Tag Archives: Serial entrepreneur

My Father, My Mentor : The Entrepreneur Seed

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Whenever I hear or read about mentors I think of my father.

I come from a *very* entrepreneurial family.  My father was always a risk taker, from the time he was a boy and he and his brothers ran away from home and joined the circus.  Really.  Then they started their own circus. ( It traveled backwoods towns in another era, and some of the animals were not really that exotic. The brothers were the acrobats and tight rope walkers.)  But it was a start that ultimately took him on to success in business.

Once as an 18 or 20 year old he got down to his last quarter.  His reaction to that was to be so disgusted with himself he pitched the quarter over a fence, borrowed some money and had some circus tickets printed. He took a train to the next town and sold the tickets, then went back and pulled together a circus to go back and perform before all the very delighted ticket holders.  He was on the road again!  Ultimately, in true entrepreneurial fashion, after a number of businesses,  he became a pioneer in the oil business and a huge success.

When I was 5 years old he used to take me out and point to a building.  “How much is that building worth?” he would ask. “As much as you can get for it” was the correct answer.

I have to admit I’m not as much of a buccaneer as my father and I didn’t care so much for the oil business… or at least how business was done in the oil business… so I got out of it.  Yes, yes I know.  You can make a lot of money in the oil business. And I did that for awhile.  But I also think it matters how you make money and it’s good for your soul to really love what you do.

None-the-less many of my business life lessons came from my father.  As I’ve mentioned, he taught me to play poker so I would  understand risk, how to size up my competition and how much money to bet on the hand I held.  I have since been a serial entrepreneur, putting (almost) all my chips in many times.  I started the first commercial Vinifera ( fine European and California wine grape) vineyard in Texas, wrote, found sponsors for and passed the legislation which enabled and launched the now billion dollar wine industry in Texas. I have launched a number of businesses in diverse industries but all were, in one way or another, grounded in advice my father had given me.

That’s why I could really identify with Norm Brodsky who talks about lessons learned from his father, who was his first mentor although he didn’t realize it at the time. In The Knack… and How to Get It –Norm Brodsky discusses lessons from his father like the importance of maintaining high gross margin;  “Always make a good sale with a big markup,” he’d say. “Make sure your customer is someone you can collect from.” “Don’t take advantage of people.” “Be fair.” Those are fabulous business lessons embedded in my mind,” he says “and they came straight from my father.”

Norm makes the case that most successful people have developed certain habits and ways of looking at things and that is what accounts for their success. He points out there are no “silver bullets” but one can pick up a way of breaking down problems and analyzing them, a bent towards action and taking advantage of opportunities.  Having a certain mind-set “doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed at everything you do, but it does improve your chances significantly. You win more than you lose, and the longer you stay in the game, the more often you come out on top.”

You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate and take a swing at the ball. The famous baseball players who hit the most home runs also probably had the most strikes, but they kept on swinging.  And, eventually, they would connect with the ball and sometimes it would fly out of the park.  In business, you don’t have to hit a home run that often.  You just have to get in the game, stay in the game and keep swinging.  As Norm says, “the longer you stay in the game, the more often you come out on top.”

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7 ways I’ve Almost Killed My Business

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7 ways I’ve almost killed FreshBooks.
Mike McDerment is CEO and Co-Founder of FreshBooks , an online invoicing and time tracking service that helps professionals in over 100 countries save time, get paid faster, look professional and focus on what they love to do — their work.

Mike McDerment

As AdvancingWomen.com‘s President/CEO, and a serial entrepreneur with a long string of businesses behind me, I’ve had the opportunity to kill a whole list of businesses and, believe me, it’s not as hard as you might think.  Here are a couple of points that Mike makes that reverberated most with me:

Thinking we had to spend more than we did.  It is always tempting to think there are “silver bullets” that will create instant success, but that is totally discredited by reality.  If there is any kind of very slow motion “silver bullet” , it is the opposite: it’ hanging on to your money so you can keep slowly and painstaking building your business based on the value you provide. ( And I speak as one who survived the dot com crash and a whole host of others in various industries, each thought to be a catastrophic devastation and they were, for those who had no cash left as the dust settled.)

You may find it hard to believe but there are individuals with $100,000 a month income who find, at the end of each month, they’re spent more than that. There are businesses in the same position. No matter how much cash comes in, it’s always possible to spend more. Master your cash flow if you want to survive in business, because without cash, no one cares if you’re worth a million dollars on paper or in widgets, the doors will shut and you will be out of the game. If you get a handle on the dynamics of your cash flow, that act alone will both improve your business and improve you as a manager, the beginning of a very positive and powerful cycle.

Here’s an excerpt from a list of ways that Mike McDerment says he almost killed FreshBooks over the years:

1. Thinking we had to move faster than we did
I remember back in 2005 feeling that if we did not blow our lights out and spend every penny we had on marketing “right now!” someone would obliterate us. … Turns out I was wrong.

2. Placing my faith in a spreadsheet
Rocking a spreadsheet is important in my books – it gets you thinking about your business. But trust me, whatever numbers come out of your Excel jockeying, they’re wrong. If you saw our business plan from 5 years ago you’d see what I mean…

It’s really easy to stare at a spreadsheet and say, “that’s it! I totally get this business…I understand how it all works and look at that year 5 revenue!”, when the reality is it will take 10 years to get there, cost you twice as much as you thought, and you’ll probably be running a totally different business by the time you get there. All of that is okay in my books, just so long as you don’t actually delude yourself into believing what the spreadsheet tells you.

3. Thinking we had to spend more than we did
There is something about the act of spending money that breeds confidence – don’t ask me why. Just because you are spending money does not mean things will work out like you modeled them…There are no silver bullets, so don’t kid yourself into thinking there are.

4. Placing my faith in consultants
Nobody cares about your business as much as you do, and frankly people who are smart – consultant/MBA smart – don’t know your business as well as you do despite the fancy words and references to past success. Don’t kid yourself into thinking a consultant knows your business better than you.

5. Underestimating word of mouth
This one is sort of tied to number one. It takes *years* to generate word of mouth – it’s a slow build, but slow burning fires burn the hottest. So be patient and do your best to take care of your customers/users even if you can’t find a way to measure the ROI.

6. Believing we could not get this far without doing “x”
I remember talking with people back in 2004. Many believed we could not get anywhere without signing a “deal” with a “partner” or taking “VC money” or “whatever”. Here’s my advice: sign the right deals with the right partners at the right time for the right reasons. You can build a business without being forced to work with the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. The choice is yours – don’t forget it. Opportunities will present themselves if you keep your feet moving and you string together a series of small successes…

7. Doubting ourselves too much
Over the years I’ve met a lot of smart people and I’ve invited them to tell me what they think. For years people did not “see it” and that exacted a toll on my confidence. Doubt is born out of fatigue and loneliness, and there is a lot of both when you are running a start up. Hang in there and keep your feet moving – there’s still a lot of time for you to change the world. “

AdvancingWomen.com seconds that motion about not doubting and keeping the faith.  Building a business is a long haul, sometimes exhausting but also exhilarating.  If you had the drive and determination to start your own business, and you’re showing any traction at all, just hang in; be vigilant about the downside and the upside will take care of itself; do all the little things right and the big success will come.

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