What a powerful, visual image for the equally powerfully written post. I feel the foot kicking me….

I have some ideas, I will share with you off line. I am working towards generating a serious income so that I can stop working for others and work exclusively for myself. It amazes me continually that you see yourself as a normal guy. I think normal doesn’t come close to what you are Jason…. but you already know how I feel about you. You are an inspiration. What you have done with JibberJobber is not normal at least not by my estimation! Keep writing, and kicking, and…

Entrepreneurial success is IMHO a table with four legs: strategy, execution, funding, and luck. Maximum success comes when all are well-matched to each other. Where I find most people stumbling is understanding the interaction between strategy and execution. This determines the level of funding needed to obtain a certain probability of survival. Luck, however, still gets to cast a vote. There were a lot of very sound businesses started in late 1999 that were simply crushed by the changing market conditions.

While my own journey into this game came about as part of a sequence of events not unlike your own, I actually feel this is a very dangerous path to take. When starting or running a business, you really need to separate it entirely from your feelings about yourself. The business is either ready to support you full-time, or its not; it cares nothing how desperately you need a new job. In the end, I made the move when my then-employer folded up, and emotionally it was not a moment too soon, but in hindsight I think life would have been a lot easier if it had happened six or nine months later.

Last, my experience is that you hear a lot more from those who were very lucky than from those who were very unlucky, and the very lucky not infrequently ascribe their success to their method, and not the universe’s madness. People who “defied all the rules and succeeded” make for great copy, but they make very bad examples for people who have yet to develop a good sense of the four factors I mentioned above.

If I had to give one piece of simple advice, I’d say to people that they should look for businesses where it is possible to “fail small,” and better still if you can also fail fast.

In other words, find something where you can start out putting in 10-20 hours a week on the side, and not more money than you’d be willing to play on blackjack in Vegas, and get it to the point where you can find out whether someone is willing to pay something for it. A large majority of businesses fail before they reach this point, so you should try to get there as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

I always say “Hesitation breeds doubt”; the more you wait, the more you doubt your chances of success.

On Sunday, I will turn 27 and as I look back (I know some of you will say that 27 is soooo young (at least that’s what older women tell me…but I digress) , but, trust me, it’s been a rough ride ), on my life, I know that I want to live knowing that I created, started and owned something of significance!

I just hope that my businesses continue to grow so I NEVER have to worry about working for “the man”.

Great blog posting!