Flush the Toilet: Young Entrepreneurs
flush away your fears…
Empty Your Cup and Allow Your Business to Fill with New Information
I recently read this small story (source):
A university professor visited Zen Master Nan-in to inquire about Zen. But instead of listening to the master, the scholar kept going on and on about his own ideas.
After listening for some time, Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and kept on pouring. The tea flowed over the sides of the cup, filled the saucer, spilled onto the man’s pants and onto the floor.
“Don’t you see that the cup is full?” the professor exploded. “You can’t get any more in!”
“Just so,” replied Nan-in calmly. “And like this cup of tea, you are full of your own ideas and opinions. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
As an entrepreneur, you can never be beyond learning more. You can never reach the end of your journey and say “that’s it, I’m done learning. I’m done moving forward. I’m done expanding my mind.” You must stay hungry. Stay committed to learning new things. Stay open to what other people have to say. Because once you stop that, you’ll cease to exist as a visionary, as an entrepreneur.
Would You CLICK Through Your Entrepreneurial Journey?
Ever see the movie Click starring Adam Sandler? It’s about an architect who is an absolute workaholic who is only focused on getting further in his career. He finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward, pause, and rewind through his life.
He uses the remote to fast-forward through his life and stop after he gets huge promotions at his job and ultimately ends up becoming super successful and rich.
But here’s the catch. There’s always a catch. At the end of his life when he becomes super rich, gets the dream job that he’s always wanted, and becomes “architect of the year,” he isn’t happy.
His family has forgotten about him, he becomes ill, and everything that he’s ever loved and cared about ended up resenting him for never being there for them. He’s a wreck and wishes that he could rewind everything and go back to the beginning before he decided to speed through his life. But he can’t.
He thought that skipping through all the moments with his family and the hard work that it takes to become successful was the answer to all his problems, but he realized that is wasn’t.
So here’s the question for you my fellow young entrepreneurs: If you had the chance – if you had a universal remote that allowed you to fast-forward through your life – would you use it to get you to the point where you “have made it?”
Would you use the remote to bring you to “success” and skip the entire journey as a young entrepreneur growing a business all the way to you are older, rich, influential, and successful?
I don’t know about you guys, but I would never use the universal remote. I wouldn’t want to skip the journey to becoming successful. The journey is what makes it fun. The journey is what you learn from. Being an entrepreneur is all about taking the journey, getting up when you fall, basking in your feats, and feeling special when you change the lives of others along the way.
This movie makes you think about your end goals and makes you realize that wanting to speed through life isn’t guaranteed to be fulfilling as you may think. As they stated in the movie, that pot of gold at the other side of the rainbow, that you desire so badly, may just turn out to be a pot of wheat.
So enjoy life. Enjoy every moment that you have as a young entrepreneur on the journey to success. Enjoy the people that you meet and the lessons that you learn. Don’t take any of it for granted. Embrace the present, work hard, love life, and build your future.
2803Don’t Force It… Just Let It Flow…
A good friend of mine was recently accepted into a prestigious business program at Cambridge University in England. She’s currently living in NYC and working at an advertising agency that she’s been with for almost a year now.
It’s not her dream job, but she is very happy with how things are going. She has been given two raises and constantly being groomed to take on more responsibility. She has become an effective team leader and highly respected by her co-workers.
She feels that if she stays in NYC and keeps at it with her job, then big things will come. But here’s the dilemma: though she wants to stay in NYC and continue working at her job, be close to her family/friends/boyfriend, and keep on making things happen, she feels obligated to go to the business school in Cambridge.
Her heart is telling her to stay, but her mind is telling her to go. My advice to was “not to force it.” In life, when you force things instead of just letting them flow or fall into place, you place unnecessary pressure on yourself and usually end up making the wrong decision in the end.
The example of my friend’s desire to “force” herself to got to England against her true feelings is something that many of us young entrepreneurs do on a daily basis while running our businesses.
We sometimes feel obligated and pressured into making decisions that we know — deep down inside — that are wrong, but yet, we do them anyway. And what happens? Well, we end up suffering. We end up being mad at ourselves. We end up putting our clients at a disadvantage.
