Life Imitating Art, part I

In a play on the common expression "life imitating art," LifeTwo has started out imitating (mirroring?) the lives of its two founders. This is due to the fact that the very existence of this company were the result of long discussions about what exactly we wanted to do next with the working portion of our lives. Greg and I first wrote out what we felt was our 'perfect' work experience and then reconciled any differences between the two. As we honed what it would be, we ended-up with the following:

1. Founding our own company.
2. Finding a market that was growing, changing, open to new entrants, and sustainable.
3. Finding a niche in that market that could be addressed with skills that we currently possessed or felt we could attract/develop.
4. Finding a business model that wouldn't require a rush to outside capital.
5. It would be something that we felt we could enjoy doing for a long time and be proud of the result.
6. Flexible hours (more on this in another post)

Why were 1 - 5 important?

Both Greg and I knew what it was like to be entrepreneurs--both the good and the bad. If you want to increase the chances of starting a new company being a good experience one of the most important decisions is picking a market in which new entrants can compete. We looked at a number of interesting possibilities that we thought would be fun but many of these ended up either being too small of markets or overly-saturated.

The skills issue was similarly important because we wanted to be able to do the majority of the early work and then add new people on an as-needed basis. If it wasn't a good skill match-up those new hires would have been needed from day one.

The outside capital issue was also important because once a third party has invested the clock starts on that money coming out. This can be at odds with building a great long-term company environment for founders, employees and customers. We certainly have nothing against outside investment and you cannot blame investors for looking out for their own interests. But when one is starting a company to fulfill the quest of the "perfect working experience" the hassles and conflict that can result from third party capital is something we have choose to avoid--at least for now.