I owned a ML based company with an emphasis on Edge computing for the better part of two years, made $150/hr to collect the necessary data alone, and having one client was more than enough income.

The danger of mediocre success that the author speaks of is actually the danger of indeterminate market movement being identified as meaningful in a naturally open system, then attempting to draw meaningful conclusions about the data when the most likely cause for, "mediocre success" is you simply haven't had enough time in the market. Many of the traits we associate with good business require word of mouth and first hand or second hand experiences with a company's output/services. Accessibility and availability to your client or consumer is the primary reason businesses fail, and on top of that, most marketing tactics suck valuable equity from the businesses, to the point where people are hired on to determine how much money it will take to gather more clients to cover the costs of the campaign.

This is nothing new.

Frankly, I have found networking events and bars to be the best generators of clients. I never openly advertise what I do, (except technically in this comment), but often times I instead talk with people and ask what they do for a living, if they enjoy it, etc. I could make the argument that I waste my time at these places, but ultimately the whole reason I even own the company is from being at those places and chatting people up, taking them out of the crazy warped reality we get piped in from mass media.

This all said, the article just goes to show how many corporations actually do more harm than good to themselves based on the data they collect and what they believe it correlates to or what the causation may be. These deterministic representations of what reality might actually be for a business owner, or anyone in any situation, is a neo-classical example of Uncertainty Principle imo.

To loop back to the top,

My concern is the author suggests that a business model is created and built when you don't have clients or a working idea of how to directly target them in the first place besides a phone call. The best advertising is client word of mouth,and time in the market. You won't have either of those things until you focus on making one client at a time happy, disclosing what you can and cannot do, laying out realistic expectations and deadlines for them or you, having a contract for any services rendered, if they choose a competitor after signing for the same purpose, that sort of thing, and perhaps most importantly having a business centric understanding of if it makes sense to have the upkeep costs of an entire business as opposed to self realizing what those costs can be up front, clausing your contract as a contractor to cover those costs you might write off in the process of the project for the client, and sticking it out as a lone wolf who gets the job done properly, and as defined by the contract ,when needed.

Maybe my comments will stop someone from setting up a LLC or S corp. To be honest, I wish I had never done so and I should have just ate the contractor taxes instead. Currently, there's a emphasis on volume of production with these corporations, so the cost of paying 10 engineers for a year is much less the cost mentally of trying to do all these things yourself, one client at a time, as a business that has all the same tax benefits or penalties of a larger company with definable cost of goods sold because those people go home at night instead of you the business owner who might pull all nighters or get anxiety over things you can't get finished due to unforeseen circumstances, and no team to back you up.

In the end, the best way to start a business is to gamble a million Dollars with a need in the market for what you offer, at a price clients are willing to pay, and a level of attention to detail they might not get from a larger company in exchange for building trust with you as opposed to a market leader. You hire a few really good, overqualified engineers and people who are willing to tell you then you are doing a bad job or wrong, and you take their collective advice. Most of the time, you are going to be the one who needs to improve, and most of the time, you aren't going to like that feedback as a business owner. It will confuse you, you will want to give up. You will have sleepless nights, you will have nightmares about the most superficial things such that it really wouldn't be much different than getting emotionally invested in Dance Moms even though you've seen all the seasons by proxy 4 times already.

But, those people have ideas. Those people have visions, and ultimately, the best way to run a business is to have enough money to accept the business might not pull a profit in year one if you're going to be nice to your employees.

So to all this I suggest:

Don't start a business unless you really, really have a excellent focus on what you want to do with that financial vehicle because depending on how much money it is we live in an an economy where capital gains are taxed less and require less actual work than actually breaking a sweat or going to a job, assuming you have enough money to invest in the market.

I'll probably get down voted to hell for that last quip, but when my investment account had larger gains in a month than I made in a month as a business owner, off of only a 10,000 investment, I felt pretty stupid. Obviously I can't guarantee that profit/loss, but that's why you make that money in the market while you can, quit your day job if the market investment pays more, and go find something amazing and new to build that just might change the world.

I truly apologize for this.... Block of text. This article just seemed to skip over some really key things that are a reality for many a small business owner.

My experience with it was even after charging $200/hr for data collection, for the better part of two years, having a single client was all I needed. Looking back, I would have happily taken a larger tax hit as a contractor than go through the trouble of creating an entire company. I reinvested all that money into development kits, educational resources for myself, and now I'm sitting at home without a job this year, coding and learning whatever I want to code in the hopes that I develop something people appreciate and enjoy using, or finds some wonderful niche purpose worth charging money over.

If I cared about money, my business would still have clients but I'd be much less happier and I'd have the same number of employees -- myself.

Owning a business to me means putting out quality products that do what people ask, runs efficiently, is easily read and understood, and meets customer expectations in a timely and financially sound manner.

Hiring another employee isn't gonna do that unless I can afford good employees, and I can't feel good about what I pay good employees unless I have enough money to pay them what I would like to pay myself. The expectation being that they take the same level of time and care that I would if their task was my own, so I don't have to go review all their work all the time.

I'd be happy paying devs 400k/1m/year+ and having the best team of devs in the world and only taking home 100k as their manager, if it meant we make quality products, and everyone who works there is happy, and some of the stress of being a business owner could be relieved.

Sure I could take more money home but ultimately my goal is to make sure we can do what clients need us to do and set realistic expectations and at the end of the day that's a high price to pay upfront for services like a company like mine would be, but cheaper than a lifetime of dealing with errors, code problems, you all know what I'm talking about.

Have a good day folks and don't be afraid to charge what you are worth for your services. Yes, there are people out there developing products making ridiculous amounts of money, money you could stockpile and turn into your own business someday without worrying about the struggle bus mediocre success, limited working capital concept this author talks about.