As a leader, as an entrepreneur, and as a responsible human being, you have to be brave enough to go with your heart’s voice, not by the voice of fear, or the voice of your peers, or the voice of your family, or the voice of obligation — you must be willing to trust in yourself wholeheartedly.
When we follow our hearts and follow the feelings that make us feel that something is truly right, true, and correct, we being to make better decisions. We begin to see the world more clearly. And we begin to trust the person that we’ve known all our lives — yourself.
The Revolving Doors of Fortune
Did you ever hear the saying: “Everything happens for a reason” Or what about: “There are no accidents in life.”
I feel that fortune is one of those things in life that we’ll never be able to fully understand. Fortune comes in so many ways and often times is disguised in forms that we are only able to realize after the fact.
Fortune comes to entrepreneurs in many ways. Fortune can be defined by closing a deal, launching a new service that increases revenue, meeting the right person just at the perfect moment to help your business, or making the right decision that catapults your business to new heights of success and notoriety.
But what about the ugly side of fortune? Sometimes the world feels like it’s falling apart beneath you. As young entrepreneurs we all face extreme hardship from time to time and to an extent, it can feel never-ending at times. But with all bad comes good.
I find that most bad situations that I encounter while on my entrepreneurial journey can be tuned into fortunate situations for myself as long as I keep a positive attitude and a desire to bring myself and my business back onto a positive track.
Severs go down, clients drop your service, your girlfriend dumps you, your parents may not want you to be an entrepreneur, your site crashes, there’s fraudulent activity on your business bank account, you lose your business partner, that deal falls through, you can’t get any sleep, your don’t know how you’ll pay the bills, etc…etc…
These are all real example of the many obstacles that we entrepreneurs may face, things that negatively affect our business in one degree or another. However, these obstacles can only set you back if you let them. You can turn them into fortunes if your want to.
When something bad happens, embrace it. Yeah, that’s right, embrace the bad! When you embrace the bad, you allow yourself to see ways to improve your organization and to become a stronger entrepreneur – an entrepreneur better suited to succeed.
After my server crashed a few times, I decided to study servers and better educate myself on the ins-and-outs of running websites on dedicated servers and in doing so, I realized that many things that I was doing were absolutely wrong – things that would have led to even bigger problems down the line as my sites got bigger and scaled.
You see, from obstacles I was able to bring about fortune. So the next time something bad happens and has your business in a slump… just start thinking about how you can turn things around and bring about fortune from failure. There is always a way, you just have to find it.
When fortune closes one door, it opens another.
– SA’ID
Rely On Yourself First
That’s a pretty strong title, eh? Well, it’s true. There’s only one person who you can really depend on in your life. Yourself.
How many times has someone told you one thing and did something else? How many times has someone promised to help you out but totally flaked on you? How many times have you depended in someone’s service only to receive less than stellar service?
I’m not here to say “never” rely on others, because we need people to help us achieve success, but I’m here to say: don’t become complacent and rely on people when it puts your business at risk.
As a young entrepreneur, you need to always have a backup plan. A contingency plan for everything. When my computer got fried last week after someone spilled a drink on it, I automatically started planning out how I would be able to use a computer.
I knew that I could “borrow” a computer here and there from friends, but that wouldn’t really solve my problem. I couldn’t rely on them to lend me their computer 24/7, especially when they needed it for business as well.
So instead of relying on people, I opted to using the computers at my former college. So for the past week, I have been waking up and heading downtown to the computer lab. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do in order to get something done.
Don’t get caught up in thinking that people are always going to be there for you. Even your best friend can turn their back on you. This is so important in business. If something needs to get done and you are unsure whether or not a particular person is going to come through for you, then you better think about taking action.
If you get into the habit of depending on people your entire life and things start to fall a part as a result of people not following through, then there is only one person to blame. Guess who? That would be you.
So does that mean that you shouldn’t have a team? Absolutely not. You should have a team (if necessary). But you have to constantly weed out the people who persist on letting you down. Think twice before you give someone a second chance. You may get burned in the long run if you give too many “second chances.”
Don’t put your business in the hands of someone who is going to let you down — just not worth it.
