SustainableWork

I just received a nice note from the folks at HR World. Their web site is a resource for business people of all kinds, with a focus on HR work.

They have just chosen this Sustainable Work blog for a special honor. They have included us in a new article titled, "Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs That All Managers Should Bookmark."

Here's what they included in their write up, "Novices can get tips for innovation, startups and emerging enterprises, while established leaders can get know-how on developing sustainable new products and services."

They included some of my favorites, such as Tom Peters, Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), and Seth Godin among many other notables.

Very nice. Thanks HR World!


Link to the HR World article

Labels: entrepreneurship, Long Tail, new product development, Seth Godin, startups, Tom Peters

For any friends in southern WI who might like to attend one of my talks, the next one will be June 11th.

This one will be at the Connections meeting, a quarterly networking event held at Waukesha County Technical College in Pewaukee. Doors open at 6 PM. There will be an opening welcome from the Small Business Center Director Russ Roberts at 6:30 and my talk will begin at 6:45.

Here is the official description...

Invest in Yourself: How to Organize Your Small Business to Grow During Difficult Economic Times

What does it take to start and run a small business in difficult economic times? It takes an investment of time, and an investment in the skills and tools to organize yourself and your enterprise. Learn how smart entrepreneurs do more with less, while increasing financial security for themselves and their businesses.

There is open networking all evening following my talk, along with an opportunity to display some of your marketing materials. If you need additional information please send me an eMail.

The talk and Connections meeting will be in the Anderson Conference Center. I look forward to seeing you on June 11th at WCTC!


WCTC Connections meeting agenda

Register online for the Connections meeting

Map to WCTC

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups, The slow start up movement

This post won't be fun but it needs saying.

Many people are turning to self employment as corporations seize up and meta markets constrict.

In the past, many new entrepreneurs turned to their bankers to locate funding to start their enterprises. Often, the choice between acceptance or denial was the backup provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA). You may not have been able to convince your bankers of the worthiness of your idea, but if you could get that loan backed by the SBA, the loan went through.

There are a number of ways we could connect with the SBA, but over the years, it's influence has become greatly intertwined with the banking system and importantly, state Departments of Commerce. Entire programs to develop small businesses have grown up around this relationship.

In talking with friends in this world, I've learned that the SBA loan programs, in many cases, suffered from the same lax standards we are reading about in the general credit market. Often, diligence was not fully applied and as a result, the SBA default rate is up and standards are about to change.

Tomorrow, May 1, a new set of loan standards, called their standard operating procedures (SOP) will go into effect for all new SBA loans. These involve tighter standards and more oversight. In light of the wider credit crisis this is not really a surprise, but I am surprised by the lack of press this is receiving.

The new Small Business Administration SOPs are likely going to raise havoc in all existing programs you may know about at the state and local levels. Havoc in the sense that previously available programs will themselves begin constricting and possibly disappearing as regional governments fight their own fiscal battles.

Is this the end of small business? Of course not. Is this yet another sign that building a sustainable small business structure is your best bet to succeeding in turbulent times? Yes.

Going forward, startups and small businesses will need to control their enterprises carefully. They will need to manage for cash flow and profit, not debt repayment and outside funding.

This is indeed the renaissance age of entrepreneurship. There are problems galore that need fixing. Just don't make your new business one of the problems.

Labels: bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups

As an entrepreneur and small business owner there is one and only one constant that I've found, managing through in 35 years of widely changing economies.

We have to do increasingly more with increasingly less.

The chart in this piece was taken from financial analyst John Mauldin's great newsletter, which I highly recommend.

It shows all the official recessions we've had, charting from 1940 through 2010. Data is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis research.

You'll notice they haven't labeled the mess we're in as a recession yet. In one sense that sets up this piece. By the time recessions are finally labeled a recession, there is plenty of economic turmoil and badly wounded small businesses out there.

I think the reality of the graphic is that there should be a lighter gray fuzziness about 50% the width of each recession pasted on either side of the dark gray lines now showing. At a guess that might indicate about 1/3 of US economic history for my lifetime has been in difficult economic times.

I've lived through nine out of the last ten recessions. I've run small businesses through the last five; six if you count the current travails.

What I've learned is that under ALL circumstances, entrepreneurs and small businesses need to do increasingly more with increasingly less. Period.

This is not a call for beating your small business self up with more workload, more stress and less available time. It's just the opposite.

This is a message that the way you can get through this, and all the coming economic messes is to trust your gut and follow your smarts. You can do more with less. That's what our American economy does. It creates winners that produce better stuff using fewer resources.

This is a call for evaluating every small biz decision you make through the lens of physical and financial efficiency. Will this (any) decision help me to do more with what I have? Will this (any) decision help me to do more of what I do at a lower cost to me?

Proof of this is evident in the graph above. Yes, the remarkable march of predictable recessions is obvious and something to learn from.

But check out the rapidly rising curve in the background. That's gross domestic product. It's a big macroeconomic measure, and subject to all kinds of interpretation and parsing, but the fact of the matter is this GDP number shows our economy, you, me, all of us, producing increasingly more value with increasingly less input. This happens through good times and bad times and everything in between.

I have commercial self interest in this piece. I used the theme of doing increasingly more with increasingly less as the centerpiece of a seminar at my Technical College this week. The seminar was for an invited group in advance of an Entrepreneur Expo put on at the college that evening.

I used the seminar and the Expo to officially roll out the public beta of Diligence™, the small business workflow tool I've been building this past winter.

Spring is here. The days are brighter. There is yet another economic mess rolling through, and everybody needs to do more with less. Seems to me to be a great time to start another company.

I ran our last company, which was a manufacturing firm, through the deepest recession in manufacturing since the Great Depression. I didn't just run it, I grew it. When the US couldn't export anything I had customers on 6 continents. I hired a guy for a key new role in a month when there was only 1,000 new jobs added in the whole United States. I used my organizing approach to build a firm that was recognized by some of the most significant global small business awards available. I'm damn proud of all that. I loved attacking that situation with the only tool that will ever work. Then, or now. Efficiency.

Doing increasingly more with increasingly less. We did all that at my last startup with just 4 committed friends and the tools for doing more with less.

I'm really excited about making my new biz organizing tool available to others. I'll link to it below. More importantly, I'm excited for what it can do for folks looking to organize and grow their small businesses in this difficult environment.

