One thing I do know is that making money is not the same as starting a business. For entrepreneurs, this is an important thing to understand. Most of us identify with the products we create or services we provide. I make software. He is a headhunter. She builds computer networks. But the fact is, all of us must master one skill that supersedes the others: making money. You can be the most creative software designer in the world. But if you don’t know how to make money, you’re never going to have much of a business or a whole lot of autonomy.
Amazing column this month in INC by Jason Fried of 37 Signals. I’ve met several people who I would say just have the skill of making money, no matter what they are working on. There’s no question it is a skill, but I realized reading this that I viewed it more as a born talent. That is, in the back of my head I always viewed making money as this thing certain people were just born knowing how to do. That doesn’t make sense…it can be developed and learned through practice like anything else.