209aIf You Can’t be A Gorilla, Become A Guerrilla
We’ve all heard the saying before: “That company is a 900 pound Gorilla.” Sure there are many huge companies out there that are deeply entrenched in their particular niches. So entrenched that competition has little to no affect of them whatsoever.
But don’t let that discourage you from going up against the Gorillas. With the right maneuvering and strategy, you can break into any niche – or create your own – by becoming a Guerrilla.
A Guerrilla is an entrepreneur who is agile, flexible, fast, and does things are unconventionally. The Guerilla doesn’t attack the Gorilla head-on, he goes after their market-share by offering superior value instead of wasting time attacking the Gorilla’s strengths.
It’s like going up against ebay by developing a cookie-cutter auction site – just isn’t going to work. In order to compete with ebay, you can’t attack them where they are strong, you have to attract instead of attack.
What do I mean by that? Well, you have to “attract” their market by offering them something unique, something new, something weird, something unconventional, something that makes them say “wow, what’s that? I want to learn more.”
If you “attack” ebay by trying to follow in their footsteps by creating just another old boring auction site, then you’re dead. You aren’t thinking like a Guerrilla.
Gorillas are fat and bloated, but they are also strong and sturdy. If you go at them head-on, they are bound to knock you out with one blow.
Guerrillas are slender, fast, and flexible. Instead of attacking, they are focused on running circles around their competition by coming up with innovation and fresh ideas. They are smaller, so they are better able to adapt and change. They have more stamina and can prove to be a thorn in the side of the Gorillas.
Remember, Guerrillas don’t attack they attract. Don’t waste your time trying to fight a 900 pound monster. Be smart and come up with a strategy that will allow you to penetrate the Gorillas jungle when he leasts expects it.
A B C D or X A P G
From Freud we learn that our dreams quickly melt away in the mornings when we try to remember them because of the lack of connections. Dreams aren’t easy to remember because they are an incoherent string of images – there are no clear patterns to make connections with.
That makes a lot of sense. Think about which of the two strings of words would be easier to remember:
- “The young entrepreneur got rich because he was determined to do so”
- “so was do to determined rich got entrepreneur young remember the”
Obviously the first string of words is much easier to remember because each word directly connects to the next. When things add up, they automatically have more value in our minds. We are able to remember them. We are able to make sense out of them. And it removes all the guessing and confusion.
I believe that the same concept can be applied to our businesses. When you start a company, your subsequent ventures should have some sort of relation to the previous one as opposed to creating something that can’t directly empower the “original” concept in some way.
So for instance say that you started a business around pornography. People came to your site to see naked pics of beautiful women and they even paid for a monthly subscription to see premium images. Now what would make more sense as your next move: creating a magazine focused around the women on your site or starting a vegan recipe website?
If you answered the former, then pat yourself on the back. If you answered the latter, then please proceed to unplug your computer and throw it out the nearest window, go to bed for the night, sign back onto my blog tomorrow morning on your friend’s computer, and re-answer the question.
As a young entrepreneur, you have to understand that you’re not playing a simple game of checkers every time you start a venture. Wake up, you better be playing a well thought-out game of chess, my friends.
When you start a business your next move should increase the position of the move prior. This isn’t a game of checkers where you can jump all over the board.
So to return to the example of starting a porn site, as you now know, your best move would be to create something that is going to leverage your original service, which would be to create the magazine. Then maybe after that you’d create a line of clothing that had images of the hot women from your site. Then maybe you’d start a podcast with interviews of the women from the site. Then maybe you’d start a blog for each woman of your site so that your readers can stay in touch with them.
So you see where I’m going with this? There is a common denominator here, and that’s the “original” service of the “women” that model on your porno site. Each service is building upon the other and reinforcing the other. Synergy, my friends!
So even though your business is focused on naked women, you know have many “mini-businesses” focused around that original idea. And it’s beautiful because each service is inter-connected; it’s all a part of the same web.
Now when someone thinks about your business, they aren’t going to be confused as to what you do… they’ll easily understand that you’re in the porn industry. There will be no second guessing, no wondering, and no pondering.
That’s what creating a strong brand image is all about. The entrepreneur who builds an empire of inter-connected businesses is the entrepreneur who is going to have the largest and most powerful business.
Keep your businesses coherent and connected in meaningful and logical ways and watch more people flock towards your company and watch the beauty of such an amazing interplay unfold into something great.
