Comments on: “Lifestyle Business” Defined in Under 140 Chars

By: DrakNet Web Hosting Blog » Reselling: Web Hosting as a Lifestyle Business

DrakNet Web Hosting Blog » Reselling: Web Hosting as a Lifestyle Business — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:35:38 +0000

[...] heard the term “lifestyle business”? A post by Hillel at jacksonfish.com came up with a Twitter-friendly [...]

By: Hillel

Hillel — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:28:36 +0000

@Jack: Where did my definition say that delegation was bad and working a huge amount of hours is good? Never mind the fact that implicit in your statement is that scale is always good. I agree scale is good up to a point, but scale can also ruin your business (in my opinion).

I think many people running “small-batch businesses” delegate all the time (including us). They have to cause they’re not flush with other people’s cash to spend on full-time employees.

By: Jack Hanson

Jack Hanson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:35:31 +0000

Frankly, it is your definition that is patronizing.

My definition:

Lifestyle business = a term used by people who don’t know that a true business is scaled trough DELEGATION, and not by working a impossibly huge amount of hours.

By: David Regler

David Regler — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:50:42 +0000

I understand why it’s thought of as “patronizing”, since it’s generally viewed that way by business books, articles, etc. I wonder whether the current economic climate is changing that view though.

By: Hillel

Hillel — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:10:17 +0000

I don’t think there needs to be anything patronizing about the term by default. However, I think that often in its usage it has become used in a patronizing fashion to dismiss these typically smaller businesses as not “real” or “serious” businesses. The dictionary often evolves definitions to reflect the reality of the usage of a term independent of the original intended meaning.

And as for megariches, I suppose it’s accurate to say that lifestyle businesses give up the dream of megariches (i.e. billions). However, in reality I wonder how many people pursuing that dream get even moderately rich relative to people who pursue smaller footprint businesses and don’t distract themselves with the fantasy of hitting a google-like IPO lottery that almost nobody experiences.

That said, I generally agree that there are large businesses that create things of quality, and small businesses that make crap. I also do think that in terms of the laws of physics of businesses, scale is the enemy of quality. You can choose to laud big businesses that do a good job even more based on that axiom, or seek out more small businesses that are doing quality work you may have never heard of (or both).

By: Tony Wright

Tony Wright — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:39:16 +0000

I’ll second the “why is this patronizing” question?

Lifestyle businesses aren’t just/always about quality– there are plenty of lifestyle businesses with crappy products and there are plenty of big/high growth companies with good ones (Zappos? Amazon?). Growth and quality can mix quite well at times.

Lifestyle businesses is the term for a business that sets aside the dream of growth and megariches for some other dream. That dream might be a fabulous product that couldn’t be done without curtailing growth. It might be a company that feels like a tight-knit family. It might be a 4-day (or 4 hour!) work week.

(not far from the Wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business )

There’s no shame in these decisions, just as there is no shame in choosing to aim big. I generally think that taking a defensive/offensive posture toward the other side isn’t constructive. We’re all “in the arena” in one way or the other.

By: Saqib Shaikh

Saqib Shaikh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:49:49 +0000

I don’t run my own business, so may be missing something, but why is this term patronising? I have friends who run such businesses and when I first saw the term thought it was an apt description. Is its offensiveness related to the frequency with which it is used, or the people that use it?

By: Don

Don — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:16:04 +0000

I like your “Twitter Unfriendly” definition because I’m building a lifestyle business too, and you captured it perfectly!

By: Hillel

Hillel — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:02:05 +0000

Not pretty but done.

Lifestyle biz – the patronizing term for a biz unwilling to grow at the expense of product or workplace quality. http://tinyurl.com/db82lj

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:37:18 +0000

Challenge: Remove 23 characters so we can attribute you with a tinyurl link…

“Lifestyle business” is the patronizing term for businesses unwilling to grow at the expense of the quality of their product or workplace http://tinyurl.com/db82lj