The Dream of the "Lifestyle" Business

I wonder how many entrepreneurs started their companies with the hopes that they were starting their ultimate "lifestyle" business. For those who may not have heard the term, a "lifestyle" business is one that doesn't require significant work (at least after you have got it up and running) and generates enough cash flow that the owner can have a great lifestyle. The owner can go on vacation whenever she wants, not have a "day job," and still enjoy running a profitable enterprise.

Now I wonder how many of these entrepreneurs' lifestyle dreams foundered on the rocky shores of reality. We are kind of going through a crash course in this right now. While we at VR definitely started VR with the intention of creating a profitable entity, when we first started we had no real competition. We were doing something very unique--in fact, so unique that few saw it as a legitimate business opportunity. Inevitably, as we struggled to change the business model, keep up with competitors, and get revenue we found that our aspirations of a lifestyle business were ill conceived. It required a lot more work than we thought. There was a lot more stress.

Now we are kind of at a point where we again have to decide: do we want this to be a lifestyle business, is that really even an option, or is that nature of most technology startups such that there is no rest until the exit. I assume that we could work toward creating a lifestyle business but I think that option is not realistic given the pressure we feel to succeed.