It's a tool I've used myself to grow small enterprises through all the recent recessions and look forward to training others to use. Diligence™ is a tool that gives my small business peers the ability to do increasingly more with increasingly less. Sounds like a good idea whose time just keeps coming.


The rollout and introduction of Diligence™ my new tool for organizing small businesses.

Subscription page for John Mauldin's newsletter You can also search back archives by entering your eMail address. The newsletter the chart above was borrowed from is March 7, 2008, 'What's that hissing sound?''

Labels: boomers, entrepreneurship, startups

I've used QuickBooks to run the last several businesses and I'm using it for my current startup as well.

This is excellent accounting software from Intuit. We like it; our CPA likes it; it's easy to learn, bingo.

I don't normally expect big insights from big companies, but I have to say I've been reading and re-reading a new report sponsored by Intuit, produced by the Institute for the Future.

The good folks at Intuit have seen your future as an entrepreneur and, as anyone who has followed these posts know, I couldn't agree with them more.

I have been trumpeting the ascendance of the independent entrepreneur for all of my working life. I work in those trenches. Intuit has just released (Feb. 2008) a great report with a really nice description for the new world of entrepreneurship called, "The New Artisan Economy".

This is the third in a series from Intuit called, The Future of Small Business Series.

Beautiful, smart, direct stuff. This is a publicly available download so I'll attach a link to Intuit's download page for these reports.

If I copied everything I liked about their Phase 3 report into this post it would be too long. So, here are just a few nuggets…

"The next ten years will see a re-emergence of artisans as an economic force."

Yes, many of us have been in this movement for a long while, but there is a palpable tipping point being reached right now. This idea is going mainstream at the speed of light. It's in the air and the water, and it's emerging into the world economies like a welcome spring day.

"The coming decade will see continuing economic transformation and the emergence of the new artisan economy. Many of the new artisans will be small and personal businesses - merchant-craftspeople producing one of a kind or limited runs of specialty goods for an increasingly large pool of customers looking for unique, customized, or niche products. These businesses will attract and retain craftspeople, artists, and engineers looking for the opportunity to build and create new products and markets."

A short comment on the quote above: This is exactly what we were able to build at our first start up, Banner Graphics, right through our last startup, SmartSkim™. You develop systems to produce unique services and products under the aegis of mass customization. You're world-beating within a niche subject area and then you find a way to scale your output and your productivity effectively. The time for this is not coming. It's here.


"They'll be equipped with advanced technology, able to access global and local business partners and customers, and will be competing in any industry. Their firms will be agile, flexible, and will often partner with larger firms to accomplish their business goals. Most will be knowledge artisans, relying on human capital to solve complex problems and develop new ideas, products services, and business models."

In my startups, I always follow this path. The critical piece I don't want you to miss is the last thought about developing new business models. The access to tools and innovative business partnering is virtually limitless within the scale of small businesses right now. Business models - how you organize and go to market - are limited only by your imagination and adherence to applicable laws.


"The new artisan economy will see rapid growth in the formation of small and personal (one person) businesses. The artisans will create new organizational structures and provide greater opportunities for work-life balance. These small and personal businesses will be run by a diverse group of entrepreneurs with a wide range of business objectives, but many will choose to join the ranks of the new artisans to match their work with their values."

… matching work with their values. Sustainable work at its core.


"Small business has generated the majority of net new jobs in the United States over the last several decades, and the number of personal businesses has been growing much faster than the overall economy. This trend will continue over the next decade. We expect that the small and personal business growth will again outpace the growth of the overall economy, and the number of personal businesses will grow from 21 million today to more than 32 million by 2018."

This predicts 10 million new jobs over the next decade, just within the subcategory of 'personal (one person) businesses'. Those growing into the small business category will rise proportionately.

The report describes our economy evolving into a pattern of development across most industries that they call, "barbell economics". This is a term from McKinsey & Co. describing industries, "…with a few global giants at one end, a relatively small number of mid-sized firms in the middle, and a large number of small businesses at the other end."

It is inevitable that the exponential growth in small business formation will create this barbell structure. The economics are obvious. Getting yourself ready to participate in this movement seems obvious. The Kauffman Foundation refers to this movement into entrepreneurship as, 'developing your personal economic independence'.

"Lightweight infrastructures will expand and redefine the boundaries of the small business. They will provide greater agility and flexibility in collaborating, pooling resources, and outsourcing functions to other firms. These changes will reduce the risk of starting and operating a small business by lowering capital requirements and shifting fixed costs into variable costs. Lightweight infrastructures will also open new markets and create new opportunities for small and personal businesses."

Lightweight infrastructures. It's lovely to hear these terms coming into vogue. Lightweight infrastructures are an essential tenant of sustainable enterprise. Moving hard costs to variable costs so that the enterprise can rise and fall and breathe like the (economically) living entity it is. Yep. Dead on.


"The small and personal businesses of the future will build upon information technology to extend their capabilities. Decreasing IT costs, coupled with increasing computer power and the growing popularity of "software as a service" delivery, will provide small businesses access to rich and complex business applications. These new applications will require less time, money and technical skills than traditional business applications, and offer flexibility and ease of use of desktop software. They also provide small businesses with tools and capabilities once exclusively available to large corporations."

What makes me most enthusiastic about all this is that all this guidance is not coming from the usual feel-good suspects. This is coming from hard headed accounting folks. Intuit, no less.

I type this standing under a photo of Buckminster Fuller, who long ago predicted the ever increasing utility of the knowledge economy, resulting in ever increasing possibilities and pathways for all of us to make the world a better place. For me, this report documents that progress.

Intuit really got it right with this report. This is the time, and this is the place for the re-emergence of the artisan entrepreneur.

The idea ties perfectly into the slow startup movement I've been touting. Smart, creative enterprises launched in support of the greater good and designed to support the entrepreneur and their communities. And oh by the way, it ties into the clear realities of the emerging global economy.

This is a time of major transition in economies worldwide, and small business entrepreneurs all over the world are emerging to lead the way to a better life for everyone.

Artisan entrepreneur. A great job title, just waiting for you.



Intuit's PDF links to this study I've been quoting from the Phase 3 report in this post, but they are all great.

