On Linked In today, someone asked a great question:  Will you use your own money or capital to start-up your own company based on your brilliant idea?

Here is my answer, for anyone interested:

Fantastic question. To me, the question is whether one can see the financial risks and rewards independently of the emotional value of the opportunity.

Personally, I've worked in film finance for over half a decade, and am now in the process of bank-rolling my own film with money I'm making on film equity I've built up. I've been cautioned against this by plenty of people. At the same time, I've chosen my content with a honed awareness for market trends, I'm in a position to utilize some very successful track records in the execution of my goals, and I have the ability to give myself reliable exit strategies. If George Lucas hadn't personally bankrolled Empire Strikes Back off of his winnings from the Star Wars Kenner toy deal, there would be no Lucasfilm, no THX, no Skywalker Sound, no LucasArts Interactive, no Industrial Light and Magic, and no Pixar. All that from a 20 million dollar investment! No risk, no reward, as we all know!

On the other hand, many would-be entrepreneurs protect their emotional investment in a project by failing to thoroughly consider it financially. If an idea isn't financially reliable, it only means that one shouldn't execute it until one can bear the loss, but many entrepreneurs lack the patience to do something more bankable first. They simply make emotional allowances for the financial risk. The responsibilities inherent in using OPM can help management focus on and improve the financially challenging elements of a business model. It helps the entrepreneur bear the risk they are taking, which is always substantial considering the time, the commitment, and the leveraging of relationships launching a business requires. Most of all, it allows the entrepreneur to separate the emotional and the financial risks of taking on a challenge this big.

Will I use my own money to launch a new business? Absolutely. That's why I made it.

Should you? Can consider the emotional and the financial rewards independently of one another? Can you face the emotional and the financial risks simultaneously? If the answer to both questions is yes, then it's worth considering. You just might be George Lucas.