One of my few self-help articles from SwiftEconomics (which has served me pretty well since I published it 5 years ago)

There are all sorts of tips out there to wake up early and, what I think is more important, quickly. My entire family and I chronically get up late and often waste an hour or more pointlessly hitting the snooze button over and over again. Since this type of “rest” or “sleep” is useless and I don’t exactly accomplish anything in this time, I’m basically losing 5% of my life just trying to rouse myself.

I’ve read plenty of tips. Steve Pavlina recommends practicing waking up quickly to ingrain it in your subconscious mind, Mark Sisson recommends weaning yourself off the alarm clock, and some e-book I found on Amazon recommends repeating some odd chant while rubbing various body parts (like the arms and shoulders… jeez). And of course, everyone recommends getting enough sleep.

Well, I think I’ve finally found a way to do it. The key is to wake up to music, but instead of using music as an alternative alarm like most people do, use it as just the starting point. The thing I discovered was that for me at least, the problem with the alarm clock is that 1) it jolts you out of bed and 2) it gives you an either/or option. Either you get up, or you press snooze. When you’re groggy and tired and kinda want to murder your alarm clock, the getting up option will usually fail.

So the music starts and you no longer need to jump out of bed. You’ve taken the pressure off. You don’t have to get up right away! The alarm clock is no longer to be dreaded. And also, make sure, to use a playlist of music you really like that is not too heavy or too soft. That way you can almost sort of enjoy being woken up.

Once the music starts, all you need to do is two things: 1) leave the music on and 2) keep your eyes open. This is aided if you leave the blinds open so natural light gets in. One of the big things that keeps you tired is the fact your eyes are closed when you’re lying in bed. Light helps wake us up naturally, so just keep them open (easier said than done, but much easier than just hopping up right away).

After about five minutes you should be much more awake than before. At this point, turn on a reading lamp and then if you’re ready, sit up. If not, maybe shake your arms or roll your neck a bit to get the blood flowing. Or just stay there lying down for another couple more minutes with your eyes open. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll be ready to get up soon enough. I should also note there are lights for sale that act as alarm clocks and gradually get brighter. Those  would fit in with this plan perfectly.

Once you’re ready, get up and immediately take a shower. That will finish the trick, especially if you’re willing to make it a cold shower, although that’s not required.

So if I were to formulate this into a step by step plan, it would be this:

1. Get to bed on time and get enough sleep (obviously)
2. Keep the blinds open and for that matter, lay your clothes for the next day out just to make it all the easier on you when you wake up
3. Wake up to a playlist of music you really like that is not too heavy or too soft nor too loud or too quiet
4. Unless you want to, don’t get up right away, just do not turn the music off (put the player far enough from your bed that you would have to get up to turn it off just in case)
5. Keep your eyes open
6. Once you feel a bit more awake, turn on your reading lamp and maybe shake your arms and roll your neck a little bit
7. Then sit up
8. Then get out of bed and take a shower

Each of these steps has come naturally to me. I don’t have to time them, I just start to wake up naturally and after about 5 to 15 minutes, I get out of bed. I set a backup alarm just in case I linger too long, but I have yet to need it. In the past, I have struggled to get out of bed with enough time to take a shower and inhale a quick breakfast before work. Now I have been consistently getting up at 6:00 am and getting my workouts in before work (which is a lot easier than afterwards when I’m tired and just want to relax).

Well that’s it. Let me know if it works for you as well.

I've become a big believer in focusing on systems over goals (see here and here). I became familiar with the concept by reading Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, who puts it this way,

It's a brilliant way to set your life on a path that will lead you to success. After all, there is no "there" to get to. So goals, even if accomplished, just put you back at square one. Once you're done with one goal, you're back in a state of "pre-success failure" as Scott Adams puts it. 

Here's a good video where Scott Adams breaks down exactly how much more powerful systems are then goals. I highly recommend implementing this in your life.

