SustainableWork

Boomer Biz

2009-06-12T22:02:00.002-05:00

80,000 Americans turn 60 every single day*

I look at the financial mayhem that just befell the world, and I know that it is hitting all parts of society hard.

I think the style of entrepreneurship that I've written about here is especially suited to boomers. I think that there is a clear need for information about slow paced startups that offer not only a realistic return but importantly, a path for the new entrepreneur to make a contribution to their communities. There is a real potential for creating millions of new small businesses from within this demographic. Scaled right and planned appropriately, this path could offer many of my boomer peers additional financial security and a chance to make a difference.

This is not the only demographic that needs help, but I think the tools and approach of sustainable work fit this bunch the best.

Plus, as a fellow traveler well into boomer-hood, I don't have to be polite to my peers. I get to tell it like it is.

Taking the time to research what you love is the first step. Let the research take you into challenging directions, not the same-old, same-old. Learn from the wonderful young people and all the things that we're inclined to run from. Embrace it. Take the opportunity to slow down and make changes that utilize the new digital and cultural tools that are appearing. Then hurry up and try them out.

Are you going to get rich with your boomer startup? It happens, but the strongest likelihood is that if you plan it right, you'll be able to make a sustainable job for yourself going forward. One that won't be dependent on distant corporate managers or the vagaries of the specific geography you live in.

If you team up to market yourself with like-minded peers of all ages, you can bolster the chances of success for all of you.

It does not take a lot of money to start most new enterprises. It takes the kind of skills and knowledge that most boomers have, but often don't value: time, patience, deep understanding of a specific subject, the ability to see beyond the immediate crisis.

Is Boomer Biz for everyone? Surely not. Is it a viable option that many of us should be exploring? You bet. Boomers and self enterprise are a perfect match!

I was just at a meeting of the Inventor and Entrepreneur Club in Vernon County, WI. This club is run by one of the best economic development pros I am privileged to know, Sue Noble. There were about 50 people attending. All were looking for new ideas to help them launch or improve their new enterprises. As they went around the room telling their own stories, the new ideas flowed and the inspiration just kept getting more compelling. Certainly there were young people in the group, but the vast majority were boomers starting new businesses or boomers just beginning to explore a way to put a toe into that water.

It was so cool to see peers my age just flat out excited about learning new skills and trying new things. They were challenging themselves. They were alive. It was just a really fun room to be in.

If you are a boomer take the time to start acquiring the skills to create your own small enterprise. Done right, it may be the best security you can create for yourself in this economy. More importantly, we can help create a new, better and more secure economy that benefits everyone in society.

It's not hard. It's just new. Deep breath. You can do it.

Vernon County, WI Economic Development

*Fast Company June 2009 p. 103 .

Smaller. Cheaper. Faster. How about for rural economic development?

2009-06-05T23:43:00.000-05:00

Inc. Magazine has just given their June cover story over to Paul Graham and his wonderful Y Combinator startup machine.

I've written about Paul Graham a number of times in the past and linked to his sites, which I'll do again at the end of this post. You should know about Mr. Graham and his model for doing - not talking about - actually doing, economic development.

The cover story is titled "The Start-Up Guru. Paul Graham has launched 145 companies. His formula? Smaller. Cheaper. Faster."

In a great story written by Max Chalkin, he opens with the this position: "Graham's system generates scores of bold ideas, churns out dozens of new companies, and creates hundreds of jobs - for a lot less money than you might think."

At its core, Y Combinator is a venture capital fund, operating with small ball investments of $10K or so. More importantly, Paul Graham trains his startups to make things people want and change rapidly as they learn from their mistakes. He doesn't have any high finance back-office structure to accomplish all this. Y Combinator runs out of Graham's home office. Yet he has generated more than 500 jobs with his startups over the last couple of years and this job creation pace is accelerating as his startups mature and are acquired.

The Inc. Magazine piece is too short to do justice to what Mr. Graham is pulling off. It also doesn't give much background about his philosophy, which you can learn more about through his essays (below). Suffice it to say that he builds his entrepreneurs into realistic enterprises ready to face the world. A quote I really loved from the piece sums it up: "Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly. But working for a large company is like being waterboarded."

OK. All of the startups Graham and Y Combinator do are software related. Logical. Graham is a Silicon Valley guy. However, here is where I would introduce my question. Why can't this model be adapted for all kinds of industries and geographies? I would posit that all that would need changing is the exit strategies for investors/stakeholders.

In fact I'm proposing just this kind of model in my day job doing rural economic development. I will say very specifically that the move toward rural small business development highly favors boomers and knowledge workers, typically people wearing both hats.

Why can't we launch many small, fast, fun, smart new farms and ag processing enterprises? Why can't we make training and tools and small ball investments available that will allow people in rural and urban areas to tie into each others economic and cultural self interests in ways that benefit both?

Certainly there is a vast structure of entrepreneurship talk therapy out there. What's needed even more is strategic and financial participation, as well as launch help for farmers in transition, new farmers, and cool new processing facilities emerging to meet the rapidly evolving new world of regional food economics.

My new friends at U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development have shown me a powerful organizational structure that can be used to accomplish these kind of goals. Adapting that structure to Y Combinator like 21st century speed, nimbleness, and adapt-as-you-go enterprise training seem like a perfect marriage for doing effective rural economic development.

With my new friends, especially Mark Olson of Renaissance Farm, we hope to make Iowa County Wisconsin a 763 square mile business incubator for progressive, effective rural economic development. We will be having a roll-out meeting for regional stakeholders to discuss this proposal on June 15 from 3 to 5 PM. eMail me for details if you have an interest.

It's high time we put the coolest startup smarts (Y Combinator) into projects that build our rural communities, grow more farmers and create a growing network of sustainable food infrastructure.

Smaller. Faster. Cheaper. Yum!

Y Combinator

Paul Graham essays

Renaissance Farm

Bootstrapping as a weapon of mass reconstruction

2009-05-29T21:03:00.001-05:00

I've been fortunate to meet many new people through this writing who are working on entrepreneurship issues.

A new friend of entrepreneurs caught my attention this week. She is Sramana Mitra, a tech entrepreneur and a columnist for Forbes. Ms Mitra has a Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, has founded 3 companies, and consults with Silicon Valley VCs.

Importantly, Ms. Mitra has been writing a series of books under the theme of 'Entrepreneur Journeys'. Her second volume in the series was recently released under the title "Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction."

While most of the examples are small tech companies, the lessons Ms. Mitra evokes from them are universal. A quote from the middle of the book is a great place for us to start: "I remain resolute that if entrepreneurs the world over learn to build sustainable small businesses without requiring large sums of outside financing, the global economy will run without a hitch. No doubt, many of these ventures will go on to seek large-scale expansion capital, in building out larger enterprises, but those who don't grow exponentially will still enjoy the pride and privilege of being small business owners. And we as a people, and we as communities and as nations, will enjoy the health and wealth of their contributions."