Institute for the Future Report authors

The Kauffman Foundation

Labels: boomers, Buckminster Fuller, business plans, entrepreneurship, startups, The slow start up movement

I've been invited to give the next presentation to the Entrepreneurs and Inventors' Clubs of Columbia and Sauk Counties (WI). If you're in the area, please drop by. I'd like to meet you.

The title is Startups: What are the Minimum System Requirements? This will be a presentation exploring just what are the minimum number of things necessary to get in place to launch your own startup. It's a surprisingly short list, when you strip away all the hype and false expectations.

The date is next Wednesday, February 27th, '08. The location is The Sauk County West Square Building, 505 Broadway (B-30), Baraboo, WI 53913. The meeting will run from 6 to 9 PM. The meeting is open to the public and refreshments will be served.

I've used the picture above because I celebrated our New Year's Day in the Baraboo bluffs with great friends from China this year.

That's me on the right with my friend Yongchao from Jilin, China. Yongchao works in economic development in his home city. We were visiting Devil's Lake State Park near beautiful Baraboo, WI to celebrate our New Year's 2008.

Come to next week's talk early and take some time to look around beautiful Sauk and Columbia Counties, some of the most very beautiful in all of Wisconsin. Then you can start your own business and call the area your home!


Sauk County Development Corp.

Labels: bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups, The slow start up movement

That headline is a quote from Medal of Freedom winner Dr. Peter Drucker.

I believe his statement is life-and-death true for startups and emerging enterprises, as well as the rest of the economy.

And it sounds so simple to execute. Measure the important stuff, then manage the important stuff.

However, for people I call independent entrepreneurs - venture capital folks often call them solo entrepreneurs - this can be painful to hear.

It's not so much as a 'Duh!' moment, as it is a Homer Simpson, 'Doh!' moment.

How can you measure anything when you can't find it? How can you ever trust your conclusions when you're not sure you've found it all? That's not management, that's sleepless nights stuff.

I have self-interest in this post.

I released the very first beta copy of Diligence™ last night. This is my new tool for organizing enterprise workflow I wrote about several posts back. Yikes, am I excited.

Here is the premise behind this tool…

Small enterprises of all kinds need to measure and manage their business accurately.

There is contact management software to add people to your digital rolodex.

There is accounting software to take care of your financials.

There are many, many details in between. All of it is critical to your being able to survive and grow as an enterprise.

And where do we, as startups and small businesses keep all of those details?

We all have our systems. This is good. But as we grow, we begin to patch our systems. Then we patch some more. Pretty soon our system is nothing but patches.

I've personally done this. To epic proportions. It's just what you do.

Some of our information is in text files, some is in eMail, some in spreadsheets, some in piles on the desk, some in file drawers, some in our notebooks, some in our contacts files, and on and on. As our businesses grow, the real number of storage locations is typically many more than these. It just happens over time.

Pretty soon, nothing is connecting to anything, and what is connecting is wrong and giving you fits.

That's why I'm calling this new tool 'enterprise workflow software'.

I've carried a story around with me about a certain class of very successful retail businesses that would first buy their software, then build the business around that. The idea was that you put the tools in place as soon as possible so that your enterprise has the capability of growing without crashing. You want to avoid dieing in the details of a patched up mess. Yet, that's an all-to-common path.

Doing your own business should be a lot easier.

That's why I've written this new tool I'm calling Diligence™

Whenever you're ready you can put your enterprise into this tool. Then, as Peter Drucker sorta says, you measure and you manage. Then repeat.

Diligence™ lets you capture all that random workflow data and organize it easily. The purpose of the tool is to make it efficient to store, search, use and measure your business information on demand.

This is intentionally NOT accounting software. There are many good options we all use for that.

I've built this tool for everything that comes before the accounting software kicks in.

Diligence™ is a powerful contacts manager (that's not nearly enough). It can also create and track orders and all the many associated details. Create quotes and bids and efficiently store critical business details. It manages your vendors and all their specific information. It gives you a place to efficiently organize all those small details that always end up being critical when you can't find them.

Most important of all, with a bow to Peter Drucker, the new tool lets you measure this stuff.

Organize. Measure. Learn. Manage better. Repeat.

I've had my biz running in this new tool for about 2 months now. Shaving off burrs, looking for breaks, making it simple, etc. It's certainly an early iteration, but I'm really loving it. This is the first embodiment of what I've learned building new businesses over the last 35 years.

It's in a tool that's as simple and easy-to-use as a big-button calculator.

So, I've been the alpha test and I'm a tough judge. The beta test started last night Feb. 1, '08.

I chose my beta very specifically because (1) she is doing her own independent entrepreneur startup and (2) she is an expert in business database software.

I'd love to tell you some early results, but this post would be too long. It's a great story. My favorite piece of the tool wasn't working, of course. But we didn't care because we were both so happy with the first results. I fixed my favorite part and got some great feedback.

I don't think I'm going to write much about this new tool any longer on this blog. I'd like to keep SustainableWork as focused on entrepreneurship support as much as possible.

I'm going to start writing specifically about Diligence™ on a blog linked to my day job, Business Diligence. I'll link below, and put a permanent link into the settings on the top right.

Whew. The beta is underway.


Wikipedia for Dr. Peter Drucker

The new blog for Diligence™

Labels: bootstrapping, databases, entrepreneurship, startups

There was a great article in the Jan 7, '08 issue of Business Week by Vivek Wadhwa. Mr. Wadhwa is a tech startup guy and is executive in residence at Duke University and is a Fellow at Harvard Law.

From things I've learned in my own experience with startups and from helping entrepreneurs as students and clients, I will agree with his opening paragraph.

"Before I launched my last startup, I prepared a business plan exactly as I had been taught in business school. I was determined to lure professional investors, and I thought the key lay in creating lofty financial projections and carefully documenting the details. If all went according to my 40-page plan, my software company would be worth billions in five years by capturing just 1% of the market. My CEO friends told me this was one of the most professional business plans they had seen. Yet it didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. It bore no resemblance to the company I finally built. I don't think that any of the 100 people I sent in to read more than the executive summary."

Mr. Wadhwa finds some merit in his research, but concludes, "But the two to three months I spent creating the plan would have been better spent if I had instead focused on building my product and speaking to potential customers to understand their needs."

There is much truth here, my startup friends.

It's my experience that the enterprise world is awash in people with ideas looking for money. The world is also awash in money looking for great ideas.

