Passion Over Profits
Profits are essential to running a business long-term but if you base your model off of profit first, you're going to have a hard go of it when things become messy.
I am fortunate to get to speak to many different people at different stages on the business journey through the FlowCast and in having started Flow Spa this year. One thing that stands out across the board is where people as it relates to passion versus profits.
Particularly if you're starting a business from the ground up, passion is crucial in my opinion. You certainly can build a business solely around profits in the monetary sense but be prepared for the grind to feel that much harder. This is a topic that Si Grobler and I got into on the FlowCast this week.
Si is working on his MBA and teaches a university course in social enterprise; a different way of operating revenue-generating businesses.
Public companies over the last forty years have been all about maximizing shareholder value. Pumping up the stock prices superseded virtually everything else so that the shareholders were kept happy.
Times are changing though.
Consumers are demanding more out of the companies that they support and this has led to a new lean towards maximizing stakeholder value. There's a lot of greed at the top in big business so it's going to be a long road to see this shift actually come into place.
Fortunately, more entrepreneurs are getting started with a passion-first perspective and as the businesses of the past decade or two continue to grow and spread their own newfound wisdom, more businesses will be inclined to follow suit.
So if you're looking to get into business and see it as something to be passionate about, there's plenty of help to be found in your local communities.