"The reporting requirements are onerous," explains Ted Snipes of Greenville, S.C., "and I don't want to run my company based on what I do this quarter." He has built his financial-planning firm to $36 million in sales by taking the long view, a perspective rarely favored on Wall Street. Publisher Peschke agrees: "A public company gets judged on the numbers. We'd rather have service as our goal, with profits to follow. That takes a long time to explain to investors."
Charles Stumpf is typical in how he approaches the questions of control, ownership, and succession. Like most, he's not convinced that anyone could run his business any better. "I'd love to have someone who could take over," he says. "And they might be able to continue the company. But how well? And for how long? "Besides, I like holding all the strings."
THESE GUYS BET THE RANCH -- AND WON
Just a handful of the INC. 500 CEOs admit they gamble for a hobby. Perhaps that's because they gamble for a living.
In our survey, nearly 8 out of 10 admit that they would have been severely damaged, or wiped out completely, if the businesses they'd started had gone under. Most had to face a reduced standard of living to keep the company alive, or miss a paycheck, or take no salary at all to keep things going.
The gamble has now paid off, at least financially. Starting with an average initial capital investment of $34,000, they now take home solidly upper-class salaries, drive fancy cars, and have amassed an average net worth in the millions. The overwhelming majority say it is all much more than they could have ever hoped for from their previous jobs. And despite all the headaches along the way, 95% say that they'd do it all again.
And what of the other 5%?
"The sacrifices may have been just too great," says Robert A. Satter. "I have been at this game for 15 years now, and for 15 years the light has remained at the end of the tunnel. Don't get me wrong, I love business. But there are limits. There can be too much of a good thing."
On the surface, The Satter Cos. looks to be a good thing, indeed. Over the past 15 years this West Point grad has taken $40,000 seed capital and tranformed it into a real estate development company with revenues of $84 million and profits of $1.3 million. Satter owns 68% of the stock.
"But if you ask me today, I'd have to say I'm just not sure if it's all been worth it," he admits. "Everywhere I look I see the signs of the sacrifices I've made -- family, friends, personal interests. About the only sacrifices I haven't had to make have been financial ones."
WOMEN: STILL LAGGING BEHIND
Start-ups by women may be spurring the entrepreneurial revolution, but so far, their firms have made them less rich and famous.
The most obvious thing to say about the women of the INC. 500 is that there aren't many of them: only 4% of the total. And if you are looking for other signs of exclusion in the survey data, they are here as well.
Nearly a third of the women said it was the lack of advancement at their old jobs that was an important component in the decision to strike out on their own -- that's nearly double the rate for men. And to finance their start-ups, women were twice as likely to have relied on family money. Since the start-up, women have raised only $1 in outside capital for every $24 raised by men. And the net worth of these successful female executives is about a third that of their brethren.Salaries still lag far behind.
Ironically, it was the desire to make money more than the urge to be their own boss that most motivated these women to start their own businesses (the men had it the other way around). But once in control of their own firms, women are even more determined than men to keep the reins tight: they are less eager to delegate day-to-day responsibilities, less inclined to take the company public, and less likely to have a replacement in-house.
Women are decidedly more pessimistic about their companies' future, and more conservative about growth. Among the explanations, we were intrigued by the one from Edwina Muhawi, who runs a wholesale bakery in Clovis, Calif.:
"If the women-owned companies aren't raising as much outside capital or hiring as many employees, I bet it's because most of the married women in the survey probably have husbands who don't want their borrowing to jeopardize the financial picture of the family. I know I've got that problem."
Indeed, you can't help but notice how prominent a role husbands play in the fast-growing companies run by women. Fully 78% of the married women in the survey report their spouses have had some role in their companies over the years. For men, the figure is only 57%. No doubt all this working together generates a sense of shared achieveness. It generates friction as well.
"We can't ever cook dinner together, much less work together on new products," says one women, "so we really have to be careful to keep the jobs separate." But Judith Kaplan of Ocala, Fla., a distributor of museum gift items who has included her huband in all three of her start-ups, disagrees. "I don't understand those people who say they can't be with their spouses day in, day out. What a terrible statement on the relationship! My husband and I don't segment. My business is part of both of us and of the relationship itself."
Women executives worry about the kids more, and how their work affects the family. "Regardless of how successful I am," insists Muhawi, "I know that if I'm not providing a nurturing atmosphere at home for two children, I won't be successful."
For those looking to debunk sexual stereotypes, meet Jean Radtke, an advertising executive in Elm Grove, Wis., who left home at 17 to play pool competitively. She now keeps her pool table in the living room, along with her 43 championship trophies.
GOOD NEWS FOR REAGAN AND THE GOP
For some years now, Democratic strategists in Washington have been trying to figure out how they might make the entrepreneurial issue their own. Based on our survey, we have some advice for them: forget it.
More than half our CEOs can't ever remember voting for a Democratic Presidential candidate -- not peanut farmer Jimmy Carter, not Johnson in the '64 landslide, not even Franklin D. Roosevelt. And some of those who have voted Democratic later came to regret it.
