“Go Lauch Yourself a Rocket!”

I happened to spend some time with two entrepreneurs this weekend. Both of them gave me some insights into why they do what they do. I know why I became an entrepreneur and what I wanted to get out of it, but I continue to be amazed at how each entrepreneur I get to know has a slightly different take on the why question.
The first person was a gentleman who we hired to do some electrical work on our home. As I watched him work throughout the day I was struck by his professionalism and with the care he took in his work. As we were settling up with him at the end of the day we started to talk with him about his business.
How long has he been in business? He told us that he had only started a year and a half ago. He had been an executive in the publishing industry for several years. But, the hours and the pressure was taking a toll on his young family, so he and wife decided that it was time to make a change. He decided to go back to the trade he had learned as a young man working his way through college.
“I realized that if I took off time to spend with my family on a Saturday when I was working for the company, it cost them money. If I make that choice with my own business, it only costs me money.”
He said that the first year was a challenge financially, but he saw immediate rewards in what mattered most for him: his family. The business was now beginning to make some money, but what mattered most for him was the independence and control to create the right balance between his work and the time he wants for his family.
The second entrepreneur lives in our neighborhood. We were at a going-away party for another neighbor on Saturday night. He and I got talking about his retail business. He and his wife had recently opened a second store. We both shared our stories of how and why we had ended up as entrepreneurs. He had gotten sick of the corporate world and decided to “bet the farm” on a business he had learned about from a friend.
I asked how many stores he planned to open, and he said that he would open enough of them to reach the financial goals he had established for his family. What was interesting about this answer to me is that even though retail can be quite a personal business, he was also working hard to look at it as an investment. He wasn’t trying to build an empire or maximize what he could accomplish. The business was a way for him to get to the retirement that he was clearly looking forward to on his own terms and in his own time.
Each of these entrepreneurs looks at business ownership in a different way. No matter how many entrepreneurs I talk with, each seems to have a unique view of their purpose for going into business and what success means for each of them.
What is very common is that however entrepreneurs define success, it is rarely defined in external terms. Most do not become entrepreneurs to impress others or become famous. They do not define their success based on what other people think about them. They seem to have a healthy ability to tune out external expectations.
All of this reminds me of a scene from a movie, October Sky, that we watched this weekend in my MBA class. It is one of my favorite entrepreneurship case study movies (even though it does not appear to be about an entrepreneur at first glance). It is a true story from the late 1950s about a young boy, Homer Hickam, from a desperately poor coal mining town in West Virginia who decides that he wants to launch a rocket after seeing Sputnik flying through the October sky. Homer’s quest to launch his rocket is a classic tale of entrepreneurship.
One line in the movie reminds me of the importance for entrepreneurs to keep their focus on their own goals, and not on anyone else’s. Homer had attracted a lot of attention from the citizens of his small town, many of whom showed up one day to see him launch a rocket. He becomes quite nervous about the success of this rocket launch and what everyone would think if it failed.
He teacher and inspiration, Miss Riley, looks him in the eye and says, “Homer, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody. You remember that. Now, go launch yourself a rocket!”