I grew up watching the NFL, and I’m a big NFL fan.

One of the things that makes the NFL exciting is that at the beginning of the season, every team has a chance to be optimistic. The salary cap and the draft system are designed to make sure teams start out on relatively even footing.

Often, the margin between a really good team and a really bad team is pretty thin. It’s not unusual for a bad team to beat a good team on any given Sunday.

As a fan, that’s what makes the NFL exciting.

I never really paid much attention to college football.

My Introduction to College Football

The college I graduated from, Cal State Los Angeles, had long since disbanded its football team by the time I attended. So I never had a college football team to follow.

Then I found out my cousin’s son was playing Division I FCS football.

So I decided to start watching his games.

At first, it was kind of exciting. His team won, and won big.

Then, after a couple of games, his team lost big.

After a while, I noticed something.

Every single game seemed to be a blowout.

Either his team was blowing out a smaller, less competitive school, or they were getting blown out by a much bigger, better organized program.

There didn’t seem to be much middle ground.

Coming from watching the NFL, where almost any team can beat another team on the right Sunday, this seemed strange to me.

But the more I watched it, the more it reminded me of something else.

Small business.

Small Business Isn’t Fair Either

In my space, there are companies much bigger than mine.

There are companies whose marketing budgets probably exceed my entire gross revenue for the year.

Yet I persist.

I’m also much bigger than many of the other companies in my space, and I can do things many of those companies simply can’t because I have the size and infrastructure they don’t.

Yet they persist too.

That’s when the parallel between college football and small business started becoming interesting to me.

College football teams don’t all start on equal footing.

Some schools have enormous budgets, huge stadiums, national television coverage and the ability to recruit some of the best athletes in the country.

Other programs don’t have anything close to those resources.

In many cases, the win-loss record seems predetermined before anyone takes the field.

Yet, they play anyway.

They Play Because They Can

Most college football players aren’t going to the NFL.

The majority of college football teams are not going to win a national championship.

For many programs, that’s not even a realistic goal.

But they still play football.

They play because they can.

And this is the interesting parallel between football and business.

We all exist because we can.

The bigger players, the smaller players, and the players in the middle.

In business, particularly online, there seems to be this constant push that every business needs to become as big as possible.

But not every business wants to be as big as possible.

Not every business needs to be as big as possible.

The same company can be the giant in one competitive situation and the underdog in another. And all can still go on.

Not Everyone Is Trying to Build the Biggest Company

Some people are quite happy running a small business.

Maybe they’ve built themselves a good income, have control over their schedule, and enjoy what they do.

Isn’t that enough?

They can continue to exist alongside companies that could easily dwarf them in size because they don’t need what those larger companies need.

A much bigger company needs a lot more revenue just to keep the machine running.

At the same time, bigger companies have advantages that smaller companies don’t. They can invest in people, infrastructure, technology and marketing at a level a small company may never be able to match.

And yet they can all coexist.

The biggest company can’t do 100 percent of the work 100 percent of the time. The smaller company doesn’t need enough work to become the biggest company.

They’re playing on the same field, but they’re not necessarily playing for the same thing.

What Does Winning Look Like to You?

I think that’s the part of the conversation about business that sometimes gets lost.

We’re constantly told to grow.

Then grow some more.

And then scale.

There is often pressure to figure out how to get to the next level.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I want to grow my own company substantially from where it is today.

But that’s what I want.

It doesn’t mean that’s what everybody wants.

Maybe you want to build a $150,000 business. Perhaps you want to build a $5 million business. Some may want to build something enormous.

Maybe you just want to make a good living doing something you enjoy and have more control over your life.

There isn’t one definition of winning.

That’s what college football finally made me realize.

Hundreds of teams take the field every year even though most of them know before the first kickoff that they’re never going to be national champions.

They play anyway.

Because winning the national championship isn’t the only reason to play football.

And building the biggest company isn’t the only reason to own a business.

You don’t have to build the biggest business.

You need to build the business that fits you.