So what's the problem? The muddy middle.

For most of us the money can't see ideas. The money needs to see results and customers and buzz.

The money isn't going to pay you to do that. That's your job as a startup.

Mr. Wadhwa is exactly 100% dead on right. He encourages building prototypes and letting potential customers break them. Based on that knowledge he then offers up the 7 key points your biz plan should address with your newfound, reality-based knowledge: (summarized)

1. How are you going to find customers?

2. How are you going to set yourself apart?

3. What can you charge that's profitable for you and valuable for your customer?

4. How do you close your sales?

5. What are your sales channels to sell and service your customers?

6. How do you support customers with problems and product/service failures?

7. How do you be so good that your customers sell for you?

Yikes. If you answer those questions after you've skinned your knees on your beta tests, you've got yourself a business plan that will be the easiest pitch you'll ever make.

I personally gave the absolute worst presentation of my life to a room full of bankers. Technically the thing was a disaster. On the social stuff, I was worse than inept. I cringe as I type this.

But I was coming in from the field with a battle report. All I wanted to do was deliver that report, resupply, and get back out into the fight. It didn't matter to those good folks that I acted a bit shell shocked.

I addressed the points that Mr. Wadhwa so clearly identifies and the group signed the check.

If I'd been in there talking about what I was going to do, I am 100% certain that not a single person in the room would have approved that deal. However, I would never have been able to talk to them with just an idea in my pocket, so it's a moot point.

Here’s how Mr. Wadhwa closes, "The good news is that once you've perfected your business model, professional investors are likely to be much more interested in you. And you will have all the information you need to create a credible business plan they will take seriously."

Yep. Don't think your ideas will get you money. Lightening strikes but it's a risky bet. And if you're selling off an idea just to get money, you're not selling it for what it's worth. You'll be sorry about that later.

Do it the smarter, harder way. Get in the game. Get muddy. Get smart. Get going.



Business Week article by Vivek Wadhwa

Thanks to the Wisconsin Entrepreneur's Network, WEN, for pointing out this article.

Labels: bootstrapping, business plans, entrepreneurship, new product development, startups, The slow start up movement

I had a chance to do a private seminar this week at a CPA firm in the Madison area I really like. The topic was 'How to control your enterprise life'.

It was for new and small business owners and the goal was to get some 'rubber meets the road' tools into their hands.

In listening to their stories, and concerns, it's just painfully obvious that many of them are frozen out of the help systems because they are too small.

Don't get me wrong. There are many wonderful, dedicated people working the system of helping entrepreneurs. In my home state of Wisconsin, I would specifically point to the county economic development directors I've worked with. These folks strike me as tireless advocates for entrepreneurs at all levels of development.

But then you step back and you look at the environment they work in. Funding for all government programs is tight and there is a great deal of competition for those resources. The higher up the food chain you go, the more decision makers have to focus on what keeps headline writers happy.

That's code for government and investor funded companies.

If you are a new or existing independent entrepreneur, my recommendation is that you look for help as close to your operation as you can. There is plenty of support at the local and regional level, but unless you seek it out, in many cases you probably won't know about it.

Don't expect state and federal programs to help you directly. Sure, lightening can strike, but their benefit to independent entrepreneurs is indirect through larger policy actions.

The wider world sees your plight much the same way Joseph Stalin saw his world. It's a brutal, dangerous, and frightening world out there. We wish you well with your enterprise, and good luck against those odds.

Sure there will be individual tragedies, but those are the odds you picked.

Uncle Joe said it this way, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

The folks at the seminar this week were a diverse group of small businesses, all independent entrepreneurs. Their stories are just amazing. The potential to grow many of these stories into great enterprises is obvious to me.

But where are they looking? Too often to the feds, or at the state level.

I counsel them to skip all that and look for tools and resources close to home that they can have some control over, that they can have ready access to, that can maximize their chances for survival and growth.

Certainly helping introduce entrepreneurs to professional accounting and financial managers is as valuable as anything I can do to keep them alive and growing. I insist my advisor clients use CPA firms, and it's in every course I teach. I've done accounting every way you can imagine and I will never do it again without using a CPA firm. When my kids were very little, we worked from home. The first two 'outsider' names they learned were those of our CPA and our UPS driver.

Another great joy I get from doing these talks and seminars is being able to convey the idea that an inverse of Stalin's approach is not just possible. It's happening all around us.

One sustainable enterprise is of great value. A million sustainable enterprises is a culture.

And from me, good luck with those odds.



Adler and Associates. A great CPA firm with a practice that supports startups and small enterprises in the greater Madison, WI area. I really enjoyed our seminar this week and am thankful to have met so many interesting entrepreneurs and their enterprises.

Labels: entrepreneurship, startups

Sir Edmund died last night, in his 88th year of a life filled with adventure. NPR did a story on his passing this morning that included a quote which just snapped my head back.

"I believe that if you set out for an adventure, and you're absolutely convinced you're going to be successful, why bother starting?"

Well, that's contrary. But I suppose the same could be said about being the first team to climb Mt. Everest, without knowing if you would live to talk about it.

I interpret Hillary to mean that any adventure worth starting needs to be worthy of you.

We're taught these days to visualize success. Like great athletes, we're told to picture our successes and they will surely happen.

I don't believe this is true for startups and emerging enterprises. Is enterprise formation the same as setting out on an adventure? Done right, you bet.

I believe you visualize outcomes, and look carefully for routes to get there.

Like mountain climbers in unknown situations, you sometimes need to change directions to stay alive.

That's why I keep circling back to what I call the "slow startup movement". It can be scary out there. Statistics come from someplace and outcomes aren't certain, no matter how hard you visualize them. Assume mistakes and danger are in your path and approach them with wisdom and care, not money and speed.

Instead, think about not being successful. How does that change your plan? Hopefully it focuses you on what works best and what actions REALLY get you closer to the outcome you've visualized.

Start early and start carefully. Get yourself launched and start exploring paths to your outcome.

If you want to start a new organization, and you have some doubts and fears about the adventure, good! You're human. Take those first steps slowly and wisely. If the outcome is worth it, there should be uncertainty in getting there.

You bother starting because of the adventure in the journey.

You're worth it. Your outcomes are worth it. Take a measured chance.

Good luck out there.



