create a challenging environment where every day is a struggle for understanding. dont set limits. take risks and get yourself into financial trouble. pay someone to collateral the value of your loans with cash. flee the country. start a business. pray for stability and hope you arent hunted down or killed.

 

I guess I could fall into the category, I initiated and created the business, but I started it with a companion that completes me, and I think that is the key. As an INTP you're extremely well suited to some parts of having your own business, but you also lack some parts that are fundamental for it to become successful and I think it is important to identify these different proficiencies and traits and create a partnership so you have what it needs between you. Going into business for yourself has an extremely high rate of failure (between 90-95%) and there are two main reasons for this according to me:


1. It's extremely rare for one person to have the full set of skills, traits and experiences that are needed.
2. If you do not have a partner your work will mostly be solitary. As introverts we can live with that, but it will be a lot less fulfilling without having someone with you on what is both an exciting but also very hard journey. Two people with equal stakes, a working interpersonal relationship and common vision is simply much much more potent and viable as a basis for a successful enterprise.


If I look at my own business I would describe it's foundation as this:


Me and my partner own 50% each which means we must always be in agreement for a decision to be made and all risks and profits are equally shared. Even though I in effect created it and could have gotten a larger share if I asked for it, I was adamant about this.


I am the chairman and my partner is the CEO.


My relevant competences are (among others):
- Strategic planning
- Creativity
- Communication
- Speed and multitasking
- Leading meetings
- Negotiation
- Initiating contacts
- Being future oriented
- Seeing the big picture and opportunities
- I'm good at problem solving
- I have a strong network in the public sector as well as within the sector (real estate development) we are establishing us in


His relevant competences are (among others)
- Structural implementation of ideas
- Cultivating and developing customer relationships (I make the initial contact then hand over to him)
- Organizational skills
- Human resources competences
- Economy and finance
- Ensuring quality (every idea I get I present to him, he asks questions to make sure he understands everything, then we have a rule that he sleeps on it before we make a joint decision)
- Keeping check on how things are progressing
- Acting in a support function during negotiation
- Structured evaluation of our processes
- Strong network in the finance and economic sector


Since we know each other well and admire each others competences, the relationship is friction-free and constructive, where we both learn from each other and respect the others feedback and input.


Since our division of roles and assignments have been created in a dialogue in order to optimize the use of our different competences, there are no built in conflicts and we both feel comfortable delegating to each other or asking for input or feedback on what we are doing.


Since we have a clearly developed business plan and long term strategies, we both have a shared vision of what we are doing, why we are doing it and what the purpose is. This is extremely important.


At the same time neither of us are dependent on this business for income, but view it as a long term strategic investment. We don't expect to be taking any money out of the company for at least 2 or 3 years, meaning we re-invest any profit into development and expansion until the business is at a stage where we can quit or put less time into our other activities and devote the majority of our working time to this project.


So my advice would be do NOT go into business by yourself. Instead, identify your strenghts and weaknesses and then put the effort into finding a partner whose strengths are your weaknesses. In the mean time you can develop a business plan and long time strategies and do research, but keep them abstract so that your future partner can easily give feedback and develop the more concrete aspects. And aim for an equal partnership rather than maximising your own influence or expected profits. Your partner will be your most important asset and you will be his, so treat him or her that way when you find him or her. Look at it as entering into a marriage, because this person will be one of the most important people in your life.


Also, do not expect to be able to live off your business in the short term, make sure you have another source of income to sustain yourself but that at the same time leaves as much free time as possible to put into your new business.


As an INTP my suggestion would be that you look for an ENTJ (executive type) to be your partner, but preferably one who’s J isn't too dominant. It's important that he views your mental fluidity and creativity as one of the most important assets of the business rather than as an annoyance.


In the corporate world the most fitting role for this combination is the INTP as chairman (overall responsibility for long term goals and strategic planning) and the ENTJ as CEO (good at implementation and creating structure). You will however have to develop your Extroversion, communication and leadership skills in order to function properly as a chairman.


This turned into a very long post but I really felt I wanted to give you the best possible advice, since it is a very tough, complicated and high-risk venture that most people go into hopelessly under-prepared and without the necessary knowledge or skill sets.


For example my brother started a business with 3 colleagues in the construction sector. Everyone of them is very competent at construction, but only one of them has any capacity for strategic thinking and nobody has the relevant competence for economy, marketing, bureaucracy or accounting. Even though they are four people and working their hides off, the business is failing and will soon be filing for bankruptcy.


If you would like to share more details and get more detailed feedback, without revealing publicly what you're considering, you can PM me and I will treat it as confidential business information.


I hope this post helped (otherwise I just spent way too much time typing it up).

