Building Up and Cashing Out

This morning's Washington Post has one of my favorite kinds of stories, about people who built companies out of nothing and then cashed out for gobs and gobs of money.

The people profiled today are business owners who built their businesses mainly by being government contractors. Sure, you know about government contractors like Halliburton who feed at the trough of the Iraq rebuilding, but these are smaller companies that have never had Dick Cheney at the helm but built up enough of a business to sell out for ungodly sums of money.

If you want to get rich in this life, the surest way is to start your own company. Yes, it's risky, but the potential is great and the need to bust your a** everyday to make a buck gives you a kick that few other jobs will.

I've started a number of small companies and done fairly well, but I've never broken the bank the way these people have. But one thing I never had in all the years of being my own boss was the dread of Monday morning. Every week I saw the potential, the possibility of landing a big client or seeing an advertosement bring in a ton of new business. Even if those things didn't actually happen often, the possibility of them happening made work a gas, something I looked forward to instead of dreading. I highly recommend it.

In fact, I'm getting closer to taking that plunge again. (As fun as being an entrepreneur can be, it can also be exhausting and leave you in need of a break. Especially if you've done it more than once.) I'm scanning the business sections, checking out the Web to see what kinds of services people need. So far I'm thinking health care, but I'm not sure where the greatest needs are. But I'm open to other possibilities.

What business would you start?