Check out my latest livestream for BiggerPockets on due diligence for both houses and apartments. As you can tell from the screenshot, I bestow an enormous amount of knowledge upon thee:

And for more on this, check out my article on the subject here.Previous Livestreams:
- A Guide to BRRRR Investing
- How to Find Banks to Lend to You
- How to Work with Tenants
- How to Invest in Student Housing
- How to Convince a Bank to Lend to You

So I submitted my latest article for American Thinker on Tuesday this week. It covered the massive and blatantly obvious bias going on in Silicon Valley. For example, regarding Google, I wrote,

While the article was published Thursday, I guess I should have waited one more day to submit it as on Wednesday, a leaked video all but proved Google is hopelessly biased:

What a joke! And those stupid hats make the whole group look like some weird cult. Maybe that's not far from the truth.

​Each week, two entrepreneurs give a six-minute presentation on their business or idea. Then the hosts ask them a few questions before opening it up to the audience.

This week, Crystal Webster with Sharing Solace and Steven Coen with SaRA Health gave brief presentations of their companies.

Crystal Webster: Sharing Solace

Crystal started her story off with how she met her husband, got to travel the world and eventually had a child. It sounded like the beginning of a guru pitch you would get from someone selling you a get-rich-quick-scheme until it shifted course very quickly. Unfortunately, her daughter passed away only eight hours after she was born.

This was, quite obviously, an extremely traumatic event for Crystal to live through. And she had to endure a deep grief that lasted with her for well over a year. Even today, many years later, she still tears up when talking about it.

Eventually, she came up with the idea to create a business and a method of helping others grieve after tragedies. She started the company Sharing Solace which, as its website says, “is a community of grievers for grievers.” (2)
​
The idea behind it is that you buy either a keychain or necklace for yourself or for someone you know who has just had their heart broken. Inside the keychain is a “sharing solace token.” You then register the token on the website and keep it on you until you believe you have healed. You can then remove the token and send it back. The token is then put in a new locket and sent out to someone else who is grieving. At this point, you can go online to view the “token tree” to see where the token you once had is. The following chart from her website better illustrates the process:​

​The process is meant to bring people who are grieving together. And the site also has forums and online journals to facilitate this and build a community.

Her marketing technique also sounded strong. It’s mostly done through direct sales where she first “bribes people with candy” to get them to talk. Then she just says “Sharing Solace is a community of grievers for grievers.” At that point, if people either are grieving or know someone who is, they usually open up. This gives her an opportunity to talk about her business which is of interest to many such people.

That being said, I do see a few challenges. She currently has a patent pending, but this concept seems difficult to patent. The concept also takes a little time to understand, which is always a problem for new products. The chart she provides is great, but it should be on the front page of the website (instead its under the heading “Boutique”). Finally, I’m not sure that a token that gets passed along adds that much over the currently existing communities for people in grief. The community is the most important part in my judgement, and in that, her product is not very differentiated from other communities of grievers.

The business is, however, aimed at a very niche market. And those are the one’s most likely to succeed. She also has a very effective way of selling the product; empathizing with people in grief. I think she can be successful with this idea, but it probably has fairly limited potential.

Steven Coen: SaRA Health

This is actually the second company Steven has started; the first digitized university documents and was marginally successful. After that, he got a job before going to grad school at UCLA. There he met his two other partners, one in business and one in programming, and together they started SaRA Health.

SaRA stands for Simplify and Recovery Assistant. Their motto is “paper handouts suck.” The product provides patients a way to keep track of their physical rehabilitation exercises more effectively as well as for physical therapists to monitor and evaluate their patients’ progress.

This is all fairly personal to Steven. Many years back, he had a full ACL and meniscus reconstruction surgery. He didn’t follow the prescribed exercises on the paper handouts he was given very well. For that reason, he stayed on Vicodin longer than he would have otherwise needed to and ended up going through some pretty severe withdrawals.

According to the website, SaRA “simplifies recovery by eliminating inefficiencies, motivating patients, and keeping providers informed of progress.” (3) It does this with an app instead of paper handouts. The app reminds patients when to do the exercises and actually films them doing those exercises. It tracks sets, reps, pain and effort. Then it provides this information to the physical therapist for evaluation.

