If you followed my Noobpreneur.com regularly, you might notice that I haven’t post anything for three days.

What gives? You might guess I’m being lazy, but I’m not.

I was sick – influenza plus fever plus vertigo, and oh, plus I’m moving house, along with my wife and one and a half y.o. boy. There you go.

Luckily, most of my business run on autopilot. They require minimal direct involvement from me. Whew.

The problem with my blog, I’m the only writer. The problem with my few other business, if I were sick, my business is sick also.

I don’t know how about you, but I think entrepreneurs should pursue automated business. That is, business that run automatically without direct involvement from the owners.

One example is auto car wash. Another example is candy dispenser business. Many more example – virtually almost any type of business can be made automatic.

The question is, do you really want your business made automatic?

However, not all entrepreneurs want to own an automated business, due to the negative side it may have.

To consider the plus-minus whether automated business is for you, here’s some points to ponder.

The plus side

1. Well, of course – it’s automatic – it’s passive income. You can be anywhere else or do anything else without hurting your business.
2. Your physical presence is not needed to keep the business run.
3. You can construct more focused business strategy, because you are not involving with day-to-day business activities.
4. You can have dozens of business if you wanted to, because automated business don’t require your full-time presence.

The minus side

1. Automatic means a system must be present, and a system is resource intensive. What’s in a system? the employees and information systems (management, accounting, etc)
2. If the system failed – employees on strike, for example, your business failed, too.
3. Not all entrepreneurs want the headaches of managing employees.
4. Some industries are less effective when the businesses in them are automated – usually if the owners’ name or title is significant. For example, a well-known dentist will be having difficulty in automated the business, because it involves his/her name as a brand.

So, the choice is yours. I’d personally go to automated business, given the perk to have more business and have more free time at the same time – I’m a bit lazy, anyway :D

Ivan Widjaya
Automatic business