If you have dreams about setting up your very own business then one of the critical aspects which you should be thinking about in particular, is what kind of business owner do you want to be? I was chatting with a good friend of mind about this recently, Arie Eric De Jong who heads up Diamond Environmental Services. Arie was talking to me about how his company grew quite organically and that there is much he would do different if he could start over again.

In particular we touched on this idea of being a business owner, and here are the options which you have ahead of you.

Silent Owner

There are many people out there who wish to work hard in setting up their business, and then taking their foot off the gas and letting a responsible manager take over. There are pros and cons to all kinds of business ownership of course, and the same goes for those who wish to be silent owners. The pros are of course that the business looks after itself and you can commit time to other endeavors. The negative here is that unless you have an outstanding manager in charge, who genuinely cares, then you may have problems which exist that you won’t be able to see.

Partnership

One great option, and the one that Arie decided on, was to go into business as a partnership, with one or more people. If you do this then you have to ensure that you have a very good business relationship with the other person or people, and that you have a smart and sensible way to resolve any differences of opinion. You can benefit from this situation however because of the fact that you are minimizing risks financially. Also it is helpful if the person with whom you are working has a different skillset to you, so that you are both able to offer something positive and different to the business.

All Encompassing

At the other end of the extreme to those who wish to be a silent owner, are those who are completely dedicated to what they are doing, and wish to invest their time and their money in managing and owning the business. This will of course take up an enormous amount of your time but it does mean that you will have full control over what happens with your business. There is a danger in doing this however, and that is the fact that you may end up looking to control all moving parts of the business, which is not sustainable. You have to make sure that if you do go all in, you learn how to trust others to take control of aspects of the business, it will be your job to keep your eye on the big picture.

And so, when the time comes for you to set up your business, which kind of owner do you plan to be?