Steven noted that the product just seemed like something that should have already been invented. I think this is common amongst entrepreneurs. One great way to think of business ideas is to ask “why don’t I do it?” when you ask yourself “why hasn’t anyone come up with that.”

The marketing plan seemed a bit strange though. They were going to target employers so that they could get their staff who were on workers compensation to use it. This would make their staff recover quicker, which would save those employers money. That seems a bit of a roundabout way to go to me. They seemed to fear that it would work against the physical therapists’ interest because 1) why should the physical therapist have to pay for it and 2) it would shorten the recovery time and actually work against their economic interest.

I highly doubt that physical therapists, in general, would reduce the quality of their service to pinch a few pennies. I believe they should market to both as well as schools with athletic departments and other institutions like that.

While the product isn’t particularly “sexy,” it does serve a useful purpose and could very well be successful.
​

1. One Million Cups, “About Page,” Accessed August 12, 2018, https://www.1millioncups.com/about
2. Sharing Solace, Accessed August 12, 2018, https://www.sharingsolace.com/our-story/   
3. SaRA Health, Accessed August 12, 2018, https://sara.health/

 
 

After perusing the various products and services looking for funding on Kickerstarter.com and Indiegogo.com, the listing on Indiegogo for “The Drift W1: Experience Segway’s New Age E-Skates” caught my eye. (1)
​
The spectacular failure of the original Segway has always interested me. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries writes a pithy but thorough timeline of its fall for The Wall Street Journal. 

The problem was that the car revolutionized vehicle transport. The Segway revolutionized walking. And as should have been a surprise to no one (but apparently was), there was virtually no market for a revolutionary way to walk.
​
Kamen had predicted he would sell 50,000 Segway’s in the first year, but by 2003 he had only sold 6000. And the company had to issue a recall on those because so many people were falling and getting hurt. One of whom was then President George W. Bush.

So for them to brazenly market the decrepit brand of “Segway” was a rather bold move right from the start. Indeed, it is the same company as the one that released the original Segway. I’m somewhat surprised they haven’t changed their name for this product. Indeed, these revolutionary roller skates sit front and center Segway’s website. (3)

Of course, in a crowded market such as the one we have today, having a name brand that is recognizable is a major advantage in and of itself. And while Segway’s brand is seen by some as a joke, it’s not seen in a ethically negative way in the way that Philip Morris, Monsanto, Perdue Pharma or other companies are with some. I know of no one who has accused Segway of any noteworthy ethical wrongdoing. So sticking with the original brand name was probably the right decision in my judgment.

That being said, this idea is far superior to the original. Most people don’t use rollerblades or roller skates as a way to get around. Instead, they are a product for sport and fun. Segway’s balancing technology―while close to worthless in its original design―is still impressive. As Valentino-DeVries notes, it used “a complicated system of gyroscopes and other technology to balance,” which has presumably advanced over the last 17 years
.
It shouldn’t be surprising that an effective technology would not work in its first product but (possibly) work in a future one. Many products were eventually adopted for a purpose they were not initially intended for. For example, Kleenex was supposed to be a sanitary pad and Listerine was supposed to be a surgical antiseptic. (4)

The Drift W1 markets itself as “Lightweight, portable with endless fun and numerous stylish ways to ride.” In other words, this is a product for people to have fun with, not get around with. It revolutionizes roller skating (which might have a market) not walking (which doesn’t).
The advertising highlights this aspect and is consistent with the theme they are going with. The print ad is the standard for this type of product with an attractive man and woman wearing “hip” clothing while looking “cool.” 

The video ad is similar. It uses quick cuts of these same attractive people doing all sorts of cool tricks in their Drift W1’s with pulsating techno music in the background. While this type of advertising has become predictable and perhaps even stale for companies aiming at the same demographic, such as Nike and Under Armor. It has obviously proven to be successful though, as those companies continue to sell large numbers of shoes and other sporting goods predominantly to the younger Generation Z and Millennial demographic.