29d92007 Awaits The Rise of The Young Entrepreneur
The year is coming to an end and 2007 awaits our businesses. This is a great time to reflect on what you’ve done with your business this year.
Did you make a ton of money? Did you lose clients? What worked? What didn’t work? Ask yourself these questions and consider the choices that you’ve made. Think hard about how you spent your time this year.
If the things you did added up to growth in your business, then great. If they didn’t, then it’s time to modify your approach and try something new. You should be going into the New Year strong!
As young entrepreneurs, there is always room for improvement and tweaking here and there. So even if you did have an awesome year, constantly strive to improve and build upon everything that you have done.
For many, 2006 was just a transition onto great things to come for 2007. Maybe all the seeds that you planted this year with all your networking, long hours spent on your business, and constant hunger to succeed, will bear its fruits come 2007.
So as the New Year approaches us, fellow entrepreneurs, let’s get ready to do even bigger things and accomplish even greater feats. Keep your aims high and your goals on the forefront of your mind.
Sometimes You’ll Have to Reevaluate the Partnership
We all know the feeling of starting our first business. It’s great! It’s awesome! It’s exciting! Many of us will start a business venture with a partner straight from the beginning. Hopefully our partner is just as enthusiastic about the business as we are. In most cases – during the beginning – our partners will be just as enthusiastic as we are – sometimes even MORE excited!
But I’ve seen it happen time and time again, as the weeks go by and the business starts to mature, your business partner that you once thought was just as excited as you are is now just sitting back and relaxing, enjoying the ride. Piggybacking your success; your ideas; your revenue; your EVERYTHING.
Logically, you’d expect your business partner to lose interest only when the business isn’t doing well. But what if he is losing interest when the business is doing great? I recently spoke with a young entrepreneur who told me that his business partner became less and less motivated about doing any of the work as the business continued to grow and bring in more revenue; at that point, he was just interested in collecting his 50% cut in the venture while not doing much.
Going into business with someone can be a very delicate matter. You need to think long and hard before you sign a contract to go 50/50 on a business with someone, especially if you are the founder and see yourself doing most of the work down the line.
You don’t want to end up in a situation where you are doing 90% of the work and splitting 50% of the revenues – just doesn’t make sense. When you find a situation like that occurring, I think that it’s time to call your lawyer to reconstruct your contract and shift percentages around.
I’m no lawyer, but as the founding entrepreneur you should be wise and make sure that there are provisions in the initial contract that allow for you to modify the contract down the line if your partner isn’t pulling his weight; possibly shifting to a performance-based partnership instead of a binding one.
When your partner isn’t pulling their weight and you find yourself doing the bulk of the work, then you need to articulate that right away, not later. If you wait to express how you’re feeling, then the problem will only grow larger and become harder to rectify down the line as it grows and grows into an even bigger monster.
Never, never, never allow yourself to be carrying the entire weight of the business if you specifically went into a relationship with a partner who would be helping you right down the line. It’s better to cut complete ties with that partner rather than continuing to compensate for his lack of work while he’s still being financially compensated.
If you feel that you can run the business as a solo-entrepreneur, then go off on your own and leave your partner in the dust. However, if you feel that the situation can be corrected and it’s worth the time and effort to continue on with a partner – maybe because he’s the only person that you can trust – then stick it out and do everything in your power to get him back on track.
Have you ever been in such a situation?
Send Large Files with MediaMax
A few weeks back I needed to send a few large pdfs to a client of mine. If you’re familiar with Gmail and most major email systems, 10GB is pretty much the regular for file transfers. I wanted to send around 20GB of information and I really didn’t feel like ftp-ing anything over my server to a client – not cool.
So I was fortunate to come across MediaMax while reading last month’s Business 2.0. MediaMax is a neat service that easily allows you to send files up to 25GB to your friends.
You simply sign up and send away via their email service. Once the recipient receives the attachment in their email, they are asked to signup to the service to download the files and… that’s it!
You can use MediaMax to store photos, movies, files, whatever you want. I found it useful and I’m sure that it’ll come in handy from time to time. At the very least, it can save you the time of compressing those images or files that you send to your clients and friends.
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