Several years ago I was talking to a friend and he said that he is more interested in a lifestyle business than in “high risk, high reward” type of business. I was interested in the second one (which is, usually, about the VC backed startups – like MavenHut), while he was interested in the first type, which means growing slow, bootstrapping and taking a longer time to see either success or failure.
Most of the time, you don’t really hear too much about the lifestyle business. The most obvious that I know of is Evernote (which is more of a hybrid), but today I’ve found an interesting article on Hacker News about a lifestyle business that generates revenues of about $15 million per year from Malaysia.
I like the article, I think it underlines the most important thing about a lifestyle business: being really passionate and enjoying what you are building. Otherwise, how will you be there for the next 10-15 years?
This is important to me. I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. Mindvalley was built around my passions – meditation, personal growth, play, culture, travel and epic interior design (our offices are magical). Having total ownership means I’m not pressured by partners, boards or investors to deliver something that I’m not passionate about.
If you could choose, would you choose a lifestyle business that generates steady income, grows slow and takes a longer time to reach the valuation you want (but it might be less risky), or the VC backed business?
lifestyle all the way, life is too short :-)
I bet you would’ve answered differently some years ago :))
I think the same as your title: Lifestyle Business is A Real Option :)
Option being the key word here :)
Can you please tell me why do you consider Evernote a lifestyle business, Bobby?
It’s not me the one that considers it a lifestyle business, it’s Phil Libin :) I don’t remember which interview, exactly, but he said that for him Evernote is a lifestyle business that needs VC money to grow (or something like this).
He actually took the last round of investment just to pay early investors that wanted to exit, so that he can focus on building the company.
Anyway, it’s also a hybrid (as I said), because it got so big, it needed VC money to scale.