Is a Start Up the Same as Gambling? I Hope Not
June 24th, 2010 | Small Business | No Comments »This week I’m in the city of New Orleans for a conference. I’ve never been before and it has been eye-opening. As with anything, there are pluses and minuses. The minuses — the weather and 3 inch long cockroaches. In fact I just left a fancy dinner, barely eating my food because one NO’s finest cockroaches scurried across my table.
The upside to N.O.? First, if I lived here, I would lose a lot of weight — as I don’t eat sea food. The second: they have a great casino dowtown. Last night I played blackjack for 2 hours, and I was thinking about joining a poker game.
You often hear that starting a new business is a gamble. Well I certainly hope that’s not the case. I get the point that starting a business involves risk, but risk doesn’t equate to risk for me (so long as it’s a calculate risk). Last night, as I was playing cards, it seemed pretty clear that most of what was happening was pure chance — no strategy. I mean, you could have a betting strategy, but if you followed it perfectly, it still gets you to a coin-flip chance of winning.
I don’t envision the same type of discipline (or lack thereof) with starting a small business. Sure, you still may go bust, but that doesn’t mean strategy was essentially pointless. With a business, a good team and idea should get you a better than toss-up chance to succeed. Whether you recognize if you have a good team or idea is another story. By the way, I lost $100 last night…so I hope I’m a better business person than gambler.