Indeed, given that this is the demographic their aiming at and it’s predominantly Boomers and Generation X that remember the pathetic launch of the original Segway, the company may not have to worry much about the brand’s maligned image. People have heard the name. The word “Segway” is familiar and that’s all that matters.

It’s also interesting that Segway would pursue an Indiegogo campaign instead of more traditional financing routes. This may have just been a corporate strategy, but it also may have been to take advantage of the youth-focused aspect of its product. Young people are, after all, more apt to use the Internet and modern crowdfunding platforms.

The Drift W1 is currently in the production stage, which means they “have a working version of their physical product, are currently producing this product for backers.” (5) Segway has raised $183,541 of its $200,000 flexible goal.
​
The page is loaded with pictures and descriptions of all its components and technical specifications, which is necessary but not particularly useful for marketing. What is helpful is that there are simple, picture-focused guides to how to use the product. The following is a still frame, but each “picture” is a GIF which briefly shows the process for operation:

This type of easy-to-see-and-understand how-to-guide is essential for any new product. A confused mind says “no.” And most people aren’t that interested in digging into something new that might be complicated or tricky to operate. They just have too much else to do. By having a simple diagram with moving pictures walk you through the process, the product seems less foreign and more easily adoptable.

Segway is also wisely offering several perks to its backers including a $130 discount on a pair. (The retail price is $499 with several quantity discounts for more.) They are also allowing people to buy it as an “early bird.” Those products will arrive in October of this year. I didn’t see an official launch date.

While this is typical, it’s always good to beta test a product with a small group in the public to work out any kinks before a wide launch. It’s also good to build some excitement about it and hopefully some word-of-mouth traffic. Segway needs to turn its brand into something “cool,” which won’t be an easy thing to do.

With products such as these, it’s a bit of an all or nothing affair. Humans are a social animal and want to be a part of the crowd. And there is no group of humans that has this desire more than young people. Everyone wants to fit in and not be the “odd man (or woman) out.” In order for this product to be truly successful, it has to become something that a lot of people use and not something that a few “weirdos” use.

I don’t believe this product can succeed as a niche product. It really needs fairly broad market acceptance.
This is especially true since what Segway is trying to revolutionize has become significantly less popular. According to HowStuffWorks.com, 

That being said, what better way to rejuvenate a product that to update it with modern technology?
​
The marketing wasn’t all good, though. I was surprised that the color scheme is pink to purple on the Indiegogo page and just pink on Segway’s own website. For better or worse, pink is typically associated with girl’s products whereas blue is associated with a boy’s. While this product would obviously appeal to both boys and girls, my general feeling is that it would appeal a bit more to boys than girls. Regardless, they should be trying to appeal to both.

That odd choice aside, I think Segway made the right decision to keep their name and has provided effective materials for how to use the product. The discounts and ad styles are similar to other products, but have proven effective for the market it is aiming at. Overall, I do think this product and its marketing plan has a chance to work. It is by no means a sure thing though.

1. “The Drift W1: Experience Segway's New Age E-Skates,” Indiegogo.com, Accessed August 11, 2018, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-drift-w1-experience-segway-s-new-age-e-skates#/
2. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, “From Hype to Disaster: Segway’s Timeline,” The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2010, https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/27/from-hype-to-disaster-segways-timeline/
3. Segway, Accessed August 11, 2018, http://www.segway.com/
4. Hannah Keyser, “11 Successful Products Originally Invented for Something Else,” Mental Floss, October 8, 2015 http://mentalfloss.com/article/57861/11-successful-products-originally-invented-something-else
5. “Product Stages FAQ- For Backers,” Indiegogo.com, Accessed August 11, 2018, https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/221613968
6. Dave Roos, “What the Heck Happened to Roller Skating?” How Stuff Works, November 11, 2016, https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/what-the-heck-happened-rollerblading.htm

Check out my latest Livestream for BiggerPockets on how to get a bank to lend to you, which is not as easy or obvious as it may seem:

And for more on this, check out my article on the subject here.