Yes. A thousand times, yes. The subject of Ms. Mitra's book and the approach she recommends is clear: You need to bootstrap most businesses. The next step is mentor capital, not venture capital. This will come when you've got customers and a track record. Use your bootstrapping phase to get smart, make mistakes and build a market. It will take more time but less money than you think.

I'd like to post a nice piece from the prologue to introduce this book. It matches very nicely with the themes of the writing here at Sustainable Work. You not only can do it, but you need to do it. Starting your own small enterprise is MUCH safer than not doing it. The world needs you and your contributions. You need your independence strengthened and validated.

Ms. Mitra talks about the current financial collapse and resulting economic mayhem in her opening…

"So, what next? Where to from here? From my perspective it is clear that small business must be a top policy priority. There are approximately 5 million small businesses in the United Sates with fewer than 20 employees. Another 20 million mom-and-pops endeavor day in and day out without employees. Let us hope that in the coming decade, those numbers will double, then triple and quadruple. For here is the most powerful engine of economic growth and sustenance. Here is our way back"

"If the next Google is to emerge and bring with it thousands of new jobs, it must first start over some kitchen table where not only hope but opportunity is readily available. Where entrepreneurs not only start businesses at a higher rate, but also survive and thrive at a higher rate."

"Through much discussion, writing, and brainstorming on each topic, I arrived at one core thesis: Not just entrepreneurship, but bootstrapped entrepreneurship is the true weapon of mass reconstruction."

"Businesses often fail to take flight because they cannot raise funding. Well, start with the assumption that funding will not be available until the business is substantially further along, if ever, and that bottleneck is removed."

"In this volume we will explore a dozen stories of entrepreneurs who have mastered the art of doing more with less, creating a great many options in the process. And making clear for the world over that prosperity and independence are not mutually exclusive. That in fact, they go best together."

That's been a major theme of this Sustainable Work site since it started. Self-enterprise is a path to personal independence and growing, vibrant communities. But for most new enterprises, that journey needs to be one of bootstrapping, self-funding, and longer timelines than you expect.

Remember however, this isn't a reason NOT to do your own startup; just the opposite. You need to start now and get the journey underway.

You can do it. The world needs your contributions and you need a better tomorrow. A perfect fit. Take that first step friend.

Amazon link to Ms. Mitra's new book: Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction

Boomer Entrepreneurship Renaissance

2009-05-17T22:02:00.001-05:00

A short post this weekend, but something near and dear to my heart.

If we boomers are going to have to work longer, why not work at something we love through our own small businesses?

The most recent Kauffman Foundation Index of Entrepreneurial Activity found that the highest rates of entrepreneurship came from people age 55 to 64. Boomers had the highest rate of business creation of any age group in 2008. The only other demographic with higher startup rates were immigrants. Both good stories needing attention.

The Kauffman story breaks down new business startups into high and low income types of businesses. However, I would posit that many boomer startups are not intended to be high growth, big money operations.

Boomer businesses are typically small enterprises based on work the entrepreneur loves and skills and knowledge the boomer entrepreneur has developed over decades. They are typically self-funded and are designed to produce an income or two or three. If it grows from there all the better, but if it reaches these plateaus and can contribute financially in this awful market, good on 'em.

In my work as an economic developer and when I teach startups, I see the boomer demographic most strongly represented as the emerging power in new business creation. They have subject expertise. They have love for a niche. Most importantly they have wide ranging contacts in their field they can turn to as peers.

If we're going to have to work longer, why not be passionate about the work? Why not design the work to fit into our lives rather than vice versa? Why not put those years of hard work to use for ourselves for a change?

Whether you want to do it or need to do it or just are looking for an enriching challenge, you can do it, my boomer friends. There has never been a better time. This is the Renaissance Age of Entrepreneurship and it's just beginning.

We boomers are perfectly positioned to take advantage of it to help ourselves and help the planet. More on this specific subject in upcoming posts….

Kauffman Foundation Index of Entrepreneurial Activity highlighting boomer entrepreneurship

The essence of the leader

2009-05-03T21:03:00.001-05:00

I've run C-Corps, S-Corps, LLCs, and sole proprietorships. Right now, I have the opportunity and good fortune to help run a non-profit. In that day job, I'm helping organize Co-ops.

Structure, structure, structure. It defines a lot of what works and what doesn't work once the rubber meets the road.

This is not a piece about legal structures however. Structures don't make organizations work, leaders do.

I've been thinking about what connects leadership across all the kinds of enterprises I've had the opportunity to participate in.

Fortunately I don't have to think too hard. One simple thing stands out. I just came across a wonderful quote from Tom Peters that sums up my own philosophy better than I could:

"The essence of the leader is to induce people to grow." --Tom Peters

Induce: "to lead or move by persuasion or influence, as to some action or state of mind."

Grow: "to increase by natural development."

If you are a person considering a startup or working in an emerging enterprise, you need to be a leader, no matter your specific position. The world needs your solutions and you need to get those solutions deployed. If you are leading a small team or even if you are only leading yourself, you need to create states of mind and actions that help people get better through natural, reproducible (sustainable) solutions.

Short post, thanks (again) to Tom Peters.

My friend, lead by inducing people to grow.

Tom Peters

Rules of Thumb

2009-04-26T07:17:00.005-05:00

I often find that some of the most important information I need finds me after I need it.

Much of the work I do in these posts is to find information that I know to be credible and useful and pass it along with the hope that it reaches you before you need it.

Here is a must-read addition to that discussion: "Rules of Thumb" by Alan Webber. Mr. Webber was the cofounder of Fast Company Magazine.

First a note about Fast Company. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Fast Company Magazine 'Fast 50' award in 2004. It's one of the business honors I most cherish.

The Fast Company magazine that Mr. Webber cofounded was the coolest place on the planet to read about enterprise and entrepreneurship.

At the time, here is what they said about their Fast 50 winners: “The Fast 50 are the idea elite of business, individuals with the vision and personal commitment to propel their companies and industries into the future.”

What I will be forever proud of is that we won our Fast 50 award with a business of just 4 people. Highly dedicated friends, all of us passionate proponents of our cause. Dave, Mary, Dan and myself. From this core group we recycled many tens of millions of gallons of water and saved well over 10 million gallons of oil every year that used to be lost as wastewater. Dave and I were fortunate enough to be awarded 9 patents for our work. It was very heady, very fun times. However, we knew very little about promoting ourselves or telling the world about our work. Fast Company magazine found us. They understood what our little revolution was accomplishing and told the world about us.

