Being an entrepreneur is a risky, painful process (despite all the glamour from the successes you read from the media). The process itself can be extremely rewarding when you finally become an overnight success (after ten years). Despite all the pitfalls and risk of enormous risk of failure, people still stick around, your family still trust that you will succeed, investors still trust you and join you on your journey to make something awesome, smart people give you that crucial vote of confidence by joining your startup and other entrepreneurs provide free resources to you in the hope that they can attract advertisers.
These are 21 of the things you should be grateful for as an entrepreneur.
1. Free expert business advice from sites like Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, LinkedIn Today etc.
2. Not having to ask permission to try something crazy.
3. Free products like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, LinkedIn, Skype, PayPal, Hootsuite etc that help you do business better.
4. Friends who give your startup a push when you desperately need it.
5. You can operate a global company from your laptop.
6. Cofounders who push you to your best with their example.
7. The freedom to operate and create a business of your choice.
8. Investors and shareholders who understand who genuinely want to help (although they have monetary interest)
9. Customers that pay for products.
10. Dedicated and committed employees who work passionately for the success of your company (even though they could just do what they paid to do)
11. An opportunity to add value, big or small, to people’s lives.
12. Free founder resources like Steve Blank, Mark Suster, Paul Graham etc.
13. Family members who bear with you in times of failure, another failure and yet more failures until you finally make it.
14. Folks you have met that are willing to help you out, even though the returns for them will be a couple more years down the road!
15. A free market economy where the people can choose everyday which businesses succeed and which businesses fail by choosing where to spend their money.
16. All your twitter followers, and for those who checked LIKE on your Facebook business page.
17. Freedom of thought, freedom to implement those thoughts without having to get it ok’d by anyone else, freedom to create jobs for others.
18. Customers who trust you and your product enough to even use or better still pay for it.
19. For all the number of smart, creative people that have joined your team to make your product awesome.
20. All the different kinds of new technology like mobile and social that allow you to connect with others freely.
21. People that give without expectations or strings.
What are you most grateful for as an entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur can also be grateful 1) that s/he can have flexiblity to leave work when his/her family needs him/her. 2) S/he gets to choose her team/staff and 3) S/he can’t be fired or laid off! :)