Over Thanksgiving I traveled south to the sun to visit a friend who founded a eco-resort on a tropical beach.
Four years ago, my friend had an idea for a small tour business. Now, her tours have a permanent home at the two boutique hotels she owns. And she owns additional properties in the area that she’s developing, and she’s moving into new kinds of themed vacations at her hotels. And in addition, she has in the works a book and licensing deals for products using her company name and concept.
My first night visiting her was spent getting the lowdown on how she moved from an idea for making a little money from her love of travel to where she is now. She told me that it all began when she that if she was going to earn a living from what she was doing she’d have to run it as a real business, not something that was part hobby. Navigating that transition was a critical juncture for her.
Once she got underway in this new direction, she realized that she loved running it as a business. This new mindset opened her eyes to new opportunities that could give her the ability to scale her business in ways she never though of when it was just a manifestation of a hobby.
Her experience is a vivid embodiment of the principle that there are three basic types of business:
A micro-business that is, at root, a hobby and that can’t provide a living.
A small-business that can provide a nice lifestyle but probably not a big payday.
A high-growth-potential business that in addition to supporting a decent living, might also offer a significant payday.
My friend is lucky that her business is among the ones that have the potential to migrate to scalability and that she has the desire and the skill to make that transition. Not all businesses have that potential, nor do all entrepreneurs have that desire.
It was a pleasure to see how energizing my friend’s new path had been, and how well she’d taken advantage of the opportunities it had led her to. But there’s an important lesson here too.
To avoid frustration and possible heartache as entrepreneurs, we need to be sure that there is a match between our business idea’s potential and what we want to put into it and get out of it. If there isn’t, we need to take a hard look at what we’re doing. If there is: full steam ahead.