Allen Webber's new book, "Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self" is a must-read for anyone approaching entrepreneurship or working in new and emerging enterprises. It will profoundly strengthen your will and resolve to persevere. It will shine a clear light on the pathways you need to navigate. Importantly, "Rules of Thumb" will bring you street-level wisdom about entrepreneurship that can only come from someone who has done it wisely themselves and learned the best and the worst from those of us who have worked in the field our entire lives.

"Rules of Thumb" is the best short course in entrepreneurship I have come across in decades of work as an entrepreneur.

I'll give you a few of the 'rules' in short form, then close out with one of my favorite quotes from the book.

- Learn to take "No" as a question.

- Failure isn't failing. Failure is failing to try.

- Simplicity is the new currency.

- Nothing happens until money changes hands.

- The difference between a crisis and an opportunity is when you learn about it.

All of these 'rules' and many more (52 in all) get discussed at length in "Rules of Thumb".

Among my favorite in the book is #38, 'If you want to think big, start small.' Mr. Webber is discussing Muhammad Yunus and the founding of the Grameen Bank, which has profoundly changed the world, and earned Mr. Yunus a Nobel Peace Prize along the way. Here's a quote from that section: "It started out, in other words, as a solution in a Petri dish, like so many other world-changing social projects. What it offers is an instructive model for crafting solutions that work, one that applies equally well to for-profit and not-for-profit entrepreneurs."

"Start small. Do what you can with something you care about so deeply that you simply can't not do it. Stay focused, close to the ground, rooted in everyday reality. Trust your instinct and your eyes: do what needs doing any way you can, whether the experts agree or not. Put practice ahead of theory, and results ahead of conventional wisdom."

"Start small. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, change what you're doing until you find something that does work. Start small, start with whatever is close at hand, start with something you care deeply about. But as Muhammad Yunnis [tells listeners], start."

Do you need any more permission than that? Are you waiting for more inspiration?

Among the pieces, some of the most valuable relate to raising money (#37 - 'All money is not created equal'). For anyone raising startup capital this piece is critically important.

When I read a business book, I call it a great success if I can take away one solid idea or truth I can put to work. In "Rules of Thumb", there is not a single weak piece in the entire book. Just remarkable.

Allan Webber has distilled a career working in entrepreneurship into a magnificent collection of hope and how-to.

I rarely recommend anything this enthusiastically, but "Rules of Thumb" is one of those rare gems in the world of entrepreneurship that you just need to read.

Allan Webber bio

Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus

You are not alone

2009-04-19T07:11:00.004-05:00

I really love the work of the Kauffman Foundation, the foundation for entrepreneurship.

In my talks I quote one of my favorite Kauffman Foundation statistics. That stat has just been updated and I'd like to share it. I think it puts the discussion of entrepreneurship in a good perspective.

The Kauffman foundation has been keep a running tally of startups called their Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. I use one particular stat from this in most of my talks. The most recent full year data available is 2007.

In the United States in 2007 there were four hundred ninety-five thousand new startups. Every month. Month in and month out. And this rate of entrepreneurship, 0.30% (about 300 people out of every 100,000 adults) has held steady for more than a decade. My friends and I working in economic development see an uptick in the number of people engaging in 'forced entrepreneurship' due to the current economy so it's probably higher now.

Almost half a million new startups every month. Those are just official startups. The number of folks thinking about it or planning to open some kind of enterprise are probably 3 times that, filling the funnel with about a million startups per month at some stage of being birthed. You are not alone.

I was fortunate to hear a great keynote presentation given by Mr. Burt Chojnowski of Fairfield, Iowa this week. Anyone following these posts would love Burt (linked below). He is the only other person I've heard beyond me saying that it is scarier NOT to start a new enterprise than to start one, especially under the circumstances we're in now. Why would you trust all of your economic security to the vagaries of other people?

Burt also tracks these posts strongly in telling people that entrepreneurship is not a pathway toward quick money. He agrees that it's a matter of delivering well-crafted services and products that are executed at the highest levels. This doesn't require Silicon Valley type enterprises. It requires entrepreneurs doing what they love passionately and professionally, working in an environment designed to support them personally and professionally through their successes AND failures.

About a half million startups occur in the U.S. every month. Most are bootstrapped. Most are grown to solve problems the entrepreneurs are passionate about. If you count in partners, investors, employees, people planning a startup, what is that? One million people per month? Two million people or more per month wouldn't be a stretch.

You are not alone. You can do it. Reach out and look for help, mentors, tools, and advice. This stuff must come first. Money comes after this.

It will take longer than you think so start working at it now. Work cheap, act quickly, make as many inexpensive mistakes as possible, but most importantly, start to create action steps then take them.

Burt Chojnowski has run with some of the big dogs (Guy Kawasaki) and has a terrifically impressive entrepreneurship CV. I loved what he brought up during a discussion of planning for small scale startups. He said, (and I agree) "Entrepreneurs learn from on the job training." That is, get going, get in the game, and learn what you can as fast as you can and put that knowledge to work each new day.

Entrepreneurship is not an isolated activity undertaken by geniuses in labs. It’s a social movement with unbelievable depth and breath across all levels of our society. It is indeed the Renaissance age of entrepreneurship. And it's just beginning.

You can do it. There is plenty of help and plenty of peers available. Get going on your new enterprise, friend.

The time is right. You are not alone.

Read executive summary / Download full Kauffman Index to Entrepreneurship

Burt Chojnowski's Brainbelt Consulting

Simple competence

2009-04-12T08:01:00.004-05:00

Today marks the 4th anniversary of these posts. I see this activity as a mental health outlet. And it's clearly practice. I enjoy the subject of sustainable enterprise and sustainable work and want to write and talk more about it.

Remember, sustainable doesn't mean you save the whales first. Sustainable means keeping you and your enterprise going. You make real progress. You grow. You get more competent and independent. You keep excellent books. You capture data professionally. Your enterprise grows in value in every way. If you crash and burn, both you and the whales are toast. That is what I mean by sustainable.

To be sustainable, that is to grow and build value, requires competence. It does not require star quality entrepreneur mojo.

I read a great piece in the April 13 Business Week by Robert Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford.

The article is titled, "In Praise of Simple Competence".

The basis of this is the Peter Principle, the idea that people are promoted until they run out of skills to accomplish the growing amount and complexity of tasks we ask of them. Then we all have to live with their incompetence.

As Mr. Sutton writes, "If Dr. Peter (The Peter Principle) were alive today, he'd find that a new lust for superhuman accomplishments has helped create an almost unprecedented level of incompetence. The message has been this: Perform extraordinary feats or consider yourself a loser. We are now struggling to stay afloat in a river of snake oil created by this way of thinking."

