An interesting thought for artists or developers who are business owners, start-up founders or solopreneurs…. What are the first things you need to do in a survival situation? According to survival experts there are four things you need to take care of, and in that order:
1. Find fresh water. Without water you will not be able to concentrate within a day, then you will start hallucinating, and after about 3 days your body will shut down.
2. Build a shelter. Even in temperate climate zones, the risk of getting hypothermia in the night is high, especially if you get wet.
3. Start a fire. Fire keeps you warm, allows you to boil and disinfect water, dry your wet clothes and prepare food.
4. Find food sources. Your body can go a long time without food. Eventually it will begin to cannibalize itself, but it is not as urgent as the other three objectives.
Why am I talking about survival? Because businesses are “living” entities. A business needs to be nourished. It needs water, shelter, fire and food – otherwise it will die.
Water is the thing that keeps you functioning, that ensures that you have enough mental capacity to explore your environment, find a suitable shelter place and materials, and go on with the next steps. In a business setting, water is cash flow. Without a solid stream of cash flow, you have a problem.
There are different ways to get fresh water.
1. You can collect rain water (commissioned work). But here, you are at the mercy of the weather (the market). Sometimes there are more requests than you can handle, and sometimes there is nothing.
2. Another way is to find a larger water body (high volume funding). This is risky as the financial cushion can run out pretty quickly, and the water might not be clean enough (unfavorable terms for your business).
3. I think the best option is to find a nice mountain stream of clean fresh water (constant cash flow through selling a product, i.e. passive income).
This is a business owner’s first and only priority at the beginning of the journey. Do you agree?