What’s the purpose of building a business?
It’s not to make money. In fact, the more you focus on making money, the less of it you’ll make.
I forget this rule constantly. And when I forget it for too long, I see my businesses start to decline. We chase money, we chase marketing campaigns, we chase conversions — but we forget there are real people on the other end of all of this.
The purpose of business
The purpose of a business is to create something useful for other people. Because if it’s not useful to anyone, there are no buyers on the other end. And without buyers, you don’t make any money.
Continuing to build businesses only for the money — especially once you’ve already made some — is a recipe for burnout. You won’t have the same motivation you used to. You can’t grind the way you did when you were broke and needed a way out.
Once you have money, the reason for building has to shift. We’re all happier when we’re doing things for other people. And when we’re happier, we work harder, we work longer, and it stops feeling like work.
That’s exactly the state we want to be in.
So before you do anything else in your business today, ask yourself: Why am I building this? Is it because making money feels like an interesting mental exercise? Or because you’re doing something genuinely useful for someone else?
If it’s not the latter, it’s time to adjust your approach.
Useful quotes
Here are three useful quotes on this topic of the purpose of business for you to consider.
“A business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better.” —Richard Branson
“A company thrives only when it resolves a legitimate problem in someone’s life…A founder needs to…continuously verify if their idea truly matters.” —Elon Musk
“The purpose of business is not to make money…The only reason to start a business is to deliver some product or service to humanity that makes their life better.” —Mohnish Pabrai
—Matt