Is Business in IT for Everyone? 8 Reasons to Go Into or Give Up
In the present series of articles, I’ll be telling you short stories from my 13 years experience as an entrepreneur running an international software development agency. This first article is about the reasons behind starting a business.
Ever since my first job as a software developer when I was 17, I dreamed of having my own business. Wherever I worked, I took notes of what I would and wouldn’t do in my company. I definitely liked sponsored lunches in the office, but didn’t like fixed working hours, and I loved paintball games and picnics with the team. I appreciated horizontal organizations, but with a specific person appointed responsible for projects, as opposed to responsibility shared between multiple people.
- So reason one: the opportunity to do it your way, from house rules to office design. 10 years later Redwerk bought a huge office space and I was directly involved into designing it. Loving the outcome.
At the age of 23, when our first customer asked me to develop a software product, I had a clear picture in mind on what my organization would be like. Always wanting to do software and create amazing things millions of people would use, I didn’t hesitate a single minute and started building my first team. For 3 more years I kept my full-time job combining it with running the team in Ukraine remotely from Germany. To me it meant more stability in case things didn’t work out, but once I quitted my full-time job to concentrate on the company, I became much happier.
And here is why: now I had a choice of people to communicate with. You see, at a full-time job, you must work with whomever your boss tells you to. And running a business, you can decide yourself who you hire and even who you work for, i.e. your customers. And if you do the same in your personal life, your entire circle is decided by you and you alone.
- Reason two: hand-picked human environment. You can pick customers, coworkers, service providers and friends yourself. Zero unpleasant people in sight. Provided your relatives and parents-in-law are OK.
Doing business is fun, but also very demanding. You have to care whether your customers are satisfied with what you deliver, whether your employees are happy, and whether you always have enough money to pay everyone on time, including unexpected events. Strong financial (self-)discipline is a must.
- And here is reason three: it gets you more organized.
As an entrepreneur, you have to deal with a wide variety of subjects on a daily basis, from project management, software development, sales, marketing, PR, HR, to various paperwork, taxes and accounting, which gives you a tremendous amount of knowledge about everything. If you’re like me, a knowledge junkie, new challenges will be popping up on a daily basis switching your focus between very different areas.
- Reason four: faster learning, more knowledge about pretty much everything. Once I had to study construction theory on waterproof layers in the roof to figure out the reason for leaking ceiling in our meeting room.
Just like gaining new knowledge, switching hats is a fun and creative activity. As a software agency owner and a technical person, it’s inevitable, you have to know what’s going on with every account, what technical issues their software is having, and what the common ways are to solve them. Besides the core business itself, there are other departments like HR, marketing, sales, community social projects, you name it. You can play around with new activities and if it works out and fits with the company, branch out a new department.
- Reason five: switching hats on a daily basis. If you’re bored doing the same repetitive activity for years, as an entrepreneur you won’t afford to sit still. Personally I like coming up with PR and marketing ideas. Like that one time we described my bar mile in Kiev in an article, which increased our website traffic by 5x.
Given the international nature of any IT and software business nowadays, as an entrepreneur, I have to travel. Besides my typical locations like Germany and Ukraine, twice a year I travel to the United States, where I meet both my long-time customers and new prospects my sales team finds and sets appointments with. Traveling for business I have to blend into other cultures, improve my language skills in all languages I speak besides my mother tongue, Russian: English, German, Spanish and Romanian. People from different cultural backgrounds have to be approached differently, and speaking their language gives you a great advantage.
- Reason six: traveling, meeting new interesting people and exploring their cultures. Having long-time friends and business partners in multiple countries and cities, who you can catch up with upon arrival is priceless.
Financial resources of your company and your own pocket are pretty much the same. Along with great responsibility, it creates an opportunity for you to spend wisely and become a better person by using some of it for a good cause, like social projects. At Redwerk we help foster families, orphanages, retirement homes in Ukraine, also involving our staff into activities like fulfilling a Christmas wish of a child, or simply picking a cause and gathering donations that get doubled at the company’s expense. As an environmental effort, we noted how much plastic was being thrown away by us alone, hence we have switched to reusable dishes and silverware.
- Reason seven: becoming a better person by making a difference, helping those in need and reducing the footprint on the environment, using the financial resource as a powerful lever.
Gain communication skills that will help you anywhere. Pep-talks, sales pitches, introductions, public speeches… If you have ever been shy to talk to a stranger or wet hands when addressing a group of five, it only takes practice to overcome those psychological issues.
- Reason eight: learn to talk to anyone, about anything.
Needless to say, business and entrepreneurship are not for everyone. It’s well understood that when you’re not a risky type, if you like your daily job, want to keep the stress low, focus on your family and out of office activities, full-time job is a better option. Just like in technology, there is no silver bullet and no recipe to make everyone happy. It’s all about priorities, always.
What’s your favorite reason for being an IT entrepreneur?
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