splash" with SMTs and Communities, but that has been a long time in the making.
Where's the excitement over a cluster of new features being introduced to make our community appealing enough to facilitate eventual mass adoption?
We are also — perhaps (this is just my own theory) — experiencing one of the weaknesses of a decentralized structure in the sense that when things have to be accomplished "by consensus" they are ponderously slow to progress.
Anyway, these were just some afternoon "u-loggish" thoughts...
What do YOU think? Have you ever been part of starting a business? And then running it? Did you find the dynamic quite different? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
created by @zord189
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180613 16:53 PDT
I’ve always noticed there a few didn’t types of people regarding just running things in general. Sometimes it can just get frustrating working with some people as they did not seem to fully think things out in any manner.
You have people who are just ideas people and as soon as you tell them “what about the details” they just took at you like someone else is supposed to come up with things and create the fine details needed to run things. They were so hype by the idea they did not realize there was nothing to it.
I notice this lot more in people who want to be in positions of power so it is not something just exclusive to people wanting to run a company. They are use to other people doing the thinking and them just carrying out whatever the task that was needed.
This tends to come a lot from people who want to change things for the better. Yet when you ask them they don't know or they have an idea but nothing behind it. They just want change for a change and never really thought more into it. Which is not how to run business as you need to be decisive and you are the one details needing to make sure things have been fully thought out and developed before spending time and more money on it.
Good points. And sometimes I even think just about the language people use... "Let's START a business and change the world!" People have great ideas, great intentions... but they only visualize the up-front "glam" bits of getting the thing started, not the years of daily grind needed to keep things going.
I started a business with four college buddies in 1985; by 1991 I was the only one left... even though the business did pretty well, they were all "ideas" people and bored with simply running a fairly good business. It takes all kinds, I suppose... I'm often accused of "having no imagination" because I can look at a business plan and determine that it lacks substance in a matter of seconds.
"But isn't it an awesome idea!?!?"
Yup. But it has no reason for being, and there's no way it'll ever go anywhere...
Maybe the creative geniuses are just that - 'Creators' but not nourishes.
The market has a way of compartmentalizing aspects of talents that produce maximum benefit to the outcome.
In this respect we find that great startups are usually brainchild of more than one person or a team. Even the upper echelons understand that if they are retain their seat in the heaven they have to allow creators to their thing and managers their's.
"Ideas people" (creative geniuses) are seldom "worker bees." Often they are — as @enjar suggested — accustomed to a world where other people handle all the details for them. They just live in their own thought bubbles of creativity... and it's up to others with a different skill set to pick up the idea and run with it.
To have talent, to be a creative genius, to innovate, to develop things that others like ... All that is so complicated and at the same time so rewarding, that it is priceless, although sometimes we could be discouraged when we believe in doing the best and are not rewarded duly (in Steemit this happens a lot).
The rules of the market and advertising manipulations of the market are sometimes so confusing and unfair that the maximum benefit is not always achieved as a result of the maximum effort made; otherwise we see that many achieve great benefits with minimal efforts and if they are creative geniuses or developers, but if they have a platform or friendships that drive them.
Finally, can creators be allowed to do their thing?
One of the things I have tried to understand in life is that ideas are "only ideas" until someone actually decides to DO something with them. A lot of very creative people are very good at ideas, but have little follow-through (or interest?) when it comes to actually turning their ideas into a functional real-world model.
And yes, you're right-- on Steemit, maximum effort doesn't always mean maximum returns. You have to "effort wisely" and make the right friendships and connections.
BOY, HOWDIE...
You got that right!
I feel like this a big dig at steemit 😂, considering that the people behind it haven't been able to run this platform very well.