Decision time.
The building of the site is coming along, but plateauing somewhat. I’m reaching what I think is the extent of my knowledge as far as the coding goes, in a time when I need to add some features and functionality to really make the site work well.
Last night, I heard Donny Deutsch say “I’d rather own 51% of a company that is worth $10 million than own 100% of a company that is worth $2 million”.
Well, I’m coming closer that line of thinking every day. If I let my greed rule me, I could potentially end up severely stifling the potential of the company, even perhaps resulting in a company that never gets off the ground.
If I give up some of the share to someone else, a few great things happen:
- The quality of the site is immensely improved, resulting in a better experience
- My time is freed up to concentrate on the things I want to concentrate on – building the company, the vision, developing the systems, marketing, etc…
- Future maintenance and development is delegated off to someone else, freeing me up to do more of the above point.
Obviously, the benefits are pretty great. I’ve got to squash that little greed monster and realize that in sharing, better things can be accomplished.
So, if that’s the case, and I decide (which I think I will) that I’m ready to share some of this…there are a few things I need to do/think about:
- The company needs to be “formed” legally, probably as an LLC.
- I need to do a bunch of research and put together some revenue projections so that a potential shareholder will want to commit some major time to the project.
- I need to do some major research and networking to find the perfect company to make the offer to.
- I need to figure out what % of the company I’m both a) willing to give up and b) think this work is worth.
Some major tasks there. As visual design progresses (still looking for a visual mockup come mid-April), I may shelve my work on the coding and concentrate on these important tasks. However, once I make the decision to do that, I can’t really go back. I mean, I can, but it’ll wreck my timeline and schedule, and I really don’t want to do that.
So, I’ve got some thinking to do. I need to make a decision fairly quickly tho, probably within the week, so I can refocus my attention.
Ahh, the joys of starting a company! It’s a blast, but scary as hell!
Tags: entrepreneurship, startup, strategy, partnership, outsourcing, business, critical thinking