Photo above is from one of my favorite farms in beautiful Rock County, WI.

Rock County Development Alliance

No web site needed: One of my favorite restaurants and Thrive points is Ks Outback in Orfordville, Rock County, WI. I recently took two friends from China there. They made friends with everyone in the dining room before our breakfasts had arrived. Yep, that's a Thrive point.

Labels: startups, The slow start up movement

I've carried an idea around with me for most of 30 years, that I first read in an interview with Ken Hendricks of Beloit.

Ken's business was large and rapidly growing back then. It still is. But Ken himself was well grounded and a straight talker. The point I remember from his interview is that he said he could walk into any hardware store in the country, take one single thing off a shelf, and make a national business out of it.

Ken made billions of dollars with the formula.

I believe that idea is especially true for startups and emerging enterprises, though the kind of scale that Mr. Hendricks worked at is not my focus.

My focus is on the idea that you can create sustainable new enterprises within very small niches by becoming the most knowledgeable about one specific thing in that niche.

Then, network and market nationally from the earliest stages, even pre-launch. In an economy this big, you can usually aggregate a big enough audience to turn the lights on and catch some tailwind.

This is now called, 'Long Tail' stuff after a great book by Chris Anderson. Ken Hendricks, pointed me there 30 years ago, and it still works by whatever name you call it.

When Ken was named Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year for 2006, there was a great story along with the honor. Ken was a high school dropout who became a billionaire. He has done countless wonderful things for his home-town area of Beloit, Wisconsin.

For those of us who live in Beloit, or pass through often, we know how beautiful that city has become thanks to Ken. The photo above is of one the murals Ken was instrumental in creating for Beloit's waterfront along the Rock River.

Someone said in a newspaper interview, "He didn't build new buildings, he took old buildings and made them into something beautiful."

Ken changed a national industry, working from the region I live in. He did it by focusing. Taking one step at a time. Not taking himself too seriously. Marketing his highly focused ideas nationally from the outset of his enterprises.

Ken died recently from a fall at a construction site at his home.

It is a sad tragedy for his family and friends. Ken's passing is a great loss to all of us in the region.

However, for entrepreneurs everywhere, Ken leaves a legacy that you can take to the bank. In your enterprise life, focus on being great at one specific thing and then do your best every day.



Newspaper article about Ken's life and times. Wisconsin State Journal

"Create Jobs, Eliminate Waste, Preserve Value." Inc. Magazine article about Ken, after naming him Entrepreneur of the Year for 2006

"10 Questions for Ken Hendricks", from an Inc. sidebar story. My favorite is this:

(Inc.) "What is the most overrated skill for an entrepreneur?"

(Ken) "The most overrated skill is skill. Luck is more important. The entrepreneur gets credit for being this genius, when really he was just at the right place at the right time."

Labels: entrepreneurship, Long Tail, marketing, new product development, startups

We voted with our feet and chose the area of Madison, WI to raise our family and to grow our businesses. Next to getting married, it was the best decision we ever made.

What higher recommendation could I make? I'm still thrilled with that choice 30+ years later.

I've started a number of new enterprises from this region since then, and now I get to work from here, helping folks launch their new businesses.

The eight counties of South Central Wisconsin have been rolling out a unified front for economic development in this region and I'm really delighted to see the progress being made. This area is a fabulous platform for creating new enterprises and improving your life.

That's why I really like the name they recently gave their new organization, Thrive.

For anyone looking to launch or grow a tech based enterprise, this is an ideal place. The research support and connections here are world class.

For those of us working as independent entrepreneurs (IEs), this place is perfect.

In both of the last enterprises we ran from the Madison area, we had customers on 5 continents. There are just no limits to the transportation and communications resources available here for the independent entrepreneur.

And yes, while we worked globally, I was also able to readily build an excellent regional economic base because of our easy access to Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities. All the early, sustaining, pay-the-bills, orders arrived from this hub. And we were in the middle of it, in a really lovely, invigorating environment, doing great startup work.

The world is only so virtual. You also need to show up. Being in the middle of this very valuable, and economically diverse region puts you on the doorstep of millions of people, representing countless different markets and industries, with relatively quick drives. And you get to be virtual the rest of the time, in one of the most beautiful and dynamic places on earth.

I believe that knitting together all the stakeholders in a project like this is tantamount to herding cats. The folks that have brought the new Thrive organization to this point should be thanked heartily and congratulated.

With the launch of the new name, Thrive has also named a new Chair. He is John Biondi, who I had the great pleasure of meeting with last fall. John has a rich and interesting track record working with science based high tech firms. After talking with John I am also firmly convinced he is strongly committed to independent entrepreneurs doing sustainable work.

I knew I would like John, when I showed up at his office and he was the only one in jeans, surrounded by suits. John said it was casual Friday, but that seemed to have caught everyone else off guard. John seems fully capable of declaring casual days all on his own, which I greatly admire. Also seems like a great metaphor for the kind of work we do in our region.

While Thrive rolls out and begins to focus on its key sectors, they will also be making resources available for anyone interested in starting or growing their enterprises in our smart, beautiful region.

If you would like help from the perspective of an IE that lives and works in this region, get in contact. Better yet, visit one of the gems of our region, Monroe, WI on Jan 7th. I'll be sharing a talk that evening with their Entrepreneur and Inventor Club meeting. The focus of this talk is on innovation and invention for the independent entrepreneur. I'll link info below. Stop by and let's meet.

When I think of all the wonderful cities, towns, villages, open spaces, natural treasures, coffee stops, pie places, great bowls of soup, and all the inventive, amazing small businesses I know about in our region I can't imagine a better place to work from. I've started thinking about all of them as 'Thrive-Points'.

Thrive is a great new name for a wonderful region to live and work. Get in touch with Thrive (below) or meet me in 'Thrive-Point' Monroe!



Thrive the newly named regional economic development organization for the best place on earth to locate and grow yourself and your new enterprise.

Download the Green Co. Entrepreneur and Inventor Club press release here. From Idea to Manufacture: The Process of Invention.

C5-6 Technologies John Biondi is the President of C5-6

Labels: entrepreneurship, platforms, startups, The slow start up movement

My next speaking stop is at the Green County Inventors & Entrepreneurs Club in beautiful Monroe, WI. The date is Jan 7, 08. The times are 6:30 to 8:30.