The thing I've learned to do that might be the most valuable contribution I can make to someone thinking about their own startup is to give them permission. You can do this. Surely you need competence, but that's all. You do not need to reach for the unattainable. You can build a successful, growing, sustainable enterprise. If you are realistic, your enterprise can be one that matches your needs and your timeline.

With small businesses and startups, remember to fail early and often. That's not permission. That's an order. I've said this forever, and I continue to prove it myself every day. You will fail. Do so cheaply, non-catastrophically, and learn from every one.

This is my bedrock foundation for approaching enterprise. You can do it. You will make mistakes and not get it right. It will likely take longer than you think. Go forward and scramble.

In support of this two great quotes: the first from my favorite business sage, Tom Peters, the second from Arthur Lefler, current CEO of Proctor and Gamble.

"Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast." - Tom Peters

"You learn more from failure than you do from success but the key is to fail early, fail cheaply, and don't make the same mistake twice." - Proctor and Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley (story link below).

It's fun when really smart people back up what you know to be as true as anything that exists in the world of enterprise.

This is the solution. Simple competence. It is not the ability to avoid mistakes but to live with them, to keep their damage manageable and their lessons valuable.

I'd wanted to start writing about this stuff long ago but was always afraid I wouldn't be good enough or that it wouldn't instantly get to the New York Times' best seller list.

Then it hit me one night, sitting in a hotel room in Dubuque, Iowa. I couldn't do one more thing that day. I was dead tired and covered in oil and fatigue from the startup of one of our industrial fluid recyclers at the local John Deere plant.

I decided to write down a couple of ideas that I'd learned that day about what I wanted to do with my life. It didn't have to be on the best seller list. It needed to be a competent presentation of what I know to be true about doing enterprise. Good enough. An action step.

That was four years ago today. Still practicing. Still touting the joys of simple competence and inviting you into the world of sustainable work.

C'mon along for the next four years. I see a LOT of interesting work on the horizon.

In Praise of Simple Competence. Business week article by Bob Sutton. April 13, 2009. Online version titled "the Peter Principle Still Lives.

How P&G Plans to Clean Up Business Week April 13, 2009.

Tom Peters

First post and mission statement April 12, 2005

Nice blog honor

2009-04-05T08:01:00.001-05:00

I just recieved a nice note from the folks who run a web site that discusses and rates online Universities.

They were kind enough to include this Sustainable Work blog in a collection of 'The 100 Best Blogs for Those Who Want to Change the World'

I see Malcom Gladwell's blog (reading his excellent book "Outliers" right now). Seth Godin is there, as is Guy Kawasaki. I really love the writing these three put out. There are many others on the list I look forward to learning more about.

Thanks to the good folks at this web site for including us under the 'Business and Leadership' category of The 100 Best Blogs for Those Who Want to Change the World.

Next weekend is the 4 year anniversary of this blog. How time flies...

The 100 Best Blogs for Those Who Want to Change the World

Following your bliss, rice farming, and showing up.

2009-04-04T07:59:00.002-05:00

Anyone who works with me or reads these posts knows I insist you really love the work you're doing in your startup or small business.

As this awful economy grinds on many people are moving toward entrepreneurship as a viable option. I applaud that and welcome you to the practice.

What's getting me a bit nuts is the preponderance of media shouting out that you need to follow your bliss into entrepreneurship.

Yes, I agree. But then what? Do you follow your bliss over a cliff? At least you'd enjoy the plunge for a few short moments.

If you are going to endure and celebrate what makes small business, you have to have all the parts of your mind and body engaged.

I love the quote from Dr. Howard Thurman, the great religious leader and pioneering civil rights activist who mentored Dr. Martin Luther King: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Did that mean Dr. Thurman spent his days navel gazing? Just the opposite. He wrote more than 20 books. He met Ghandi and, at Ghandi's request, brought back his message of non-violence to African Americans, then served as spiritual advisor and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King's family. He gave up a safe, honored, tenured faculty position to change the world.

He worked relentlessly, as though tomorrow really needed him. It did.

However, it's the DOING of the work that matters, not the thinking about it.

I'm reading Malcom Gladwell's great new book, "Outliers". He talks about needing proficiency to claim mastery. His thesis is that you need about 10,00 hours of practice to become a master of any trade, from musical composer to hockey star. Four hours per day. Seven days per week. That's about 10 years of practice.

Gladwell also talks about the potential efficiencies of applying that time and mastery to everyday life.

Until very recently as techniques and genetics have improved, the average wet rice farmer in China may have spent as many as 3,000 hours per year working, as opposed to European farmers that spent 1,000 hours per year working.

What was different?

"What redeemed the life of a rice farmer was the nature of the work. It was a lot like the garment work done by the Jewish immigrants to New York. It was meaningful."

Chinese rice farming is NOT the North American agricultural economy of the 21st century. It is however a startlingly apt metaphor for the rest of commerce in the global 21st century economy.

Yes, you REALLY do need to love what you do. Not because you'll be following your bliss. You need to love what you do because you'll be living with your work through times of miserable cash flow, angry customers, crushing time constraints, and working more time than you can imagine.

That doesn't sound like following your bliss. It's not. What really matters is working toward your bliss.

You mean it's hard? More than I could tell you. You mean it's going to take longer than you think? Yep.

Does that mean you shouldn't do it?

Just the opposite. You need to enter commerce; as have thousands of generations before us, and work hard and solve problems. Keep excellent notes and records, and then work harder to make it all happen again and again and again.

Among the most dog eared books in our house are our copies of "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfieild.

Mr. Pressfield's book focuses on resistance. How resistance will rise up at every turn and offer you easier ways to lead your life than what your quest demands.

Mr. Pressfield's gift is to remind us that our struggles are ages old and that we have the constitution and the guts to work our way to a better life. Success is based in large measure by how willing we are to show up and push through the daily grind of planting the rice and cultivating what you love through hard work and perseverance.

Here's a good example from "The War of Art":

"Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. 'I write only when inspiration strikes,' he replied. 'Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.'

That's a pro.

In terms of resistance Maugham was saying 'I despise Resistance; I will not let it faze me; I will sit down and do my work.'

Maugham reckoned another deeper truth: that by performing the mundane physical act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration…."

Doing what you love is critical. The key word is 'doing'. Not talking about it but acting in an efficient way, creating sustainable (reproducible) business models around what you love. Trying, failing, trying again, and above all else, showing up every day.

Then, and only then, will you be able to turn your bliss into a business.

I wish you the best.

Wikipedia Dr. Howard Thrumon

Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers"

Steven Pressfield's wonderful book "The War of Art"

"What's important is getting the whole community more entrepreneurial."