Previous Livestreams:
- A Guide to BRRRR Investing
- How to Find Banks to Lend to You
- How to Work with Tenants
- How to Invest in Student Housing

​Now I’m well aware George W Bush’s presidency ended over a month ago. However, given this is my blog’s kickoff, I would feel remiss if I were completely left out of the Bush bashing parade. There just seems to be a vacuum now that he’s gone, which leaves me in an awful nostalgic mood. As a matter of fact, the extraordinary decline in consumer demand for anti-Bush merchandise since he gracelessly left office is one fascinating theory of how the financial crisis got so bad in the first place. So hey, I’m just doing my part to prime the proverbial pump.

I’m going to take a little different approach than most have and call Bush out for his distinctly free market hating policies. I think the idea that Bush was somehow fond of unregulated, dog eat dog, laizzez-faire capitalism in all of its creatively destructive glory is an extremely important myth to bust. Why? Well since our economy is crumbling all around us, people are desperate to run away from whatever we were just doing as fast as Keith Olbermann can decline a debate. Therefore, it’s critical to know just exactly what it is we were doing before we start running.

Unfortunately, the “Bush was a free marketer” myth is more or less ubiquitous these days. Barack Obama has repeatedly said in one form or another, the financial crisis “…is a verdict on the failed policies of the last eight years that said that we should strip away consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down.” And many others have taken the baton and regurgitated that sentiment en masse (see here and here). But what were those horrible policies? Was the Bush administration really letting “the market run wild?” If they were, then maybe we should try big government again. However, if they were big government policies to begin with, maybe the free market deserves a first chance.

It is true that Bush has said some nice things about the free market, but since when do we believe what politicians say. If you really believe everything Bush says than you must think there are some WMD in Iraq and on another note I have some beach front property in the Mojave Desert you may be interested in. Oh but didn’t Bush cut taxes like three times? Well yes he totally did. He “slashed” the top income tax bracket from 39.6% to 35%. He also added a sixth bracket to our ridiculously complicated tax code. However that’s about where his free wheeling free marketing ends.
​
The media rarely blames the tax cuts for our financial mess though, instead it repeats ad nauseam that deregulation was the key to our current crisis. I’ll leave refuting this claim to another article, but the key here is Bush has not been a deregulator. The main piece of legislation proponents of the “deregulation theory of financial collapse” point to is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed much of the Glass-Steagall Act, effectively breaking down the barriers between commercial and investment banks. The problem is that this piece of partial deregulation was passed during Clinton’s presidency in 1998 (and voted for by Joe Biden by the way).

In reality, Bush’s presidency has been an eight year long string of red tape. The Bush administration added a staggering average of 76,526 pages to the federal registry each year. In 2002, he signed off on Sarbanes-Oxley, one of the most overbearing regulations since the New Deal. The SEC alone saw it’s budget triple over eight years, which of course wasn’t quite enough to catch a 50 billion dollar, decades long ponzi scheme. The Bush administration increased federal spending on regulatory agencies by 6.5% per year (adjusted for inflation) and staffing by 6.3%. That’s more than any president since Richard Nixon (another president bestowed with the “free market” myth).

Even more damning is the federal budget. Bush was the first president to ever push the federal budget over 2 trillion (yes trillion with a t) and then just to shatter the record Michael Phelps style, he was the first to push it over 3 trillion as well. In his first term Bush increased total budget expenditures by 25.3% and non-defense discretionary spending by 19.7%. Both were the largest increases since the Nixon/Ford presidency from 1972-76.  Bush’s second term was no better.

