I Am Not an Entrepreneur

Many people throw around the term entrepreneur. It seems most people put that in their bios. Don’t tell me you’re an entrepreneur, show me. What have you done?

When we started LTZ, our mobile and web app development company, we didn’t need any venture capital funding. We didn’t need a fancy office to rent. We didn’t need to do the whole fancy company launch. We just sat down at our computers and started coding. And when we finally had a product to ship, we did all the legal paper work and got ourselves a little LLC.

Sure there were risks. The risk of becoming single again was always there. Sure there were long days. 16 hours seemed to be the norm. And sure there were a few new technologies that we created. But when it came down to it, we just had a simple plan: work really hard and make some great products.

The business model we had, seemed like a great idea: become an authority and gateway for indie developers to develop their apps with. Sort of like a record label for mobile app developers, but without the whole ripping them off bit. We’d mentor and direct them to a finished product and take a minimal cut from the net profits. Any programmer can attest to the numerous projects that never make it to a finished, polished, tested app. But that’s exactly what separates the professionals from the amateurs: finished products.

Now, we’re looking at things differently and adjusting our model. We’ve found out a little more about what works and what doesn’t in this new space. When you’re such a small company, the saying, “If you want things done right, you gotta do it yourself,” turns into, “If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.” It’s really hard to concentrate on writing good code when you’re the tester, the project manager and the client manager all in one.

I’ll talk more about the new direction we’re heading soon. In the meantime, we’re still working on the details and we’ll update everyone as soon as we finalize everything.

I am not an entrepreneur. I just create stuff.