Avoid being an Entrepreneur

incubator,entrepreneur,37 Signals

In a recent post on their site, Matt from 37 Signals argues that you don't have to be an entrepreneur to be sucessful. There are many very sucessful people out there who are " succeeding without MBAs, business plans, and all those other credentials you’re supposed to have before starting a business."

We have somehow created the myth of Entrepreneurs - MBA from a top school, writes a killer business plan and Venture Capitalists flock in... It almost sounds like something from The Fountainhead.

Thankfully most of the (small e) entrepreneurs I deal with are not so characterized. They don't have big MBAs or venture capital, and in fact, concentrating at all on those ideals must set up a false demand in the prospective business owner. Instead of finding a niche or market they understand, they try and develop something towards this mythical Entrepreneur.

We must break ourselves from this mythical Entrepreneur.

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Matt also remarkes that "It’s time to get over the idea that risk and reward are so intertwined in business." This is a incisive point. Many of the financiers we are now bailing out had much reward for their actions - though little significant risk. Likewise, starting up a small software shop in college or just out of college has very little risk (Paul Graham has written persuasively on this as well), so any reward is positive.

What I don't have an answer to is how, as a 40ish mid-career person, I can balance the reward and risk where I am now as a business owner. And many of the people who have been laid off right now are exactly in this position. Revised 5/12: What I meant to say was: I am neither a recent college grad, nor a wealthy ex-financial - I am a mid-career person with a mortgage, car payments, etc. For me and my family, the risks of starting my own business can be very high. And if I were a recently laid-off mid-career worker, the risks are even higher. How then do I manage to untangle the risk and rewards of opening my own business?

How do we go forward?

Status updates for projects

incubator,product management,project management,entrepreneur

If you are trying to discover how far along a person is with a particular project or job, instead of asking "what percentage complete are you?" (or "how far along are you?") ask the following:

How long have you spent on the project?

How much longer do you need?

By asking percentages, you are likely to get answers like 50% or 80% or 30%, which often have no relationship to where the project really is.

By asking times, while it is still a swag, it is a more realistic swag.

When someone says "two hours", resist the temptation to say "what did you do the other 6 hours?" or you are likely to get told "eight hours" next time! Instead, go to the second question. Track how long tasks take and you'll do a better job as you go on estimating who can get things done right and how long it will take.

I always think I can do projects much faster than those who work for me or in the group I am in. As an entrepreneur I often have to remember that no one is going to do the job the way I will do it. But I can be more systematic about assigning work and time it takes to get the job done right.

Dale Carnegie

Incubator,entrepreneur,Dale Carnegie

I regularly read or at least skim the latest titles for business books hoping to pick up some hints or ideas to pass on to our clients.

We have all heard of Dale Carnegie books, and if you are like me, you probably scoffed at reading them. On practically a lark, I picked up a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I certainly did not expect it to provide me anything I did not already know. Surprisingly, it was very good. The stories were somewhat corny, and the writing breathless, but the content was relevant, lacking in jargon and avoided all references to the latest - or any -business theory.

Instead it gave practical advice that we each can use every day: How to handle people, Six ways to make people like you, Win people to your way of thinking, and How to lead.

And if you say "why should I care what you think, Rickelman?" - then how about Joel on Software's Joel Spolsky?

I hate recommending a lot of books for entrepreneurs since they usually are too busy to read. But this is one they should skim.

Heartened, I recently completed How to Stop Worrying and Start Living which contained more useful advice.

So: easy read, good info, no jargon. A great recipe for any book, let alone books that will help you persuade others to your view and help you better intereact with them.

NBIA wrapup

incubator,NBIA,Kansas City

We are back from the NBIA conference on business incubation. A great set of presentations and panels - and a nice way to meet with other incubator managers from all over the US and world.

Some reflections:

1. "All progress starts with telling the truth" - I heard this aphorism during one of the sessions. As someone trying to assist startups, it does no good to avoid telling the truth about the situation with a client business. In trying to soften the blow perhaps I am weakening the chance of improvement. Likewise, if our client companies don't tell us what is really going on, how are we to help them?
2. "Are our services good enough that someone would pay for them, even if we did not have space?" or another way "is my presentation/class good enough that someone would pay for it?" I'd like to think so - we have six associate or virtual tenants who take services but no space. Every product or service has a price (it might be $0!) - I often caution new businesses to not underprice themselves. But you can overprice yourself as well. I have been trying to find the right time and pricing to run another Kauffman FastTrac program. It has been difficult, since the value is really found in taking the class - and if you are on the outside considering, it is hard to realize that.
3. Consulting assistance for existing business. Even if you are a well established small business, your local incubator can be a great place to look for some consulting assistance. For example, we at the CBD have expertise in Marketing and International, areas that you can contract for.

Of course, I did get to Arthur Bryants, which made it all worthwhile!