In eight years, Bill Clinton only increased the budget from 1.41 trillion to 1.86 trillion, a 32.2% increase which is notably not adjusted for inflation. As a percentage of GDP the budget fell from 21.4% to 18.5%. Under eight years of Bush the budget increased from 1.86 trillion to 3.11 trillion, an uncanny 66.8% increase. However, that figure does not include either war or the 700 billion dollar bailout. If we include the wars and the multitude of bailouts, Bush’s budgetary madness parallels the eight years of New Frontierin’ in the Great Society under Kennedy and Johnson, which saw the budget increase 87.9%. As a percent of GDP, by 2009 the budget had jumped back up to 20.7%. In contrast, the highest percentage of GDP spending reached during either the Kennedy or Johnson administrations was 20.6% in 1968.
​
Fiscal conservatives should also hate budget deficits, but Bush sure doesn’t. The deficit may exceed a trillion dollars this year and the total debt has ballooned from 5.6 trillion dollars to 10.7 trillion dollars!  Even more startling are the unfunded liabilities (what we would need to have invested in treasury bills to meet future entitlement obligations) which now stands at an incomprehensible 65.5 trillion dollars!

So how did he do get the budget so bent out of shape? Well with conservative things such as the biggest entitlement package since the Great Society in Medicare Part D. A piece of legislation David Walker, the former comptroller general of the GAO, called “a poster child for what not to do when considering new legislation.” Or perhaps it was doubling the size of the Department of Education, a department Reagan campaigned on abolishing. Or maybe it was two wars that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost the United States an absurd 2.4 trillion dollars (along with many lives) in economic output by the time they  both end. Or just possibly it was his massive wealth redistributing, failure rewarding bailout of bankrupt financial firms. Or could it have been his end around Congress to bail out the auto industry. Hey, maybe it was his own 150 billion dollar stimulus package in 2007.
​
All this brings us to an obvious conclusion: Bush was not a free market president. This reality is confirmed by the The Fraser Institute, which releases country-by-country rankings for economic freedom every year with a 10 being completely free and a 0 being completely unfree. In 1990, the United States had a 7.8 ranking. After Clinton (albeit with a Republican congress most the time) the United States’ ranking went up to 8.6 in 2000. By 2006, Bush had let it fall back to an 8.0 and it will likely sink further after all this bailout mania. Canada, with all its universal health care, has an 8.1 ranking.

So how on Earth is Bush a fiscal conservative? How is he even conservative? Aren’t conservatives in favor of the free market and federalism while being weary of big government? Well empty suit, talking head, political hack Fred Barnes took up the issue in 2003. As he wrote in The Weekly Standard, Bush is “a big government conservative.” George Bush and his administration “simply believe in using what would normally be seen as liberal means–activist government–for conservative ends.”

Ahh, big government conservatism: a delightful oxymoron akin to centralized federalism, Darwinian Creationism and environmentally friendly nuclear explosions. One simply can’t be conservative in any simultaneously American and non-Orwellian sense with out being pro-free market and one simply can not be pro-free market while massively increasing the size of federal government. There are many, especially on the left, who accuse Bush of increasing the size of government to simply ally with big business and rip off the taxpayers, but that is aside the point. Corporatism is not capitalism! So if you want to blame corporatism for the mess we’re in, that’s fine. But perhaps, just perhaps, capitalism, real capitalism is a better way out of this mess than big government. Big government is after all what we were just doing.

It's been a good year for awards here at Stewardship Investments. Having earlier been named to the Kansas City Business Journal's Fast 50 List of fastest growing Kansas City businesses as well as the Inc. 5000 List for fastest growing private businesses nationwide, we were named to the Ingram's 2018 Corporate Report 100. We came in at a very respectable 40th:

I attended the UMKC’s First Wednesday’s panel discussion on female and minority entrepreneurs on September 5th, 2019. The panel consisted of four entrepreneurs:

• Abdul Rasheed Yahaya: Local Legends Gaming – Abdul and his wife Brianna started the company which operates a mobile gaming theater and puts on events for video game enthusiasts. (1)
• Brandon Love: Crumble Co. – A company that makes boutique candles which they sell online. (2)
• Carol Espinosa: Freedom Interiors – Carol started with virtually nothing but has grown her business to over $1 million in annual sales. Her company focuses on modern and creative furniture. (3)
• Lisa Bledsoe: Tea-Biotics Kombucha – Tea-Biotics Kombucha sells a variety of fermented beverages and got its products in 60 different stores in just 45 days. (4) Lisa couldn’t attend however, so her business partner Rich took her place.

