Prisoner one: “We’re going to break out of here, or die trying.”
Prisoner two: “Are those the only options?”
That’s in a scene from the movie Chicken Run. The prisoners are chickens. It’s funny, but it also makes a very good point, which relates directly to starting a business.
And that’s one question we forget.
Do we have a choice? Are those the only options?
Startup experts including myself produce lots of good lists of questions to ask. Most of these are business plan points, completely valid, vital to starting a business. They lead to absolute essentials such as will it sell enough, can you afford it, who wants it, can you make enough money to survive, then grow, do you have the right team, and so on.
There’s a lot of that these days — people losing jobs, people starting up because they have to. We get cornered sometimes. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who didn’t really have a choice. They lose their job and can’t find another one. Or they’re offered buyouts, sometimes called golden handcuffs, that come with the undeniable indication that if you don’t take it, you’re job is not secure.
That’s different from the classic entrepreneur story of starting a business out of passion for the product, or vision, or as a leader, a builder, a doer. But it happens a lot.
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