Do lifestyle businesses really have the negative connotation that I’ve been told they have? I’ve heard about this stigma of a lifestyle business numerous times, but everyone Ive ever actually talked to has said they sound lovely: you maintain a lot of control over your life and business, at the expense of perhaps more (unnecessary) money.
I had thought for a long time that lifestyle businesses which weren’t optimizing to grow would be looked down upon, but I’ve never seen that. I think maybe there is some bias because of course we will hear more about the Ubers and Doordashes of the world, rather than the Basecamps of the world.
> Do lifestyle businesses really have the negative connotation that I’ve been told they have?
My cynical hypothesis is that it's 50/50 of a good chunk of tech community feeling FOMO ("I want to get rich quick too!"), and VCs creating this perception. VCs need fresh young blood to push through the startup grinder.
That said, I haven't noticed much of this connotation here on HN (which is ironic, this being ex-Startup News, and a board attached to an VC company). For this I have another hypothesis: HN has a slightly different bias when the EU is awake, which is now.
First, stop calling any business a lifestyle business. Business is always hard no matter how much time you put into it. I run a bootstrapped SAAS bsiness that grew "only" 20% last year. I know that is not even close to what VCs want if I wanted money but that 20% growth was great for our team and we can continue to working on building a great sustainable and profitable business. However, I can assure you there is nothing "lifestyle" about it. As the founder, I grind my ass as much as the founder of a VC backed company.
I had thought for a long time that lifestyle businesses which weren’t optimizing to grow would be looked down upon, but I’ve never seen that. I think maybe there is some bias because of course we will hear more about the Ubers and Doordashes of the world, rather than the Basecamps of the world.