It’s interesting to note that while the topic was about diversity in entrepreneurship, the products these entrepreneurs were selling were about as diverse as you could get. They were first and foremost, very different from each other. But they were also very niched products within the industries they operated in. Crumble Co. is selling boutique candles, not your basic ones you can buy at Target. Local Legends Gaming doesn’t create video games or have an arcade, but actually is a sort of hybrid between companies that focus on gaming and companies that put on events.

And while that didn’t come up in the discussion, it rang very true to me. In the crowded marketplace we live in, the most important thing for entrepreneurs to do is to separate themselves in a notable way from their competition. It is just to difficult to compete with big players if you’re doing the same old thing as them. They simply have too many resources at their disposal.

There was some discussion on the difficulties of being a woman or a minority, which I can admittedly find a bit tiring. But it wasn't too bad. For example, Brandon noted that he would sometimes have to do business over the phone instead of in person while intentionally speaking in a lower voice for fear that some might be turned off by his “effeminate appearance.” Carol noted how she felt it was a challenge seeking capital when most of the lenders were “white men” who might be skeptical of her as a young, Latina woman. But for the most part, the conversation focused on universal problems that entrepreneurs face.

Carol made the point that “access to capital is the biggest problem.” She continued “When you need money, it’s not available and when you don’t need money, everyone wants to lend to you.” There was universal agreement on this point.

What followed next was a good discussion of grit; a character trait that seems to get way too little attention these days. Carol noted that she didn’t get an order for the first two years of business and that when she finally did, she didn’t have enough money to float the inventory. She ended up making 81 calls in one day with almost everyone saying “no.” But she finally got a “yes” and has grown significantly from there.

I think that’s a key point that entrepreneurs need to get in their head; you are going to suffer setbacks and hardships. You will hear “no” a lot more than “yes.” You need to be prepared for that.
During the Q&A session, one student asked how they deal with fear. This question goes hand in hand with grit. Grit is how you get through any given problem without quitting. Fear is how your start without giving into procrastination or giving up.

Brandon made the very keen observation that “dealing with failure is a skill you improve at with experience.” I thought this was a great point and reminds me of a print out my brother keeps by his desk that simply reads “make more mistakes.” As Thomas J. Watson put it, “if you want to increase your success, double your rate of failure.” Yes, trying leads to mistakes and failure sometimes. But you won’t succeed without trying. So you have to just go for it. And the more experience you get, the fewer mistakes you will make and the easier it becomes to deal with those mistakes you do.

Carol also gave some great advice that I remember reading in Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Namely, write down the worst-case scenario and how you would deal with that. Once you realize you can survive the worst-case scenario, the fear will mostly go away. I have definitely found this to be true.  

There was also a long discussion on company culture that I thought was helpful. Rich―sitting in for Lisa Bledsoe―observed that in most companies, if you asked the staff what the company culture was, you would probably get a wide range of answers. This is, of course, a problem.

To rectify this, Carol pointed out that you should make sure you can (and also go ahead and do) tell your employees what your company culture is supposed to be. And both Brandon and Abdul noted that the culture must start with you. If you’re selfish and secretive, your company’s culture will be as well. If you are open and hard-working, your culture will, more than likely, be open and hard-working too.

Of course, you will have problem employees. And unfortunately, you have to let those people go. Brandon noted that at one point he pretty much had to lay off his whole staff. But while it’s critical to hire and keep a team that embodies the culture you want your company to have, that culture still starts with you.

Overall, it was a good discussion that covered a lot of important aspects and challenges of being an entrepreneur. I thought each of the panelists had a lot of good insights and will probably continue to be successful.