I've been working too hard lately :-( I guess it just feels like there's so much to do, and so little time, and everything's important. But still, I haven't really had a day off for 10 days or so, and that was only one day, and then previous to that I worked for two weeks without a day off. I know, everyone says "hard luck, you're an entrepreneur" but still...

Anyway, aside from moaning, some thoughts. Instead of "revenue plan" or "business model" or whatever, I think a more precise term is "How are we going to make money?" And in answering that question you need to exercise a lot of creativity. It's just as hard as any engineering problem. I've been constantly questioning any plan with the following.

Why? How? Who cares? Those are the key questions on "How are we going to make money?" You have to CONSTANTLY ask yourself these questions over and over again, and if you think you made progress, then ask them again. Why do this? How does it work? Will anyone care?

I think there is a huge gap between a crap revenue plan and a good one. With a crap one, you will not make crap money, you will make NO money. With a good one, you will not make good money, you will make GREAT money. So, it's "unfair" in a way, right? I mean, it's like a function that pushes any results to the extreme. So you have to have a REALLY strong answer to "How am I going to make money?" or else you might as well not have an answer at all.

And talking to lots of different people about it helps.

Do you like the new site design?

Truly. It was a great event. We had a bunch of people from outside the university too, which was cool (the first two were many UW people).

• My photos from BarCampWaterloo#3
• Jesse's blog about it
• Michael Fagan's blog about it
• All photos on flickr tagged with BarCampWaterloo (the "officially sanctioned tag")

Sign up for the next one (in May) .

And thanks to Tech Capital Partners for the food and to The Waterloo Accelerator Centre for the space!

(The exit is when you convert your equity in your company into cash or equity in another, larger company.)

Most tech businesses are built to be sold. The number of businesses that actually exist for more than 5-10 years is tiny compared to the number that are started. The number of founders who either want to or are capable of running a business for that long is also tiny. There's nothing wrong with selling a business, right? Do founders worry about what happens to their employees when the business is sold? I don't know. I haven't reached that stage yet. I suppose that ideally, the employees are sucked into the purchasing company. A lot of people see selling a company as bad, but to a founder, it's good.

You probably won't make much money until you sell. Let's face it, the exit is the big deal, financially. A good exit can make you wealthy on a scale that lawyers, doctors, and other high-paid professionals will never reach. That's when you are supposed to buy a Ferrarri. And why, in the mean time, would you take a higher pay now for less equity later? After all, you're the founder, so you must believe that the value when you sell is going to be high. So, of course, you should pay yourself a living wage for now and keep as much equity as you can.

Hanging onto equity is tough, and getting paid on exit is tough too. I seem to have met a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot fewer who actually have gotten properly paid. Or maybe they just haven't bought expensive cars? I don't know, but my impression is that most entrepreneurs - their first business venture doesn't turn out big. Second, or third, but not first. For example one of my advisors Charles had his first (maybe second?) business not work out at all. Then his second (third?) paid really well. (I hope to be the exception.... but that's how I always think.)

In fact, if you exit and your stock is tied up in someone else's company, you can STILL be waiting to get your cash out after the exit for even longer.

Of course you're not doing it for the money, but you are, sort of, doing it for the money, aren't you? I mean, changing the world is more important, but, hey, it's a lot easier to change the world when you are rich and powerful.