The Venture Edge

This past Thursday morning I had the good fortune to have breakfast with Troy Hazard, a self-confessed (but non-repentant) serial entrepreneur. I was fascinated to learn more about this entrepreneur who founded 10 different companies in the span of 20 years. 

I just read an article in the local newspaper about a pair of entrepreneurs who have tried just about everything they could think of to fund their young business: Fiji Yogurt, a frozen yogurt franchise with four company-owned stores and one new franchisee. While the traditional sources of capital were tried -- and offered limited results -- twin brothers Cory and Kyle Miholich stumbled on a non-traditional source of funding for their business that was actually pretty effective: The Wheel of Fortune television game show. While the business partners can't yet reveal exactly how much money they made for their business because the show hasn't yet aired, according to Kyle, "We had a chance to win a million dollars, which we blew. Actually, my brother blew it on the first puzzle. But we were able to walk away with a decent chunk of change.”

In a post last week about the potential effect of the new Healthcare bill on small business, I talked about the importance of assessing your business's cash flow position so you can weather the changes that will be coming. Insuring that your business is sufficiently cash flow positive is the first step.  The second step is to make sure that your business remains flexible and ready to change quickly.  That means not taking on non-essential capital expenditures such as a new building,  new equipment, or even extra people for that matter.

A couple weeks ago I ran a guest post -- 8 Tips for Finding Angel Investors -- written by Arnie Koss who, with his twin brother Ron, started the country's first organic baby food manufacturer: Earth's Best Baby Food. The post was a big hit on the Internet, being tweeted and re-tweeted to more than 30,000 people in less than a week's time. This time I've got a guest post written by Ron Koss on the topic of How to Overcome Start-Up Fears. This is something that every entrepreneur has gone through at one time or another in their careers, and it can be a serious roadblock to your success. You'll find a lot more great advice to entrepreneurs -- including obtaining start-up and growth funding, and dealing with angel investors -- in his new book: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, March 2010).

Today I ran across an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the January 18, 2010 New Yorker magazine. The title is "The Sure Thing: How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed." Whether or not you are a fan of Gladwell's work, he definitely has a way with words. He has a real knack for digging up interesting facts and weaving them into compelling stories. The main point of the article was that -- despite the popular myth -- successful entrepreneurs are NOT risk takers. Instead, they constantly strive to take the least risk possible.

The INC. magazine website recently ran a feature by the title Start-up Secrets: Tips from America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs. Tips include such things as Stick with It ("Start-ups don't die, they commit suicide. In other words, 90 percent of start-ups fail because the founders get bored, discouraged, or something else, and they move on to other things, not because of some catastrophe. No matter how dark it is today, things will always better tomorrow." -- Justin Kan, Justin.TV), Exceed Expectations ("We knew we only had one shot at this, so there was nothing throughout our start-up that we didn't purposely over-deliver on -- from the way we pitched our distributors and investors to the way we rolled out in the market. If you always over-deliver, it is going to draw attention and you will likely be successful." -- Jeff Avallon, IdeaPaint), and Do Your Homework ("Be really clear about the assumptions you're making about the business you're going into, and check those assumptions as quickly as you can -- whether it's building a prototype and testing it with people, or just talking to other people in the industry." -- Can Sar, Apture). Check out the feature to view all the tips.

In the past week I have been frustrated by entrepreneur wannabes who are enjoying the planning phase just a little bit too much.  They figure that they can feel like they're real entrepreneurs by simply talking about their yet-to-be business without ever actually getting down to starting the business and making it real.  In fact, I know at least several of these wannabes who have been talking about their business for at least two years with nothing to show for it except a business plan.   Some of them have entered (and in some cases won) one or more of the ubiquitous business plan competitions that seem to be a mainstay of every university or college on the planet.  Still, they don't have a business.

My friend Kevin Daum is the archetypical entrepreneur -- he's always on the lookout for opportunities, he loves starting new businesses, and he is eternally optimistic. A few weeks he sold a business book to publisher John Wiley & Sons: Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. Kevin doesn't want to sell just a few hundred or even a few thousand copies of Roar!, he is 110% committed to turning it into a New York Times best seller.

As a business writer AND an entrepreneur, I love to read the latest statistics on business and economic trends. As such, one of my favorite online hangouts is Discover Small Business Watch. Each month the Discover number crunchers do a survey of small business owners, and the results are often quite illuminating.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The surest path to a healthy economy is through innovation and entrepreneurship.  Apparently Sramana Mitra, technology entrepreneur and columnist for Forbes, agrees with me.  In her latest book, Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction, which, by the way, is self-published, she showcases 12 successful entrepreneurs who made it to the top by bootstrapping at the start.