2009-03-28T07:02:00.003-05:00

I greatly enjoy my participation in the Wisconsin Entrepreneur's Network (WEN). I'm a member, a WEN resource provider, and a big fan.

Among the cool things WEN provides in a lovely, concise digital newsletter (linked below).

A story in this week's WEN newsletter linked to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece that resonated in very practical ways. It was an interview with Massachusetts Institute of Technology master mentor, Sherwin Greenblatt. Pretty cool job description.

MIT has the best track record of any academic R&D center for startups. I take that to be carefully measured, reality based, peer review results (as opposed to theory-of-the hour stuff that's in the wind right now). Granted these are mostly tech companies MIT is dealing with, but I posit that Mr. Greenblatt's results apply system-wide across all of entrepreneurship.

So what's the first thing Mr. Greenblatt wants to tell us about growing successful enterprises? Do we have to look for more grants? Do we have offer more incentives? No.

His answer is the core truth of how we can grow local, regional, national and ultimately global economies. "What's important is getting the whole community more entrepreneurial."

Here's how the article describes MIT's approach to this: "Entrepreneurs get better after they have failed once or twice. MIT doesn't give up on them if they stumble."

This is a vital to understanding the process of building entrepreneurial communities. Of course you will have failures if you enable people to take measured chances. The trick is measuring those risks carefully, and building community support for the risk takers.

The MIT program focuses on mentors as one key way to involve the community.

Mentors create paths to success that non-mentored enterprises often can't find. So a couple of quick bullet points culled from many excellent points in this article….

"The mentor approach works. Fifty companies have been launched in the MIT community; 40,000 hours of mentor time have been volunteered; 120 ventures are being actively mentored; and $550 million in capital has been raised for its mentored deals to date."

"A team of two to four mentors per deal works best because it brings in diversity of expertise and creates checks and balances on opinions rendered to the entrepreneur"

"Entrepreneurs are not kept in the mentoring program unless they are very serious, are making real progress on milestones and make a moral commitment to give back to the community if their deal flies."

"Mentors get involved because they like the social interaction with each other and take satisfaction from seeing entrepreneurs flourish. They like learning from other smart people."

"Finding the right mentors for each enterprise is a social matching exercise. The chemistry among people has to be right. If it isn't, changes are made in the mentor line-up."

(And, too often true) Some entrepreneurs are crazy; others don't listen. Neither can be helped."

The fact that the academic institution with the best track record for launching new enterprises would do it through carefully designed mentorships is wonderfully simple.

Mentors are a critical piece of the entrepreneurial equation. I've been gifted with the opportunity to work with great mentors and I know just how well great match-ups can be for all involved.

My takeaway from the MIT experience is the bigger point made by Mr. Greenblatt about what they have found works best for growing successful enterprises: What's most important is getting the whole community more entrepreneurial.

I could not agree more. This is the key to successful economic development.

What does this mean for startups and small businesses? It means you don't need permission, you need to make mistakes. You need to start, learn, and repeat.

What does this mean for communities? The most dynamic local economies have the highest startup birth rates, but they also have the highest startup death rates as well. More churn. Entrepreneurs in the local economy must be made to feel more comfortable and supported when taking appropriate, measured chances.

This leads to more economic diversity for communities. It creates more chances for citizens to create more economic independence for themselves and the regions where they live.

As the article says, don't focus on individual deals, focus on creating an entrepreneurial community.

That's a plan ALL of us can participate in.

Sign up for the Wisconsin Entrepreneur Network newsletter

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mentors are key to start-ups. Posted: Mar. 21, 2009

Unleashing talent

2009-03-21T06:55:00.000-05:00

I had a wonderful experience this week speaking with a group of energized citizens.

There is nothing that can focus your attention on the good in life better than hanging around with people working to make that happen.

We got to share some stories about the kinds of businesses people were starting; why people were starting them; and importantly, how energized citizens can participate and help.

I'd been thinking about a NY Times piece from this past week called "Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own".

Matt Richtel reported from San Francisco, and Jenna Wortham from New York.

It was decidedly downbeat about people being pushed into "forced entrepreneurship", as described by Mark V. Cannice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco.

However, he also described reality as I see it, “If there is a silver lining, the large-scale downsizing from major companies will release a lot of new entrepreneurial talent and ideas — scientists, engineers, business folks now looking to do other things,” Mr. Cannice said. “It’s a Darwinian unleashing of talent into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

A Darwinian unleashing of talent. An unplanned opportunity to create real solutions to real problems.

I wouldn't restrict the new entrepreneurs to just those categories described above. I'd throw in all the rest of us. We all need to participate in the economy directly. We all need the opportunity to build more economic security into our lives.

So how do we help?

The NY Times article talks about the remarkable availability of resources and tools for entrepreneurship. Barriers to entry are falling away on many fronts: marketing, financing, accounting, vendors, etc.

The article also drilled down to the most pressing issue for new startups. It will seem obvious when you see it in print, but it is painfully lacking too often in the world of entrepreneurship. That is, for any enterprise to be sustainable, it has to solve real problems.

New enterprises that solve real problems must be nurtured. We need their solutions. They need our help.

That's what my new energizing friends did for me at the presentation this week. They gave me a chance to talk about nurturing the smart ones. The green ones. The problem solvers.

Most important of all, they listened and then took action steps.

Steps that will lead to a local, independent, micro-loan fund dedicated to helping new and existing enterprises nurture and grow their smart, sustainable solutions. My friends didn't just listen, they began taking concrete steps to help their local economy and in many small ways, change the world.

The economy needs and wants new smart startups and growing small businesses. There is no shortage of entrepreneurs though there are plenty of barriers to the unleashing of that talent. It's the job of all of us to break down those barriers.

It couldn't have been more exciting to be among good people taking steps to enable talent and enterprise to flourish. That's how we help.

NY Times article. "Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own", by Matt Richtel and Jenna Wortham Published March 13, 2009

Regional fair trade

2009-03-14T08:10:00.004-05:00

My wife and business partner for decades, Mary, describes it as making the brochure on your way to the sales call.

While I counsel that entrepreneurship is a slow process, the day-to-day activity level can be breathtakingly fast. It can sometimes feel like you're leaning into a howling wind tunnel at a 45 degree angle and struggling to stay rooted to the ground. Making the brochure on the way to the sales call stuff.

I am working on an economic development project with a wonderful new friend, Mark, a farmer, entrepreneur, and regional legend who lives in Wyoming Township, Iowa County, Wisconsin. There is a link to Mark and his Renaissance Farm below.

Mark and I are working with others on a project to cite a vegetable processing and freezing facility in the Village of Highland, WI. Highland has many strategic assets from an economic development point of view, but more importantly for me personally, it is also the pie capitol of Wisconsin.

