My journey feels like it has been a lengthy one but, in reality, it hasn’t. As an entrepreneur (and, before that, as a human), I found myself looking around at a certain point in my life and asking myself questions about who I was and where my talents lie and, from there, what I wanted to do.

My first lesson was that, first and foremost, I am a writer.

Over the ten years or so that I have been researching and reporting and writing and thinking about microbusinesses, I also learn that I have leanings towards advocacy. Maybe I’ve always been looking for an underdog, somebody or some set of somebodies whose voice had been habitually silenced. It’s a peculiar spot for me because, in certain circles, fire and spirit and even occasionally logic are not match for numbers and data. But, as history teaches, the pen is mightier than the sword.

So, my second lesson was that, beneath it all, I am a fighter.

This new century we’re in is all about people making connections with people and everything about economics and about business that has distanced people from each other seems to be becoming passe (to put it kindly).

To me, the best thing about “microbusiness” as a broader concept is that it is all about meeting the material needs of humans in sustainable and non-rapacious ways. It’s about ‘need’ not ‘greed.’ And it injects a much-needed dose of humanity into the business world – not a moment too soon.

Lovely, thought-provoking stuff!

It sounds like we have asked ourselves similar questions about the motive behind our intention to become microbusiness entrepreneurs. I’m glad that you answered those tough questions for yourself and your family. I asked the same tough questions, and even today, find that staying on course is extremely difficult. This is where personal leadership comes in… it wouldn’t be courage if you aren’t afraid, and it wouldn’t be leadership if you don’t even follow your own lead.

Jane

I believe one of the principle reasons for people creating a micro-business and actively controlling its growth is so that they can flex their business as their lives demand.

I am in a similar situation to you – I have a four year old and a 6-month old at home. I can re-focus my time, chase business hard or less so and so forth according to their needs, my wife’s needs and my need for family time.

I posted on my blog about my ambitions and philosophy here: http://www.fourthirds.com/refocusing-ambitions/.

But what wisdom have I learnt? Two related things. Firstly, that simply I always have a choice. A choice to chase business or not. A choice of whether to accept a client or not. A choice to ‘down tools’ and play with the kids or work through. Secondly, that in order to make wise choices, I need to understand deeply what I want and need to achieve, and why.

Look forward to reading more of your posts!

Neil

… Now all I need is a reason/business to justify it…

The business “gravy” may be personalized touch and faster response in some types of businesses. I’m fine if I get generic tech support rather than my own business account executive who has my info on file and knows me by my first name.

However, I don’t consider having a service working and not being disrupted for 4-5 hours “the norm”, whether I’m a consumer or a business owner. It’s one thing if I refused to pay extra to get a higher speed of internet service, for example, and then my browser slows to a crawl because the company was unable to deliver based on the amount of consumption from my business activities. It’s another if I’m paying for “service” and then get “no service” or “disrupted and discontinuous service” due to the company’s inappropriate response measure to expected service problems.

Whatever the nature of your microbusiness, you have decided for one reason or another that you are required to rent an office space in a business location. Most of the emerging microbusiness owners today – and I suspect many who began years ago and continue operating – chose to operate from their home locations because their operation does not require this measure, or because it did not make sense to their bottom-line. In other words, there are many microbusiness owners who are also consumers / customers of businesses, except they are consuming through their business.

Perhaps what you and Ray and all businesses experience is a more systemic problem – paying a much higher cost just because you’re operating “as a business” rather than based on use or level of service required. Because of higher cost, many companies can’t necessarily match the product quality or service level that a smaller operation without overhead may create, but those located at “business locales” still need to pass that overhead expense onto their products and services to consumers. Then people like you and me will end up paying for that overhead.

Now I have a business location; I’m my only employee. As Ray said, I pay three times as much for water and garbage service at my office when I use far less than my home; my rent is twice the cost of my mortgage. Even my banking services are higher so I don’t feel the least bit guilty that I can get in the much shorter line for commercial banking customers. So yeah, I do feel entitled to “gravy” but that’s because I’m paying for it.

One thing I’m doing this year is to get Cable internet access (at twice the price of my home cable access) but start using Vonage or a similar Voip service. The higher rate of access will be more than offset by the cheaper phone lines with unlimited minutes. And, I’ll have faster service than the current DSL with MaBell.

Incidentally, I have found all of these items are much more expensive in Florida than they were in Nevada, where I moved from.