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by Stephen Parezo

Smart Brief

What matters most to lifestyle entrepreneurs is to pursue their passion and make a living doing what they love. Many entrepreneurs leave the corporate world to start businesses of their own, aided by the acceptance of the home office and IT innovations. Key factors for starting their own ventures are a desire for freedom, independence and control over their lives. Controlling one’s business destiny is perhaps the biggest draw for lifestyle entrepreneurs. Those finding the corporate world stifling to their creative ideas have found a more fulfilling livelihood by being their own boss. While the corporate sector is more lucrative, lifestyle entrepreneurs prize being able to call the shots over the bottom line.

February 22, 2007—Even within the free enterprise system there are some things more highly prized than money, especially for lifestyle entrepreneurs who don’t measure the true worth of their small business strictly by the bottom line. For them, the fact that they are pursuing their dream and making a living doing what they love is what matters most.

No, this movement is not new but it’s been gathering steam, according to Gene Fairbrother, a Dallas, TX-based consultant with the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE).

“We can take this approach back 10 to 15 years where one of the primary areas that saw its evolution was on the coasts in California, New York, Washington, D.C. and Boston,” said Fairbrother. “The budding corporate entity individual coming up the ladder realizes that all of sudden they’re 35 to 40 years old, have a boatload of cash but are burned out working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day.”

These aspiring entrepreneurs made their former companies lots of money but they know that now it’s time to start their own business. With the acceptance of the home office and the advent of information technologies spurring that movement, things started to evolve and many start-ups began springing up with home bases.

“These are people who truly love what they do and they don’t need to make a million dollars,” he said. “It could be an IT person, a graphic designer or an artist.”

Fairbother told Fiducial.com about an example of a national franchise client that provided technical service. While most of his industry contemporaries usually had 10 to 15 trucks on the road to handle customers, this owner had only two trucks out at a time so he was seen as not going after success like the rest of the pack.

‘You don’t have to be big to be happy’

But this franchise owner admitted he was happy because when he shuts his doors at 6 p.m. he doesn’t worry about whether he’s got enough trucks on the road.

“The owner said ‘I’m probably happier than you,’ ” said Fairbrother, noting that “you don’t have to be big to be happy.”

The numbers of lifestyle entrepreneurs have pretty much stayed the same over the last decade yet Fairbrother says there are more people wanting to do it now because there are a lot of hard working people that read about it in a magazine and that plants the seed.

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Key factors for a growing percentage of entrepreneurs starting their own ventures are a desire for freedom, independence and control over their lives.

“That is definitely one of the reasons you go into business,” said Roger Bierman, a franchise relations manager for Fiducial. “You want to have structure for your life and being a business owner brings that to you on your terms.”

Bierman can definitely relate to today’s lifestyle entrepreneurs because he once was one, having operated a service station and a donut shop. He appreciated being able to call his own shots and control his own destiny.

Controlling your own destiny

“I think one of the things that a true entrepreneur looks at is governing yourself and being able to do what you think is right without having to go through red tape,” he said. “It comes from sitting in board rooms and having everybody sign off for each decision that’s made.”

Controlling one’s business destiny is perhaps the biggest draw for lifestyle entrepreneurs who take sole credit for the success or failure of their operation.

“If you’re right, you’re right but if you’re bad you only have yourself to blame,” Bierman said.

Amy Capano earned a fashion merchandising degree in college which was geared for the corporate setting but after four years she was ready to start her own business.

Twelve years ago she founded Cathedral, a home, candle and bath shop in San Diego, CA. Though her enterprise is flourishing, it’s the freedom she enjoys that’s the main reason she’s doing this.

“In the corporate world it’s kind of hard to learn that balance of giving up creative ideas that you have,” said Capano who’s been a client of Fiducial senior business advisor Gene Polley in San Diego since 2004. “It’s more of answering to somebody else. You may have an idea but you have to get an okay from so many people before anything gets done.”

It’s the freedom you enjoy

For the last dozen years, Capano has been doing what she wants.

“You definitely can make more money in the corporate field but the perks are that you’re running this business—it’s all you,” she said.

Andrew Uribe spent 17 years as a clinical chemist but eventually quit his job working for the U.S. Army to pursue his passion, setting out full speed ahead to develop a type of salsa aji, a common condiment with a distinctive taste.

As founder of Orbital Group, LLC in Ellicott City, MD, Uribe’s trademarked adaptation of his Colombian father’s recipe, Emy’s Salsa Aji (named after his nine-year-old daughter, Emy), is selling well in 10 gourmet stores in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Currently negotiating on a manufacturing facility that will be ready in May or June, Uribe is also lining up financing to secure the deal. He already has a national distributor chomping at the bit for his mild and spicy products.

Until his plant is producing product to satisfy the demands of distributors, however, Uribe has been incurring some short-term losses.

Creating something that hits a niche

“My father says it’s hard to go from two spoons to a manufacturing facility because it’s still a hand-made thing,” said Uribe. He’s being counseled by Scott Dickens, a Fiducial senior business advisor who lets him know “where the money is going and where it’s needed.”

But Uribe is following his dream and wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s being able to make decisions and bring my experience and my thinking to the business,” he said. “What I say and do matters. I’m thinking well and I’m thinking correctly. It’s a pleasure not to have to salute a major or a captain or be looked down upon because you don’t have a Ph.D.”

Like many entrepreneurs, Uribe wears many hats.

“Here I’m everything,” he said. “I clean, wash, market and do the financials.”

Perhaps the most important aspect about running his business, Uribe says, is the satisfaction of creating something that hits a niche.

“It’s an all-natural salsa condiment that nobody’s got,” he said.

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial

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