The Diary of a Lazy Entrepreneur
Start with a breakeven analysis and learn the myth of capitalism.
Screw you, financial freedom.
If Medium recommends one more “how I make $4k a week from writing” to me, I swear I will fly to LA and kill Tim Jennings or Fennings, whatever (joking, I won’t kill him, I don’t even know if he’s an American).
Side hustle sucks, entrepreneurship sucks.
If you are, like me, lazy and just want to watch TV and drink wine, be an employee. A waitress on minimum wage in London is currently earning more than me. I shouldn’t have done that breakeven analysis, and now I’m defeated, not motivated. But it really wakes me up. I have found the key to being a lazy entrepreneur.
Breakeven analysis is a wake-up call
I used to earn well as a full-time employee, on par with the former life of Joshua Field Milburn.
Being a top earner means I know the true value of money. I know I can live on less because of how much excess there is without watching my expenses. However, I also know people who’re used to luxury find it hard to revert to modest living.
Our tongue is repulsed by mid-tier coffee. Our body sweats on supermarket beddings. We can’t do yoga without Lululemon. It’s like our body is conditioned to luxury. That’s the first myth of capitalism.
So when I performed a breakeven analysis on how much I need to make in five years as an entrepreneur before I can achieve the biggest oxymoron of living: earning a lot and doing what we love, I was slapped right on my cheek.
Roughly, I need to find eight new clients per month in the first year and reach 19 ongoing and new clients combined every month in the fifth year.
Do these clients exist? How much is the conversion rate? How constantly do I need to sell?
The analysis wakes me up, so much that I just want to run away from it. Wake me up when September ends. I need to take a long nap in my Egyptian cotton PJs.
This is why there are no lazy entrepreneurs
I am trying to work out a way to be a lazy entrepreneur.
There was a metric in my Hong Kong school to rate pupils (yep, of course). A to E for the grade, and 1 to 5 for effort. 1 means the most effort. So one is a genius if they do A5, and E1 is just sad.
I imagine a lazy entrepreneur would be a B-3 person: mediocre effort; above-average outcome.
However, after looking at my breakeven analysis, I don’t think it’s that easy to achieve C even if we put maximum effort of 1. On average, one out of 1,000 subscribers becomes a Patreon, an average newsletter open rate is 21.33%, and 90% of start-ups fail.
F wasn’t even in my school’s metric. This made me want to start job hunting again.
However, before we get too hopeless, I actually realized something profound.
The myth of capitalism
Every person who wants to achieve the oxymoronic life of financial freedom and loving life needs to know:
In a long run, a lazy entreprenurs’ effort will reduce and reward will increase; as an employee, the effort will never reduce.
Usually, the reward of an employee will never compensate for the effort needed. Say we’re good at climbing the corporate ladder. We might get loads of money and perks, but the level of pressure, management, and politics will only increase. It won’t go away.
In fact, it will only get worse. As an employee, the board will look at the success and achievement of one year with a nod and then demand for a sharp increase in next year’s target. Sometimes with very little additional resources and very little regard for the market situation.
The classic rat race means we are racing to a standard that’s not set by us. Rewards will never compensate for the loss of autonomy.
What differentiates entrepreneurship is not making money whilst sleeping, growth, or limitless scalability, but autonomy.
Lazy entrepreneurship is possible
I think I have found the formula of being a B-3 (lazy) entrepreneur, thanks to my past experience as an employee and the breakeven analysis.
In between exponential growth and freedom, I choose freedom. I want to have free time, free from the pressure of others and of society, and financially free.
We need to achieve to an extent, then hold back.
Here’s what I think it means practically:
- The business should have no employees.
- Outsourcing admin, financial, tax, and other mind-numbing functions to capable freelancers (not employees).
- Avoid gathering investors as long as we are running the company (so no one to report to).
- Know the most sustainable and optimal amount we need to live until we die.
- Reverse engineer to know how much we need to make.
- Perhaps our target doesn’t need to be higher every year.
- Automate enough so a mini-sabbatical is doable.
- Don’t forget to put oneself first even at the earliest stage of building a start-up.
What do you think? Am I too naive?
The last point is very controversial. Currently, my business has just started, so I can’t say I’m living proof.
However, many people have started to question why and how entrepreneurs are burning out so badly, and maybe you’d want to know whether I make the cut or not eventually.
If so, please follow my journey! I will continue to share my lazy entrepreneur journey, along with my self-development and sexual empowerment articles (a very intriguing niche pillars I know).