Our goal is to help build a business model that allows sustainable, regional agricultural producers to thrive. It is also to create a robust, nimble, and sustainable production system that is sufficiently scaled to make that happen.

Mark and I were talking about how to describe this yesterday as we traveled to meet an important new market partner. Organic is a legal term, and while we certainly want to process organic certified foods, there will also be a role for farmers meeting our new organization's goals of regional and sustainable.

Mark said 'what about calling this process regional fair trade'?

Lovely. Just right. The standards for fair trade are generally understood and acceptable. The idea of applying those standards to sustainable regional economic development make perfect sense.

Mark bet himself that I'd use the term 'regional fair trade' during the meeting we were traveling to. He won the bet. I had it out in our introductions. Mary would have smiled knowingly.

I like the term a lot because it lets me speak to economic development on an appropriate scale with the kind of passion I feel for the entrepreneurs and the wide range of stakeholders who want to support them.

We kicked around what a standard for regional fair trade might look like and, riffing off Wikipedia, think this may be a starting place for the discussion:

Regional fair trade is a market-based approach to empower producers and promote regional economic sustainability. The work advocates the payment of fair prices, communities of all kinds working together for the benefit of everyone in their region, and sustainable environmental standards.

Regional fair trade's strategic intent is to create sustainable information, production, and marketing systems that enable producers, consumers, businesses, institutions, and communities to work together to jointly grow regional economic self-sufficiency and security. Regional fair trade creates this environment through 'open source', transparent, reproducible economic development programs that support the region's people, their livelihoods, and their environment.

This idea is not meant in any way to diminish the goals and roles of global fair trade efforts. Those must be supported of course. This idea of regional fair trade honors that groundbreaking, world-changing approach and applies it to new geographies. Neither is excluded. Both are required.

Regional fair trade. Open source economic development. Time to make a brochure….

Mark Olson and Renaissance Farm

A great article about Mark Olson and Renaissance Farm

Village of Highland, Iowa County, Wisconsin

Town of Wyoming, Iowa County, Wisconsin

Startups not bailouts

2009-03-07T23:31:00.005-06:00

My presentation to the Wisconsin Assembly's Committee on Rural Economic Development was really fun. Nervous, but fun.

I knew as the last of 4 speakers I'd be limited in time, so I had to focus on the three key action steps I most need as an economic developer working in rural communities.

For me it's a no-brainer. Good universal broadband, virtual incubators, and micro lending.

For this post I'd like to focus on micro lending. Specifically how a fast, inexpensive, off-the-shelf hybrid lending program might be put together quickly in local communities.

Thomas Friedman had a good piece in the New York Times last month about the use of capital in this awful economy. He focuses on the high tech economy, which is an obvious necessary component, but I believe this approach would benefit all levels of enterprise investment, perhaps especially micro lending. In an economy this bad, there are millions of people who might benefit from their own startup enterprise, sustainably run and seeded with micro investments, wisely overseen.

Here is Mr. Friedman: "Our country is still bursting with innovators looking for capital. So, let’s make sure all the losers clamoring for help don’t drown out the potential winners who could lift us out of this. Some of our best companies, such as Intel, were started in recessions, when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring.

Yes, we have to shore up the banking system, which underpins everything; and finding a fair way to prevent hardworking people, who played by the rules, from losing their homes to foreclosure is both right and essential for stability.

But beyond that, let’s think, talk and plan in more aspirational ways. We’re down, but we’re not out…. Our motto should be, 'Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don’t nurse the old G.M.’s.'”

We are down, but we are not out. Exactly. That's a succinct call to action. Communities and economies will be rebuilt through new and better enterprises. A few will be Googles. The vast majority will be small businesses.

There are surely micro loan funds run by governments in North America that work, I just don't know any. I think that governments really want to do this, but it just requires too many activities that governments constitutionally can't do. They just can't get involved to the degree that's needed by the entrepreneur.

That's where you come in. Here's my hybrid idea.

A group of citizens want to improve their community. These communities can be neighborhoods, cities, counties, and regions. The community could also be virtual with members worldwide and everything in between.

Let's say the interested citizens want their community to go increasingly greener. Those citizens should vote with their money and establish their own green micro lending fund.

Banks are equipped to segregate the funds and create the loan coupon books specific to each loan, providing the institutional backbone with the tracking and recording components needed. They can create this for a modest fee if they can avoid the costs normally associated with loan origination (finding appropriate borrowers) and with loan collections, which can consume time and resources. Some loans will fail, many times because there is no insight and oversight afforded the borrower by the bank or government backer.

This is where you come in again.

As local citizens who want their community to go green, your group could be out in the community finding the entrepreneurs who are creating the kind of tomorrows you want.

Do not look for home runs here. That's a death strategy. Play small ball. Light a thousand candles stuff.

It's your money, shared with your friends and peers in your community, so it's unlikely you're going to publicly game the system to benefit cousin Bubba. There is a built in feedback loop that would keep our green citizens motivated to help find and create good, sustainable green entrepreneurs.

And your work continues…

You help present the case for your entrepreneur to your fellow green citizens or their green investment review committee. If approved, you have to help with mentorship and advice for that green entrepreneur while they grow their enterprise. If you can plug them into local resources like my office, all the better.

Self interest. Feedback loop 2.

The green entrepreneur succeeds. Your green fund gets their money back. Feedback loop 3.

Governments can't do this kind of personal mentorship. Banks can't easily locate and prepare efficiently organized, highly targeted new enterprises, let alone manage the supervision and collection issues associated with most small scale startups.

But you can't manage the loan coupon books the way the IRS requires either. Banks can. Easily and accurately. It's not good VS bad. It's who does what best.

I would strongly recommend people initially treat these targeted micro loan funds as though they were stock buying clubs without the stocks. If you want to formalize into a corporation or legal entity of some kind that's perfectly legitimate, but I'd like to focus on a looser model in this post. This latter route will absolutely require a lot more law and regulation than most situations need, but as the fund grows and as a more diverse group contributes, everyone will likely want a contractual way in and out of a more formalized and legally defined fund.

So, this could be your community green group. People chipping in risk money to make the vision of their green tomorrow happen. I'd suggest people put that money in as seed money and treat it as an investment in their communities, not as a way to make personal money.

This would be treated as a loan only. Requiring an ownership share would require that the receiving entrepreneur lawyer up to a degree that isn't productive at this stage.

Talk among yourselves about what the fund should have in place in advance for things like goals, returns (to cover bank fees), and potential rules to play in this sand box. Build out future conflict up front.

If it's like a simple stock buying club, the members voluntarily join for a common purpose, make their contribution to the pot, then add their expertise for trying to grow that pot. If their circumstances change or the goals of the group fractal, then contributors can take out their share of the non-invested pot at that moment and go play elsewhere.

