Lifestyle businesses are underrated in my opinion. They are also more achievable than a multi-million exit, especially if a lifestyle business is the planned goal. A lifestyle business does have particular challenges however. Specifically, moving it from a stage two to stage three business as described in Scale by Finkel and Hoffman:
A stage 1 business depends on the founder doing the work; a stage two business depends on specific people doing the work; a stage three business has enough systems and checks in place that people are interchangeable.
With a stage two business, a critical person leaving can threaten the entire business. This is a particular issue in the software field where people tend to job hop. Creating a stable lifestyle company that is more than a three or four person shop, thus requires a large and sustained effort to document all critical processes. Don’t underestimate this challenge.
I think life style businesses are fine, provided you’re the only one that’s not interchangeable.
For instance, if I run a business and hire workers to develop features for the website and have a few people in the factory assembling widgets. It’s fine so long as I can approve the PRs and train up the next folks as needed.
That would be a ~ three or four person shop in my experience. It’s small enough that you the founder know how to do everything themself. That’s a fine business, but often it’s tough to take a vacation and leave it on autopilot for a few weeks. And heaven help you if you ever come down ill.
Vacation for a few weeks? I never imagined taking weeks of vacation unless I’m between jobs or businesses. If you can take weeks, then you’re probably not needed at all or so sparingly an occasional email would do.
Wait till you’re a little older and have a family. The OP asked about a lifestyle business, that is, a business to build an actual life around, not an ‘I’m-in-my-early-thirties-and-still-single-so-burn-me-out-please’ business.
ugh … I won’t comment on exact numbers, but I have plenty of kids lol
If you get to the point you aren’t needed great; but everyone I know running lifestyle businesses tend to take only a few weeks off throughout the year — not all at once. Many take <1 week per year. They’d be considered “stage 2 businesses” by the metric mentioned. Imo that’s totally as far as most of these businesses can get, unless you have revenue to sustain overlapping roles.
If you get to the “I don’t need to work any more” phase of a business; typically it’s time to sell or hire someone to manage and do something else.
Which btw should be the goal, I’m just saying, you’re no longer running a business if you quite literally are leaving for weeks at a time lol. Someone is running it for you.
I have run a lifestyle software business for 19 years and I'm still at what you call 'stage 1'. I can afford a decent lifestyle, can go on holiday for several weeks (with laptop) and (mostly) like the work I do day-to-day. I have no plans to progress to 'stage 2'.
https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Seven-Proven-Principles-Busines...
A stage 1 business depends on the founder doing the work; a stage two business depends on specific people doing the work; a stage three business has enough systems and checks in place that people are interchangeable.
With a stage two business, a critical person leaving can threaten the entire business. This is a particular issue in the software field where people tend to job hop. Creating a stable lifestyle company that is more than a three or four person shop, thus requires a large and sustained effort to document all critical processes. Don’t underestimate this challenge.