 

Im not sure if I count, but I tutor people in Math and Science... successfully

 

I am currently in the process of starting my own company. I did some freelance work with a designer friend, I had worked for our government 10 years straight, not having done too much in IT besides tinker with Visual Studio and learn a programming language or two (VB/C#) then three (Ruby), some python and finally now Clojure. It all originated from this one nasty rootkit attack on my system, TDL3, which I was fighting off for 3, 4 hours (very sophisticated features at that time) and I decided to learn and fight back / defend myself (being the soldier that I am) so I had to learn linux. MS had poisoned my brain long enough with its 'user-friendliness' and I was 'in a rush' to learn having missed out all those years on the wonderful, sweet experience of Arch Linux / Xmonad that I have now. But tweaking a system takes a long time to learn the ropes of, in my case: vim, zshell, first Debian, then RPM based, then Arch distros and xmonad some haskell. Finally now, I decided to settle with Clojure because for me, two reasons:

1) I will seriously wipe any competition off the chart who has to write concurrent programs other than those perhaps using Erlang Also all my web products are fully functional, monadic pure functions on messaging framework, entirely decoupled and allows for extreme kinds of stuff to be developed.

2) It's fun. No, well yes, it's fun but more importantly it will allow me to operate in corporate environments a lot as well due to the Java ties Clojure has.

A bit technical perhaps but for me required to conclude that it's fair to say in my case there are a lot of distractions and I really need to enforce some discipline on myself sometimes to meet deadlines or avoid getting off the path. On the other hand its my Ne and Ti that allow me to do all this and the exploring, but also the learning by experience or navigating in that opaque maze I read about, very much holds true to me most of the time. I do feel I am nearing the stage of mastery more and more which is good, I learn new languages/concepts more easily now once I passed a certain stage in my development (not being attuned to symbolism really and having some sequencing issues). Now I find lamba not so hard to understand anymore, any technical documents for that matter.

Currently I have 1 very good client and allows me to explore and experiment some as well. It benefits him because he is getting a whole extra lot of niceness delivered without much cost and allows me to perfect (as far as possible) my workflow. Which in the end is about increasing my value, what I can ask per hour for work and as such its investing time in myself now learning.

I should probably find new customers/work soon though... can't make a living doing only learning. Just my two cents, wish I had the time to write more but you know how that goes

 

Unsuccessful business owner here lol.

I had my own practice but after 6 months or so it wasn't going how I expected so I quit and started working for another doctor.
I may get a shot to try again as a partner in about a year or so, but that'll be after I learn his system.

My biggest downfalls were a lack of motivation to step out of my comfort zone and initiate conversations with people because I didn't believe it to be the most efficient way to get people and because it made me uncomfortable lol. And a lack of financial resources to be able to ask someone else to do that for me. And of course the lack of a great system which was applicable to my local market. I had a coaching group but they were based on the east coast and had no pulse for what worked in my city.

 

Lots of fantastic advice here. I have technically started it, but lack motivation in doing the "mundane things." I started its facebook page for example, and barely filled it out before releasing it, lol. A partner would be fantastic but I'm not sure how one would fit into my plan, nor how to even pursue getting one in the first place.

I'm hoping to work on computer repair and service, though in the long term it's a slightly different aspiration I have. I'd be glad to provide people with details. Any ENTJs, around Georgia, who have some relevant experience, wanna help? :tongue:

 

There's "J" ways to go about starting a business and there are "P" ways of starting a business. Before I started my business, I read a lot of articles and some books detailing how to start a law firm. I talked to other successful attorneys who run their own law practice. There was consensus on many levels on how to run a successful operation, but ultimately the advice came down to "work your ass off." You have to go into a business with a level of commitment to want to make it work. I think what benefits NTPs is our ability to adapt. If I see something that I'm doing that isn't working, or the model is not going as planned, I have back-up plans for my back up plans. I know for me that it came down to focusing on a model, but not becoming too reliant on it. For instance, I had strategies to get clients through the door. Once I figured out the game, who I needed to talk to, and after spending an incredible amount of my time networking, the exposure has paid off. The greatest part of running a business is that it's a challenge. You have to love challenges and love finding ways to come up with solutions. Entering a service industry such as you are you really have to stand out. It might scare you, but you have to find ways to get your business known to the outside world. This means talking to people who can help you, who can refer you clients, come up with creative strategies where you can market yourself to people who can help your business, etc… Make a shitload of business cards and hand them out to everyone you meet if you can incorporate your business into the conversation. I love talking about my business, I get excited about it, and other people get excited about it as a result. Wherever I go nowadays I wonder how I can find ways to benefit my business or who I can talk to who might be able to give me a client. Essentially, every person is a potential source of income.

While it's important to have a sound plan, it is also important to just start and hit the ground running. If you have little overhead then there is no risk. You just have to go out there and do it and figure out what works best as you go along.

But to find motivation, I would start out with little things. Right now order a bunch of business cards. Next find an event you think might put you into contact with people who might be able to help you. You don't want to be stagnant.

I'm still learning every single day.

And, hey, I'll refer you to people as well. Next time I see you give me some business cards.

 

Thanks for the advice! I'm absolutely willing to take on 80/90 hour work weeks, and have done it before--that mentality should be pretty easy to adapt to.

First batch of business cards are on their way! I appreciate the advice on networking, as an INTP it can be very intimidating to do, despite the necessity of it. I'll have to get back connected with my linkedin, and start looking for some meetup groups for entrepreneurs in my area.

The advice is encouraging guys, keep it coming and share your own experiences. (Even the bad ones!)