The Club meets at the Monroe Clinic, 515 22nd Av. in Monroe. Please call or eMail if you would like further directions.

The title of this talk is "From Idea to Manufacture: The Process of Invention."

Talk promo from their brochure: "Rick Terrien, owner of Business Diligence, holds patents on several products he designed and built. Rick has successfully navigated the process of getting ideas from his brain to a working prototype to a working machine. Rick is the two time winner of the Wisconsin New Product of the Year and 2005 United States Small Business New Product of the year Award. Rick's passion is helping entrepreneurs and inventors take the next step to success."

To my knowledge, Monroe, WI is the only place in North America still making Limburger cheese, so the trip would be worth it just for that! Come early and look around beautiful Green County and Monroe. This would be a wonderful place to start or grow your enterprise.

The economic support and wonderful quality of life bonuses available in our region would make this area an ideal place for new and growing enterprises.

See you in Monroe!


Green County WI Economic Development office. Better yet, call their office and ask for their Director, Anna Schramke. 608 328 9452. If you want to grow your enterprise and grow your life, our region is the place to do it and Anna can show you the benefits of Green County better than anyone I know. You're going to love our region!


Go to Baumgartners Tavern and cheese store on the square. Wonderful! No link available at this writing.

Labels: bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups

A newly released paper from Harvard economist Edward Glaeser reinforces a theme regarding startups and emerging enterprises that I'm finding to be true everywhere I turn.

Professor Glaeser's paper, "Entrepreneurship and the City", was discussed in the online forum, The National Dialog on Entrepreneurship, a Kauffman Foundation site. The abstract is available from the Harvard Institute of Economic Research. I have purchased the full article, but it's not here yet. However, the abstract and NDE discussion is enough for me to make the point of this post.

While this research looked specifically at what made cities more successful, I have no doubt that the same findings can be said for any region and probably any country.

The paper concludes that it is the culture of entrepreneurship that is critical to the success of a city. Specifically, cities don't have entrepreneurial cultures by some magic stoke of good luck. They succeed because they support and educate the widest number of people who then become entrepreneurs.

Professor Glaesser finds that cities with a skilled and appropriate work force tend to have higher rates of self-employment and relatively higher proportions of small firms.

The paper also concludes that, "There is a strong connection between area-level education and entrepreneurship."

There is no mention of advanced business school training, only education leading to a "skilled and appropriate work force".

Yes. Absolutely. The culture of success is built person-by-person, startup-by-startup, new enterprises becoming small creative, valuable contributors to their cities and regions.
Does that mean all these small new entrepreneurial ventures are going to succeed? Of course it doesn't. Just the opposite. The vitally different - and better - way of asking that question is why is the idea of failure universally seen as nothing but negative by so many people?

Why can't failure be seen as the valuable learning step it can be? In successful entrepreneurial cultures, you aren't looked down upon for failing. You're looked at as someone that's working hard and could use an introduction or two, maybe a referral to a needed link in their next chain.

Now, if your failures involve lots of money and little planning, the value of that lesson is dimmer and can be hard to locate.

If you fail by losing important money in some high risk gamble, that's not failure, that's stupidity.

But if you roll out your startups following the ideas in the slow startup movement I've been writing about and you fail, congratulations! You've learned something valuable without paying much for it. You now know one small thing better than most of the population of the planet. String a few of those together, and you're gold. Nobody can catch you now. You'll know one specific set of things that virtually no one else on earth knows. If you launch your new startup by spending more time than money on it, the world of enterprise becomes an entirely different and more welcoming place.

But you need the culture of support for innovation that only comes from doing it not talking about it.

In many of the circles I travel in, I hear all kinds of supportive talk for entrepreneurship.

This week, I was fortunate enough to see this kind of culture-building support for innovation actually being done.

Was it valuable to for the entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs? There are a few metrics I could use to define success, but let's use one that should have obvious meaning. I saw a large group of people come out on a cold November night in Wisconsin, at the very same time the Green Bay Packers were playing the Dallas Cowboys (both with records of 10 and 1), to share and support their entrepreneurial ideas. Value? Hmm. I'd say.

This was an Inventor and Entrepreneur Club meeting in beautiful Juneau County, WI. Wow. The stories, the mutual support, the flat out usefulness of the entire process was really fun.

Terry Whipple coordinates the meetings. No, that's too orderly a word… Terry mobilizes the meetings. These are very peer-to-peer driven. I'm excited for their organizations. Terry and Sue Noble from the Vernon County Club, and I got to meet before, during, and after the meeting. Talk about getting it! Talking about building entrepreneurial cultures for all the right reasons.

I also came away from a recent Green County I&E club meeting with a similar sense. There are wonderful, low-cost, effective, and highly supportive ways to create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, one person at a time.

This is new enough for a Harvard professor to be writing about it, and yet surely is as old as commerce itself.

The folks working at these grassroots levels in my state are not counting business plans and filtering them for their high tech/biotech/nanotech sex appeal. They are building cultures of entrepreneurship one person, one relationship at a time. They are building networks on networks, one network at a time.

Sue Noble told me a story about her I&E Club which almost had me in tears. I'm headed to one of their Vernon County meetings ASAP, and will post that story soon.

Professor Glaeser writes that "local entrepreneurship depends mainly on having the right kind of people". And I would suggest that to create the most efficient and widespread effects, the right kind of people would be those that are respected, supported, and trained to learn from failure and to grow in sustainable ways. That's a real culture of innovation.

Terry had posters all over the room reading 'Catch the Culture!'. I got it but didn't post it to my notebook. The next day I read about the Harvard study, stating that regions that create systems for supporting small scale entrepreneurship build successful cultures. Terry suddenly seemed smarter than he'd ever claim.

There is a tantalizing reference in Professor Glaeser's abstract for my boomer entrepreneur buddies. "Self-employment is particularly associated with abundant, older citizens and with the presence of input suppliers." Yikes. Boomer biz with lots of small operations. The research paper is ordered. Stay tuned.

I love studies that agree with me. They seem so prescient. Yet the truthfulness and the timeliness of these ground-up ideas makes perfect sense. The idea of building successful, entrepreneurial cultures from the bottom up has to be true.

