PicoBusiness

The very cool people at 800 CEO Read sent me the book: “Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite” so I could write a review of it. I thought I would share my review with my loyal readers.

In some ways, this book is remarkably inspiring. In other ways, it is quite frustrating.

For me, the principle behind the book, which isn’t really apparent from the title is: Break the “rules” and do things your way. This echoes many of the current business books - Purple Cow, for instance, which emphasizes that never taking a risk is in many ways the riskiest decision of all. In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have picked this book off of the shelf on my own. Which is a pity, because it is a wonderful blend of striking images and words that manages to deliver a lot of philosophy in a little over a hundred pages, many of which have almost no text at all.

I found this book inspirational, because it helped me feel better about some of the risky things I am doing with my life right now. For example, I’m writing a trilogy of novels in my spare time, while I work at a startup business, and run a set of blogs and a couple “microbusinesses” on the side. There are days when I have thought ‘You are in way over your head’. Yesterday, for instance. But reading this book, gave me a new perspective on what I am doing, and whether it really is reckless and foolish, or just a new way to approach my business life. Also, normally I would have simply mentioned ‘projects’, without saying what they were, but another message from the book is to be proud of what you are doing and trying to accomplish. Already, this book is changing my life

I also found this book to be frustrating, primarily because the people who need to read it, who desperately need to be shaken out of their 40 year carerer-slumber will find it frightening, simplistic and lacking in relevance. Some will even say ‘I believe in the premise, but how does this apply to my life?’ . They have spent so long following other people’s recipes that they no longer know how to write their own.

So - if you are comfortable with risk, if you are excited at the prospect of a ‘leap of faith’, if you refuse to live a “dignified” life, I bet you will find this book inspirational, challenging and fun, and it may just inspire you to take that next chance that you were hesitating on. But if you are looking for a book that will give you a roadmap of which risks to take, and which ones to avoid for your specific career goals, this book won’t help you, and it will seem like useless fluff.

1. You get to feel smug
All those people who criticize the masses of humanity for being docile sheep, who live life on everyone else’s terms? You’re not one of them.
2. You learn more about business than all of your friends

Aah! I see you have the machine that goes ‘ping’. This is my favourite. You see, we lease this back from the company we sold it to, and that way, it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.

I know what this means, and why you would do this, and I am not in any way an accountant.

3. You can write off some of your purchases
I’ve never done this (yet), mainly because my costs are low. But a more ambitious project, and it’s a very legitimate way to decrease one’s tax burden.
4. You get to smile knowingly when you read other people’s accounts of their startups
5. “I run my own business” sounds fairly impressive to most people.
6. You are setting a great example for your kids
By starting a business, even if it fails, you’re demonstrating to your kids that life is something to be challenged and improved upon, not something to sleep through. Plus, I’ve noticed a lot of the more successful young entrepreneurs have older relatives who were also entrepreneurs. I assume that means they helped the youngster avoid some of the stupid early mistakes.
7. You (hopefully) won’t have an idiot for a boss
8. You learn a lot about your own strengths and weaknesses
Uncomfortable with sales, or chatting with potential clients? (I know I am). Well, if you want to succeed, you have to do it, so you find ways to either improve yourself, or work around the problem, or both.
9. There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur
The cost of finding customers, building infrastructure, filling orders, taking money, shipping goods, buying inventory, advertising and business/market research has never been cheaper. There are people out there making a living selling Pool Tables on eBay. What do you believe in? There’s probably a way you can make a living doing it.
10. By definition, you are demonstrating courage
Never waste time wondering if you’re a coward anymore. By definition, if you are taking the risk of starting a business, you are facing fears that most of the population refuses to face.

Keith Robinson writes about his experiences starting his own company, what he’s learned, and how it has benefited him.

It’s not terribly long, so go ahead and check it out.

Today is May Day, and people all over the world are celebrating and romanticizing an ideology that killed 110,000,000 people over the course of 90 years.

I know this is going to upset some people. I don’t plan on making this blog a political soapbox, but 110 million people is not something that we should forget, and certainly not something we should celebrate.

 

 

Update:
Others agree!

Paul Graham writes another great article - The hardest lessons for startups to learn.

• Release Early

Honestly, this is the ongoing mantra of everyone in the startup community. The entire Agile Development community is built around releasing early, instead of waiting until everything’s perfect. Guy Kawasaki tells us to release early. Everyone in startupdom says Release Early. If you haven’t gotten the message by now, you’re not paying attention.

This is harder than Releasing Early - because you have to keep coming up with new ideas. Fortunately, your users will be the ones coming up with a lot of the new ideas for you. You just have to pick the good ones. I get this all the time with Bellygraph.

Like it or not, they’re your customers. But if you use their ideas to fulfill #2 above, you should be ok.

I’m troubled by this one, primarily because unprofitable startups and profitable startups should fear different things. As I work with unprofitable startups, I generally fear only one thing - that we will not have enough money to make payroll. Everything else is details.

This reminds me of my own essay: So you want to join a startup. But the trick is all in the wording. “Commitment” is hard. Doing something that you love and working to make it better every day is not nearly as hard.

There’s always room for more ideas and more businesses. In Atlanta, there are all sorts of streets named ‘Ferry’ - Johnson Ferry, Nesbit Ferry, etc. These were all businesses at one time. Read up on the Kraft website about how Kraft was built from startup companies created over the course of 200 years. If that doesn’t give you a sense of perspective about the permanence of startups, I don’t know what will.

Again, comparable to my own comments on the Joy/Gloom Curve.

In Paul’s world, if you work really, really hard at a startup (cram 40 years of work into 4 years), you’ll be able to retire after the 4 years. IMO, it just doesn’t work that way for most people, even in startupdom. But it is certainly more challenging and interesting work. It is certainly easier to feel like you’re making a difference, and it is certainly easier to feel that you are not just a ’sheep standing in a meadow with the other sheep waiting for the shepherd to tell you where to go.’

Stromcode, the guys behind free image hosting site glowfoto, wrote a well-written article on how he makes money. It’s a very interesting read, and has given me a bunch of interesting ideas for Bellygraph.