There are very dedicated incubator managers all over and I encourage you to take advantage of their programs, or at the very least, evaluate their programs to see if they can help you!

NBIA!

Incubator,National,Business,Association

We'll be at the NBIA Conference next week - April 19-22 - in Kansas City. I am looking forward to the sessions on Advisory Boards (we are looking to get ours restarted) and on Best Practices (I always get a couple good ideas on how to better serve our clients and community).

Plus where else can you get Arthur Bryant's BBQ? The best! For steak, I like the Golden Ox.

While I am at it -

1. Did you know that Kansas City has the only WWI memorial museum in the USA? It recently was renovated and is incredible.

2. Shoes! Bob Jones shoes is all that remains of Kansas City's tradition in shoes ("lady, those red shoes are 30% off!")

3. Mens Wear: Michaels, at 1830 Main a couple blocks from Bob Jones, is a great old fashioned Men's clothing store. They have a good selection of big and tall; classis clothing.

If you are an incubator manager - see you at NBIA. If you are thinking of a place to visit for a short vacation and you like to eat: Kansas City!

Web 2.0

incubator,entrepreneur,web 2.0

There was an interesting presentation this morning at our local Chamber of Commerce on Web 2.0 (and marketing). The presenter gave us a pretty good history lesson on where it came from and how it is different than web 1.0.

On the way out of the building, a local businessman I knew said, "Brad, is this something I need to devote time to?" A good question. As an entrepreneur, you have quite a few items pulling on you every day...is there room to fit social media or Twitter or Facebook or...?

The two cardinal virtues of web 2.0 are "authenticity" and "community". Authentic, as meaning you are who you say you are (and not trying to sell something to others by pretending to be otherwise), and community as contributing towards the goals or purposes of a group.

If you are wanting to 'get yourself some of those twitter things' so you can sell more sugar water - then your lack of authenticity will keep you from really being able to do just that. And you will also find your community to consist of others trying to sell their own sugar water.

I joined an entrepreneurship group on LinkedIn, and one of the first posts I read was someone asking if there were any real entrepreneurs in the group (and not just people trying to sell their own product or services)! That is not going to help you.

But going back to the businessman I spoke to earlier - he could use a social media group for his employees (to make it easier to communicate what's going on), or he could start a group for his clients to talk to one another about whatever his product is...these could be ways to develop a useful web 2.0 presence. If he builds a place where people can communicate on issues related to the business- great! Or better yet, maybe he could gather his thoughts on running his business into a blog.

Note that this is not something that will take place overnight - one post and look at me I'm on Facebook'. It is going to take time. But that is just to say that the 'social' side of web 2.0 is just like the social side of being with people. We all have been in the situation where we meet someone who immediately tries to sell us something; if not, think of dating (or bad dating!) experiences.

So in response to the businessman, I might say, "what are you doing now to create a relationship with your clients based on authenticity and community?" Whatever he is doing now - can he do the same on the web? If so - spend time doing that. If he has a newsletter, convert it to a blog. If he sends out coupons, make them email coupons. If he has group client meetings, make them podcasts. That will make his time spent more useful.

If he is not doing any of those things already, then signing up for accounts on Facebook or Twitter won't do any good for him.

Baseball: building your (business) team

baseball,entrepreneurship,incubator,team,management

It's the beginning of baseball season! The long winter is over.

As I follow baseball, I often compare managing the team to managing a company. Not only in selecting the right team members, but also deciding what type of employees you want on the team and choosing which role to place them in. A sports writer I follow, Joe Posnanski, made an interesting claim about managing a baseball team:

You can go a million different ways. But, in my view, you HAVE TO CHOOSE. That’s getting at the core of what I believe about baseball now. I think you need a plan that is much more involved than just grabbing a bunch of good players with varying skills and just hoping that it all works out for the best.

This gets to my difficulty with the book Good to Great. As you know Collins argues to 'get the right people on the bus, then in the right seat on the bus, then point the bus (in the direction to go).'

But, contra Posnanski, I might argue, before you put anyone on the bus, you have to choose how you are going to go about your business. If you don't know - then any collection of, as he puts it, "good players with varying skills and just hoping it all works out".

Now, your way of going about your business can't be just willy-nilly, just like you can't select only baseball players who are tall, or wear size 13 shoes. Your business has to reflect your values and philosophy on how you do things.

I used to work for a small software company whose owner prided himself on being out front on new techologies in the industry - if we weren't at the bleeding edge, we weren't in it at all. That philosophy should have colored every employee he brought on. Without it, no amount of good people on the bus would get it pointed in the right direction.

If you are an entrepreneur, you are the face of your company. If you don't know what your philosophy or way of doing things is, you won't be able to decide on which way to go. In the end, choose how you are going to do things and go, rather than dawdling on different ways you are going to build your team. That is what creates loyalty to your team. Not everyone likes the Yankees (boo!), but at least I know what they stand for. What do the Pirates stand for?

BTW - Go Twins!