What Makes These Crazy Entrepreneurs Tick? – Part 1

Entrepreneurship is insanity. There’s nothing normal about these crazy and ambitious people who decide to jump off the cliff, decide that normalcy isn’t for them, and choose to pick a route strewn with half-dozen (or more) nasty gorillas in their way. They walk across a crocodile line up, engage with complete strangers, go out on a limb to solve problems, and think of changing the world.

They hustle, they face problems even before they start, they get comfortable with “investing” without knowing what’s “certain”. Entrepreneurs wade through pitch-dark tunnels, look for nuggets of gold (where there may not be any), and defy what most others follow.

They are relentless. They follow their heart. They hustle. They keep at it all.

They are nuts, aren’t they? Actually, they aren’t.

They are like everyone else. They have bills to pay, children to look after, a home to run, and a family to keep. But there’s something that makes them tick. There’s that little spark plug somewhere that fires them up and keeps them running on all cylinders. I asked some of those crazy people also called as entrepreneurs.

Small or big, they do have something to say.

Here’s what drives them:

Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing

Grow up, study well, get a job, get married, have kids, and retire on a shack. Most people are on that route. There’s nothing wrong with the route itself, of course.

Except that Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing felt that wiggle worm in the pit of his stomach when he had to think of the “route”. He felt he had to do something. Something had to give.

So, he runs his own business Heinz Marketing – a Seattle-based marketing agency focused on sales acceleration that helps countless clients deploy marketing campaigns for results.

Matt gets on many 10-15 minute calls in a day, shares information on his blog, writes a lot (check out any of his many guides), talks to clients, and connects with others on social networks.

The man just gives. He doesn’t expect anything in return for the time he’d spend working on others’ problems. He looks to network with others. He seeks to do what he loves, help people, and drive others (and himself in the process) towards success.

He controls his environment and the pace of life he leads.

But why does he go through the trouble, you ask?

“I can’t imagine doing anything else. I absolutely love what I do, not only because I love the work but because it enables the life I want to lead for myself and for family”.

He wrote a blog post on what makes him tick. Do read it. Reach out to him. He doesn’t bite.

Spoken like a man in charge.

Lisa Olinda of Olinda Services

The startup culture would almost make you believe that business is all about monetary glory. For most entrepreneurs, business maybe about bootstrapping, growing, scaling, hiring, getting funded by Venture Capitalists, and then getting a few more rounds of funding.

For others, it could be the freedom, or the money, or the smug satisfaction that you are in control. You decide everything. You make tons of money.

Lisa Olinda – an expert business support professional, entrepreneur, and an awesome lady who runs her own virtual assistant company at Olinda Services – doesn’t want to ride the excitement of all that funding, growing, and scaling. She doesn’t care about making tons of money.

Instead, she looks at the value she creates for her clients. She pulls out all-nighters just so that clients can sleep happily. It’s just the wonderful feeling of accomplishment of having helped someone else. She’s as noble as a teacher when she puts it this way:

“For me the thing that keeps me going is helping others. If I wasn’t helping others I would quit.”

“ I love when you connect with a client that “gets it”. They know what they want and how to articulate their needs. That is when I get excited about my work and helping others.”

And

“I was pondering this the other morning at around 3 a.m. and having self-doubts…wondering am I really making a difference. There is so much noise out there; am I getting through.”

“When I opened my Facebook account the next morning there was a private message from someone saying “I love your website, I am glad you are on my network. I have learned a lot from you. I went to Vimeo and started learning all they do. Thank you!!”

“What a wonderful encouragement. That is one of the reasons I do what I do!”

There, she said it.

Jonathan Hinshaw of EBWay Creative

Website developers have a reputation for focusing on “development”. They are known to focus so much on code that they forget that it’s for people who are still trying to figure out what to do on a website once they arrive.

I am not a developer, and I don’t know how they work. I do know Jonathan Hinshaw – an Internet marketing maven, Business Catalyst Partner, and the founder of EBWAY Creative. He creates websites for small businesses that work for these businesses. He helps small businesses generate leads and maintain a profitable online presence.

He is all over Twitter while being active on Adobe Business Catalyst Group on LinkedIn (among others). He runs his development business with an eye for design and marketing. You got to love his typical, “too much to handle” days.

I asked Jonathan what makes him who he is, and he puts it this way:

“I started with nothing – memories of those days are the fuel I use to keep moving forward”

And then he says something that I had to stare at for a while, only so that I can digest it:

“Failure is an attitude, not a destination”

I learned this from him long before he gave his inputs: design+ marketing smarts = business profits.

Amen, to that.

What’s your story? What makes you tick? Reach out to me and tell me what’s this about entrepreneurship that keeps you alive?

Why aren’t you like normal people? Eh?

Img Credits: Nina Matthews on Flickr

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