Kelly Smith | Made in Seattle

For entrepreneurs, one of the last things considered is the total opportunity cost of your start-up idea. It’s something worth considering. Most start-ups will take at least a few years to really get going. It’s not likely that you’ll be able to determine a lot in the first twelve months. This is the second start-up that I’ve worked on and each time I notice some similar trends. Normally, when I leave one job I start to get calls from recruiters about once every two weeks about other opportunities that are relevant to my experience (digital media and tv/video centric technologies primarily). When you begin work on a start-up, those calls will begin to dwindle over time if only because you are probably going to be “out of circulation” for awhile. This has a cost to you that must be considered. Had you spent those few years continuing to make traction in your employment setting you end up meeting a lot of other people who would ultimately become instrumental in your next job. Most great jobs you get will probably come from leads of people that you had already known or met somewhere else on the job. This can be stressful on a number of levels. First, your start-up might not work. That’s scary enough. Further, the time you spend working on your start-up was time that you weren’t circulating in your industry on a big company expense budget. In that regard, I love people who choose to do this kind of thing. It’s the ultimate expression of the risk/reward equation. When I see my friends like AtomFilms finally start to get traction after so many years of hard work it becomes more clear why a select few make the big hits. Most people justifiably give up when the data suggests you should probably throw in the towel. When you continue anyway during those periods when it only seems there are headwinds is when it really winds up being a lot about courage and a lot less about sensibilities. It’s often hard, stressful and the odds are stacked against you. I know the statistical odds on a case by case basis and all you’ve got on your side is previous experience and some degree of tenacity. I am saying that I tip my hat to those who’s ventures do make it because I know what you went through to get there. Each individual success is not only great for those founders who fought hard but it’s also important inspiration for thousands of others who have considered the idea of the entreprenurial lifestyle. I suppose many of these founders don’t know that they’ve indirectly been a catalyst for hundreds of others to take a chance on their own crazy dream. To all you Microsoft and RealNetworks guys we’ve met over the last few quarters who left cushy, high paying jobs to work out of basements and bad offices…I wish great luck on the new ventures.

Recently, a former colleague from Myrio (now Siemens) was telling me about a subordinate who was from Munich (German guy) who expressed concern about his job and what might happen to his job if their particular division was sold. He seemed to think life might just come to an end. After all, he’d been employed at Siemens for 15 years. My friend simply told him, “well, in such case you’ll simply walk across the street and get a better, higher paying job then won’t you?”

What better way to look at things? Positivity in all instances seems integral to every bit of this discussion…my wife is really good at this. I’m sort of working on it…