Put the money into a segregated fund at the bank or credit union. For a modest fee, the financial institution will handle the official requirements and back-office mechanics, for which they are unbelievably well prepared to do. Your group and you do the messy, fun, non-bank entrepreneur stuff.

Here is where my day job comes into this. What's my dream tool for effective, nimble economic development?

I would have independent micro loan fund(s) available for specific purposes that were controlled by interested citizens, not governments.

If I knew the interests of those groups in advance, I can find, train and point appropriate entrepreneurs to them.

Beyond me, the entrepreneurs would get pre-loan vetting by interested, motivated individuals, fiscally legal processes, managed by committed people with some mentorship capabilities in place, and the most valuable of all resources, a network into the communities they hope to serve.

Like-minded people who want to change their communities in ways they and their friends want, should vote with their money. There is no more direct way I know to change and positively influence the future.

So, what would a targeted investor group like this look? Whatever you want it to look like.

I'd suggest for a neighborhood, it might be a group of people building up a fund of a few hundred dollars could help some local startup(s) improve their community. See what works and what doesn't.

If I think about this at a county level where I work, you'd have to pilot it to see what was manageable, but I'd think starting with $10,000 would be a reasonable start. You'd start with loans from $500 to say $2,000 to test it out, following the feedback loops described above. If it works and you can garner the contributions, move the fund to $50,000 and any good economic developer can get you dozens of startups tailored to the needs of that fund.

Nobody should expect home runs. This is small ball stuff. Day-in, day-out. One foot in front of the other. Repeat. This is how communities get built by choice not accident.

I scribbled down a quote from a guy on the radio I can't locate via online searching that went something like, 'our future is our choice, not our fate'.

We have a choice in this miserable economic environment to build the futures we want. Leave these decisions to others, and we will live in futures others choose for us.

Small, locally based, independent, member-run micro loan funds would be an unbelievably powerful tool for communities and the economic developers who serve them.

If you keep your expectations realistic and you keep the structure of the loan fund appropriately non-regulated, small groups of like-minded citizens can change the future of their communities.

Not by talking about it, but by making it happen with their money.

Startup static, reducing the barriers to entrepreneurship, and creating new platforms for effective startup launches.

2009-03-01T06:41:00.004-06:00

The March 2009 Inc. magazine has a good piece by entrepreneur Joel Spolsky. I like Mr. Spolsky's work because he's a working entrepreneur and freely admits to the ups and downs and all the indecision in between.

His column is titled Start-up Static. "A new business is like a shortwave radio. You have to fiddle patiently with all the dials until you get the reception you want."

That advice has never been more true than in this rapidly changing economy. Small startups are not a rigid exercise in business planning. They are a dance of details. You need to continue to tweak, to adjust the dials, always searching for a way to make the signals stronger and your enterprise more sustainable. Anyone who tells you differently has never started up a small enterprise.

What's between the lines of this story is that you can do it too. There is no wisdom handed down from on high to those who start businesses. They are just people who have (hopefully) assessed their chances and continue to put one foot in front of the other in a way that's informed by the details of the path they are on.

In the same article Mr. Spolsky quotes Jessica Graham of Y Combinator, one of my all time favorite startup stories. Y Combinator is an investment firm / training camp / startup mentoring and empowerment platform dedicated to very small tech startups. I won't do it justice here. See the link at the end to learn more.

When asked to do a presentation, it was suggested to Jessica Graham that she might talk about why startups fail, not the usual stuff about why they would succeed.

"That would be boring, " she said. "They all fail for the same reason. People just stop working on their business."

The article continues: "As she pointed out, it's usually a collapse of motivation - everyone wanders back to civilian life. And the startup ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."

The Grahams have seen a lot and do a great deal of good for startups. They focus their energies and help on companies they have skills in (tech startups). As investors, Y Combinator puts in tiny amounts of money (almost always less than $20,000), but they also provide financial support and stability for entrepreneurs training in their highly effective startup programs.

This is a great model that can be reproduced in other fields. New entrepreneurs need small-ball money; but more importantly, they need safe cultural and financial spaces to take cover in while they launch, under the careful eyes of folks who have a stake in their success.

Why not a reproduce the Y Combinator model for firms that focus on green entrepreneurship? What about food entrepreneurs or art entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurs, and on and on? Little bits of money and lots of training, love and attention from people skilled in those arts. That's what the world of startups needs most, and the Grahams have provided a robust, reproducible model that can work in most any area of commerce we would like to develop for our regions and entire societies.

We need new forms of partnerships in the world to support this launch stage among entrepreneurs.

Perhaps we should consider calling these bare-bones startup evangelists 'Launch Directors'. Wouldn't it be cool to have Launch Directors available regionally, so that good folks emerging from the many wonderful business training programs could actually get help taking the subsequent action steps.

This is the stage where Jessica Graham from Y Combinator says, "They all fail for the same reason… everyone wanders back to civilian life."

I think that some form of public-private alliance will emerge, perhaps with the public portion supplying the bare-bones walls and roofs of the traditional incubators plus the connectivity of virtual incubators.

I think the private part of that alliance will emerge to supply the money. Not the old style slash and burn venture style investing but a 'slow money' style of investing promoted by former venture investor Woody Tasch. As Mr. Tasch puts it: "This is a call to action, a call to design new capital markets built not around extraction and consumption, but around preservation and restoration. The vision: billions of dollars a year supporting tens of thousands of independent, local-first enterprises at the base of the restorative economy."

I get to make a presentation to the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Rural Economic Development this week. Later in the month I am honored to be able to speak at several annual meetings of groups of local focused folks in my area, most of whom have been entrepreneurs and activists of some form or another in their lives.

I'm going to talk to all of these groups about the need for new types of incubators with public-private action steps built in.

Society needs entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs need society's support. Our job in economic development is to arrange that marriage, teach them to dance, and to empower them to enjoy and learn from their honeymoon journey.

If entrepreneurs can break through that stage, the world that finances emerging companies can take over, and we, as economic developers, can circle back to create more seed stage, local opportunities.

The world needs better startups. You need a sustainable enterprise. Now is the time to create new ways to make this happen.

Inc. Magazine article How Hard Could It Be? Start-up Static by Joel Spolsky

Y Combinator home page

About Y Combinator

Link to the Slow Money Alliance

Announcement, this Tuesday's presentation to the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Rural Economic Development

Attack this economy with simple stuff

2009-02-20T21:33:00.001-06:00

I get to work full time in economic development and the things I get to see from that side of the curtain are humbling.

I had a great meeting with a group from a beautiful rural Township this week. It was at night. It's so easy to forget how beautiful and how utterly dark the night sky can be and how brilliant the stars can be.