Is this a knock on other kinds of enterprise creation? Of course not. Those high tech, biotech and nanotech models can be wonderful and produce spectacular results. What I do intend to say is that those models aren't the only valuable kids on the block. The entire entrepreneurship movement needs support and respect for the whole culture to grow and prosper.

This Harvard study focused on two measures of entrepreneurship: self-employment and the number of small firms. "Both of these measures correlated with urban success."

You do the numbers. Any region needs more entrepreneurs and more small enterprises to be successful. That is NOT the same as more headline grabbing this-tech or that-tech venture funded firms. It's sheer numbers. More entrepreneurs and more enterprises make the culture succeed. From this perspective, risk in the economy of our regions gets spread around and diversified, more people get to contribute, and more people become engaged solving problems. Tell me something bad about this approach.

Thanks, Harvard. More importantly, thanks Terry and Sue and all the other good folks working from the bottom up to create a culture of entrepreneurship for all of us.

To anyone considering their own startup or new enterprise, I'd say "Welcome aboard". We all need you.



Juneau County, WI Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club

Contact Vernon County, WI economic development folks to learn more.

Abstract "Entrepreneurship and the City" (October 2007). Glaeser, Edward L., Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2140

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, innovation, startups, The slow start up movement

The new issue of Rural Life Magazine (Winter 2007) has a very good article called "The Rise of the Rural Entrepreneur", by Candace Krebs. The subtitle is, "A 'creative economy' spurs opportunity for rural start-ups". This is a subject dear to my heart and the subject of this piece.

The article brings in author Richard Florida, a professor from Carnegie Mellon University, whose book, "The Rise of the Creative Class" did a lot to predict and identify this trend. They quote him emphasizing what seems so important to the general discussion of entrepreneurship and sustainable commerce everywhere now.

"The American dream is no longer just about money. My research and others' show another factor emerging: The new American dream is to maintain a reasonable living standard while doing work that we enjoy doing."

The ability to exercise this dream from rural areas has never been more available.

We all have skills and talents. We're all capable of making a contribution. Now the tools and techniques for interfacing with the general economy from rural communities are becoming better, cheaper, and more reliable every day.

Importantly, those of us working from small or mid-sized communities are all learning the techniques of outsourcing to one another, building strong networks of independent enterprises that, together, are much cooler and - personally - more economically secure than most vertically integrated behemoths lumbering about out there.

Can you do this successfully from a rural area? The article cites a fish broker who easily moved operations from Oregon to Nebraska. Don Macke, founder of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, NE says, "A big part of the economy has moved from people being producers to being facilitators of services".

That's largely true, and new services are emerging every day that can be done remotely. While not in a rural community, I was starting capital equipment in Johannesburg, South Africa earlier this year with little more that a modest ability to explain things over the internet.
The work force of capable people is crashing. The ability to participate, contribute, and grow your own enterprise from a beautiful, rural county has never been more feasible.

There are tough and necessary questions that need asking when the subject of rural entrepreneurship is discussed. A reliance on outsiders to solve problems seems wishful and risky. Growing our own entrepreneurs from people already in place, on the ground in rural areas seems much wiser. Developing the skills to empower those would-be entrepreneurs is vital to the larger economies of rural areas now more than ever.

I'm not going to be a mask the fact that rural life in many areas can be economically challenging. I am going to tell anyone looking to develop a new small enterprise that rural life in my state of Wisconsin is strong, vigorous, and welcoming to new ideas and new people.

According to the Rural Life article, people working in the creative occupations include such job titles as engineers, designers, artists, writers, planners, micro-production specialists, web workers, and my favorite, small scale ag entrepreneurs. I would also include everyone in a rural community that has the gumption to reach out and engage the wider world with their entrepreneurial venture.

I'm working with several new friends that specialize in economic development in the rural counties of my wonderful state. They are working hard, and working very creatively, to help you establish your new enterprise in some of the best areas to live and work in all of the United States. I think this trend is beginning to occur in most rural areas of the U.S. Their doors are open, friends, and you are welcome.

The Rural Life article included these stats about the new creative professionals: "Creative-sector workers today outnumber blue-collar workers, and the creative sector of the economy accounts for nearly half of all wage and salary income - $1.7 trillion per year."

Richard Florida concludes, and I agree; "The economy will prosper again when more Americans can do the work they love".

Yep. And it's never been easier to do work you love from a place you'd love to live.

Top that.


Resources...

Here are just a few of the beautiful rural places in my state, which are looking to have you live and work and live out your dreams. I'd highly recommend getting in touch with these folks if you would like to learn more. If you are already living in one of these places or would like to, get in touch with the folks below. You'll never launch your own enterprise without taking the first step. Just start!

Juneau County, WI. Terry Whipple has built a program to support entrepreneurship and innovation that is unmatched. All this from a beautiful rural location you'd love to live in.

Vernon County, WI. I think it's among the most beautiful rural areas in the world and don't want to see it overrun. Sue Noble and friends will help their beautiful county develop with your needs and their beautiful county in mind so please call her.

Green County, WI. This county is among Wisconsin's best kept secrets. It's a beautiful rural setting with excellent access to Chicago, Milwaukee, Rockford and Madison. Anna Schramke and her team can get you all the information you could want about starting or relocating your new enterprise in this really lovely setting. Some of my very best new startup clients are based in Green County and the support there is excellent.

Sauk County, WI. Sauk County contains some of the most beautiful rural settings in Wisconsin, yet is bustling with commercial vitality. Not only that, this wonderful Wisconsin county hosts a community baseball park known as a national gem. Call Karna Hanna to learn more.

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, innovation, startups, The slow start up movement

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now."

This is a quote variously attributed to Goethe, and to the Scottish mountaineer William Hutchinson Murray.

Whoever said it, good on 'ya.

It often seems like the hardest thing you can do is beginning something new. Yet the most rewarding, life-enhancing thing you can do as a human being is to begin something new, and productive in your life.

The slow startup movement solves this dilemma better than any other scenario I can imagine. I've done it myself many times and I've watched friends employ it to build wonderful new lives. Now I'm fortunate enough to be doing a slow startup once again, and watching clients not only doing them, but loving the process.

Boldness does have genius, magic and power in it. So does dreaming about, planning, and then taking those first new steps.

That's what makes the difference. Don't sweat the small stuff. Just start. You'll be better for it.

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, startups, The slow start up movement

The old way of thinking about starting your own business said that it was very risky.

