At the age of 32 I found myself working as the General Manager of USA Operations for Mitsubishi Electrics, PC division. My MBA and BS in Electronic Engineering Technology were behind me. After launching my career with an exciting technology startup I experienced rapid success. Along the way I discovered my natural aptitude for leading teams, particularly while kicking off new and innovative technology products.
Working my way up several corporate ladders, I experienced big wins with Novell, Mitsubishi Electrics, and About.com. These successes filled me with a sense of accomplishment, and I valued the knowledge gained from the experiences. However, I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the politics and red tape, and felt held back by the rigid, unresponsive nature of big corporations in general. Although appealing in many ways, the corporate world provided too many outs, to many safety nets, and I felt it was sucking out the very essence of my soul. At a fundamental level I craved to face the market forces eye ball to eye ball. The truth is my real passion and talent is bootstrapping businesses. It’s in my blood.
Where did this deep rooted interest in entrepreneurship first germinate? At the age of 5, my workday started in the early hours of twilight. I would drag the faded garden hose out and let the cold, mountain water loose on the front lawn. A thorough soaking was all I needed to procure my product. I crawled across the saturated lawn discovering the art of pulling reluctant night crawlers from their earthy habitat.
My marketing manager, Mom, helped me paint a huge yellow sign depicting the happiest, juiciest worm imaginable. A large red arrow worthy of any Las Vegas casino pointed potential customers to our house. As advertising demands required, I hauled the sign down to the canyon road and propped it up against an old cottonwood tree in an effort to attract the attention of anglers on their way to favorite fishing holes.
I don’t recall which aspect of the venture was more invigorating: digging out worms, or collecting 50 cents for a dozen night crawlers. Regardless, before my sixth birthday I had swallowed the entrepreneur bait: hook, line, and sinker.
What followed over the course of my formative growing up years was a succession of youthful business ranging from selling candles and seeds door to door, trapping, skinning and selling muskrat hides, running a fleet of lawn mowers, scrap metal collection, and a small engine repair business.
It was natural then, that the desire for the revitalizing rush of entrepreneurship came back to haunt me, even amid my success in the corporate world. As corporate life had begun to demand more than it offered, I knew a decision had to be made. When the time was right, I gave my life over to entrepreneurship.
Since graduating from MBA School, I have founded or co-founded 27 businesses. These ventures were boot strapped with less than $10,000 of starting capital. Nine have been outright failures. Seven have been moderately successful, four are in process, and seven have become multi-million dollar businesses.
Interestingly it is the failures that I value the most. It is from these that I have gleaned knowledge, resources, and experience with which to move forward.
Throughout this process I often wished for a reference book or mentor to help me avoid the big mistakes. Fellow entrepreneurs were happy and willing to help, but none could articulate the factors that had led to their success.
In an effort to fill my need, I turned to books focused on the topic of Entrepreneurship. Many of these works were well-written and satiated my appetite to some degree, but most were bulging with theory or focused on high-end businesses withstartup budgets over a million dollars. The authors sited examples such as Warren Buffet or Sam Walton. I found the books academic and often times discouraging. They portrayed how super-human individuals sacrificed their families and personal goals in order to achieve great fame and wealth.
I’ve never had an interest in achieving fame. The wealth part interests me to some degree, but not at the expense of the true riches of life. Over the years I have learned how to navigate the demands of family, trust relationships, and personal interests, and still succeed in business endeavors.
A number of months after the sale of several of my businesses, my brother Brett and I were chatting about what was next in my life. I expressed to him my newest idea: a book called Management Metaphors.
I didn’t expect his answer, “Sounds like fun, but so what? Listen, what you really should be doing is writing a book about how to build a business, a cook book of sorts. I’ve seen you create and build businesses time and again. Your uncanny ability to do this so successfully freaks the rest of us out. It is your biggest talent and you take it for granted. I’d love to start my own business but I’m scared to death of making the same mistakes I’ve watched you make over the years. You give me a recipe book that guides me through the landmines and I’ll give you hundreds of people who want the same book I do.”
Fuel on the fire.
Shortly thereafter, a good friend and trusted associate, Ron Porter and I connected. Ron was making the transition from an executive in the technology sector to small business owner and entrepreneur. We set about the project of writing this book together, and both saw a great need for what we had to offer. This book is different in three ways:
- It is founded on actionable principles, not theory.
- The book is geared toward those people starting with shoestring budgets, showing how to start small and end big.
- We offer real guidance as to how to balance work and other priorities, such as family life and faith.
WARNING! If you are looking for long-winded theoretical MBA models, this is the wrong book for you. Much of what we promote flies in the face of accepted business school philosophy. This is a practical guide with examples and real life stories. We have faith in these principles. They have worked for us, and they will work for you. |