I'm getting to take these ideas of sustainable work into the field.

I will try to be short to emphasize this point. People want to know they can participate in their economic security. They want to be given permission to start their own enterprises. They want to be released from inappropriate levels of commercial expectations. They want to see if they can do it. Once they're doing it, they want to find the best way to fit that enterprise into their lives and into the economy.

If you work in economic development you know that many of these small startup enterprises, or smaller scale family businesses are dismissed. They aren't 'gazelles'. They don't make enough official job creation numbers required by the economic development grants. So what?

We need to attack this problem, and we need to attack it now.

This awful economy is not a reason to get under your desk. We need to attack this problem with whatever is available to people. We need to blunt the problems of this economy with hope and hard work, turn it, and ultimately make the lessons learned from it work for us in increasingly sustainable ways.

My new friends in my beautiful rural Township seemed to have their arms crossed in greeting to this new wise guy driving out from the county seat.

I told them I've screwed my startups up and they would to. I told them it would take more time than they or I would expect. I told them the world needs them, and they need the world. I told them that's not a reason to wait. That's the reason to start.

My friends were laughing (at/with/near?) me by the time we were done. I learned about many emerging new businesses but more importantly I learned again, about how much hope there is in the world and how hard people are prepared to work.

For anyone in econonomic development, find a way to start as many new enterprises as you can. Forget about what sectors they should be in. Forget about where you're going to get the grants. Forget about the daunting odds against these people succeeding and find a way to get them some optimism and some help. Under-promise, over-deliver and hurry up.

Find out what they love. Help them get working toward establishing a sustainable work base, in every aspect of what that means.

Those bright stars in that truly dark sky amazed me. Simple stuff.

Those hopeful startup entrepreneurs and hard working small businesses in that Township hall this week stood out from the dark headlines with an even brighter glow.

Simple stuff. Amazing.

Economic development creates increasingly sustainable tomorrows

2009-02-15T07:02:00.002-06:00

Buckminster Fuller wrote about doing increasingly more with increasingly less for the greatest number of people at an accelerating pace. Look around. Sounds like a plan.

The only way to succeed is to find ways to make increasingly sustainable tomorrows.

We innovate our way into the future in sustainable ways, or we fail. Period.

Peter Drucker said "Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth."

Now that I get to work directly in economic development, that's my job. I see it as an act of respecting resources, empowering people and communities, and building economic independence for the greatest number of people in the most sustainable way.

So what does the sustainable part mean? In Thomas Friedman's new book he concludes, "Green isn't about lighting up our homes. It's about lighting up our future."

Lighting up ALL our futures.

To me this means making tools, information, and sustainable business processes available to anyone who wants to contribute solutions. I see huge numbers of emerging entrepreneurs and innovators searching out real problems, large and small, and working to supply increasingly sustainable, repeatable solutions. We need to make the process easier for them to navigate.

Peter Drucker speaks about creating new capacities to create wealth. Wealth in the emerging economy will mean a growing quality of life, better environments, and more control over your own, personal economic independence, and the economic independence of your communities.

Increasingly sustainable tomorrows.

Sounds like a plan.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute

Peter Drucker via Wikipedia

Quit your day job, with creative peers

2009-02-13T23:10:00.000-06:00

Do you know Etsy?

It's one of my favorite enterprise stories out there. They are set up to launch you as a creative entrepreneur in ways that are remarkably easy and fun to get involved with. Etsy is a platform you can launch a creative/knowledge based enterprise from and market globally from wherever you are, literaly and figuratively.

Etsy now has a new section called 'Quit Your Day Job'. It highlights a number of folks who have used the Etsy platform to launch their enterprises.

You don't literally have to quit your day job to launch on Etsy. In fact that's the best part. You can market your own creative enterprise while you wean your way off day-job-life-support.

Etsy is a soft portal into entrepreneurship. Open the door, friend.

Quit Your Day Job. A wide range of Etsy entrepreneurs profiled. You can do this, friend.

Interview with an Etsy creative entrepreneur talking about nuts, bolts, and the opportunities of entrepreneurship.

Simple ideas. Great startups

2009-02-07T06:03:00.002-06:00

I was privileged to be invited back to Wisconsin Public Radio this week to talk about entrepreneurship.

I had to skip out of my first economic development conference to do the show. At first I felt bad about this. Then I realized that most everyone in the state of Wisconsin that knew anything about economic development were locked away in one room and none of them would be able to hear the radio show. I've been on this new job for 8 weeks. OK, not such a bad set up after all…

It was a really fun show to do. Kathleen Dunn is a wonderful, funny, thoughtful host, and people are so interested in discussing entrepreneurship. What a great hour to spend with Kathleen!

If I stopped to write about all the cool stories that flowed into the show, this piece would be too long.

The one that I'll pick to shine a light on came from a woman who told us about a simple idea they turned into a business ready to launch into greatness.

This is not meant as an example of starting a high tech, venture-funded startup. This is a story of an enterprise started from the love of an idea. What I want to emphasize here is how enthusiastic both Kathleen and I were about this idea.

Ready? A pet expo. Specifically focused on dogs.

Two couples produce the event. It's a yearly event. They design their expo to be a healthy and beneficial experience for the dogs and fun for all involved. It includes a 32 foot long pool for dogs to jump in. Can you imaging the publicity photos?

Here is the small business focus. One simple great idea had both the host of a statewide show and their guest (me) competing to gush over how cool we thought this was. Kathleen had exclamation points in her voice. We both said we wanted to visit.

So, you're a small business struggling with costs to promote an event? If it's a worthy, unique value proposition - does it solve a problem and fill a need - there are many, many low cost, creative ways to promote your venture. This one small example had an entrepreneur calling in to ask for help on a statewide show and having everyone involved on the radio side doing everything they could to support the effort. Her details are in the show, which is linked below.

If I didn't love my job so much I'd do this.

You do not have to be Rembrandt to start an arts enterprise. You have to love your art. You do not have to be Mother Teresa to start a social entrepreneur venture. You have to love your cause. You don't have to be Bill Gates to start a new enterprise. You have to use your skills and your knowledge creatively to create solutions that make peoples lives better in some small way.

This was a wonderful hour with Kathleen Dunn and the stories from the entrepreneurs who called in were magic. If you have the time, listen to the piece about the pet expo. It's in the second half of the hour. You'll be inspired as to how quickly a simple idea can be swept up into a multi-state radio program where both the host and the guest wanted to walk to the event.

Go get 'em, friend.

Listen to our entrepreneurship show on WI Public Radio. Scroll down to the programs listed for Thursday 2/5/09. 9:00 hour. Program number 090205D