The newer, smarter way of thinking about startups is the exact inverse.

It is much riskier to NOT start your own enterprise under these economic circumstances.

I am not a doomsday guy. Just the opposite. However, everyone I know that works in large organizations, especially those that have been through a few years of that grind, know that these are rough times and getting worse. The security that used to be the hallmark of large companies is long gone in the U.S. economy.

This broken macro economic mess is a risk to all of us. However, broken stuff is also the surest place to look for opportunities that I know of.

The security we all want is in our own hands. Everyone has marketable skills they can deploy in the service of fixing problems.

Who knows where this current credit crisis will lead. It's certainly a big correction. The Dow dropped by the largest amount since 9/11 this week, led by the gang of big financials. The front page of the biz section of the NY Times on Thursday Nov 8th was dominated by G.M.'s $39 billion write-down for the quarter, yet another multi-billion dollar mortgage related loss, and decreased holiday spending. Great, a crummy Christmas too.

Yet on that same day, parked back at page 10, there was a story headlined, "Small Business Flourishing Despite a Weakened Economy". It was a good piece by Brent Bowers, that highlighted the emerging reality that small businesses are the engine for job growth, especially in troubled economic times. My local paper, headlined tonight's business section with a story about leaders of Wisconsin's emerging biotech firms enthusiastically speeding forward, full speed ahead.

I'm not going to tell you that small business startups are all an exercise in skipping off to a happy ending.

I am going to tell you that if you don't plan and start your own enterprise, your financial security will be at greater risk in the coming years. Period.

You may make less money. You may make more. You will have more control over your time. You will have more personal say over your own economic security.

You tell me what's risky about that. You can do it friend.



What Economic Slowdown? by Brent Bowers


Brent Bower's article links at the NY Times

Brent Bowers, a longtime small-business editor at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, is author of The Eight Patterns of Highly Effective Entrepreneurs, now out in paperback (Doubleday).

His column In the Hunt scrutinizes the changing world of small business and the colorful characters who inhabit it.

Labels: boomers, entrepreneurship, startups

Here is that nature vs nurture argument applied once again to entrepreneurship.

Can you learn to become an entrepreneur, or must you be born with the entrepreneurial gene?

I will state up front that I believe anyone can - and should - become an entrepreneur. I'll tell you why and how at the end.

First a short piece just reported in Business Week (Oct. 29, '07), then posted on BusinessWeek.com by Stacy Perman.

The title asked, "Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?" This is an exploration of a new book by Professor Richard Goossen. The book is, "Entrepreneurial Excellence: Profit From the Best Ideas of the Experts" (Career Press; 2007). "My motivation was to talk to the top researchers and instructors in the world who teach something that a lot of people think can't be taught," he says.

There are a number of good quotes, in both Business Week links below that are worth perusing. I thought Richard Goossen's summary was spot on: "Goossen came to the conclusion that while there are several elements that can be taught to enhance the knowledge and success of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship is something one can learn only by doing."

Yes. There is real truth in that from where I stand after decades of entrepreneurship. To me that confirms my mantra of, "Go! Get out there and start!". Quit thinking about it. Quit fretting. Bruise your knees and skin your knuckles. Make as many mistakes as quickly as you can with the least amount of financial risk.

You can teach entrepreneurial tools. I do it. The biggest payback I get is when I see and hear people throw off their self-doubt and embrace what's possible. That's where Richard Goossman's thesis and my genetic propensity kick in... accept the uncertainty, assume you'll make mistakes. We all do. But never let that stop you from trying, and doing, and trying again and again. That's how you learn entrepreneurship. That's how you learn life.

However, here is my reality check. You can teach people to be entrepreneurs. You can't teach people to succeed as entrepreneurs.

Why? I believe you need to love what you're doing to succeed in entrepreneurship and in life. I don't believe you can teach people what to love. Therein lies the nature part. The nurture stuff is easy.

You can teach someone who loves something how to grow it into an enterprise. I watch it day after day now. It's inspiring and humbling and profoundly exciting.

What do you love? Learn what you can then get out there and do it.

Your enterprise awaits, my friend.



BusinessWeek.com post

Business Week Magazine piece

Stacy Perman bio at Business Week

Labels: entrepreneurship, startups

I had not heard the term 'encore careers' until I read a commentary by Marc Freedman in the Nov. 2007 Ode magazine.

Marc is the founder and CEO of the think tank, Civic Ventures (Helping society achieve the greatest return on experience) has written a book called Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. I have it on hold at the library but judging from the commentary piece in Ode, this looks to be a great premise.

I'd like to use this post to highlight some quotes from Marc's commentary...

After setting up shots of dreamy seniors on sailboats and golf courses...

"But wait a minute: Who looks forward to endless retirement anymore, 30 years of R and R? Who can afford it - even with the most diligent savings plan? For reasons of money and meaning, the golden-years vision being peddled by the financial and real estate industries is already obsolete. Stretched from a justified period of relaxation after the mid-life years into a phase lasting just as long, this version of retirement has been distorted into something grotesque, something that no longer works, for individuals - or for society."

"But this troubling conclusion amounts to scenario-planning through the rear-view mirror. Retirement as we've known it is far from an eternal verity. In fact it is already being displaced as the central institution of the second half of life, soon to be supplanted by a new stage of life and work opening up between the end of mid-life and the eventual arrival of true old age. Indeed four out of five boomers consistently tell researchers they expect to work well into what used to be known as the retirement years."

Here's the part that I find most inspiring and I see it clearly in the wonderful boomer launches I work with...

"...boomers should be encouraged not only to continue contributing, but to rethink the purpose of that work - in short, to dust off their idealism of the '60s and '70s, and get to work making the world a better place. It is the perfect opportunity for the generation that set out to change the world and got lost along the way. Now, as tens of millions of boomers careen toward what were once the golden years, I believe more and more people are interested in living out a distinct and compelling vision of contribution in the second half of adult life, one built around an 'encore career' at the intersection of continued income, new meaning and significant contribution to the greater good."

Good words from Marc Freedman of Civic Ventures.

The service economy is growing without pause through all kinds of economic turmoil. The wisdom accumulated by older workers can be applied in unlimited creative and valuable ways.

I see small, smart, self-funded, boomer enterprises emerging everywhere to fill this need and to take advantage of t