Good tips for bootstrapping your startups or new business venture via Breaking Free46 Ways to Start a Business with No Money. Thanks to Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) for both the reminders and new ideas for starting a new venture with little to no money. We know from the Kauffan Foundation that most entrepreneurs start with their own resources and/or borrow from family and friends when starting a new biz.
New businesses need services and Brian offers tips on the best bang-for-the-buck.
Don’t hire employees
Don’t pay rent
Get free legal advice
Get 250 free business cards
Build a free website
Those are a few on his comprehensive list. What tips would you add?
This post by Cynthia Kivland (@WCICoach) Smarter Workplaces: Why High Achievers Flounder via @leadchangegroup describes the potential reasons high achievers may fail. These 8 winning behaviors that make high potentials successful initially may hamper their ability to become leaders.
Leadership Challenge and Lolly Daskal highlights differences between leaders and managers
Leaders and managers are both critical components to a well functioning organization. However there is a difference between the two. Hopefully, managers are good leaders, too. All too often managers don’t bother to inspire others to follow their vision. Instead they focus on the time-clock.
Leaders lead people. Managers manage people – sounds simple, but often missed by upper management
Leaders inspire. Managers comfort – And bad managers often discourage team members with inconsistency
Leaders have followers. Managers have subordinates – there is nothing more discouraging than managers with titles demanding strict adherence to a hierarchical structure. This also limits organic growth by limiting good ideas from floating up.
She clearly understands the difference. I find that the best practices of leadership are well known and yet not frequently practiced or expected. Too bad, but hopefully we are near the tipping point. I think Gen X and Millennials are different leaders and have different expectations. Therefore, things will change eventually.
I found the Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner @KouzesPosner to be a terrific edition to anyone’s library of reference books on leadership. The world is full of managers that are incompetent at best and at worst discouraging. Their own fear and paranoia helped them reach their position, but they quickly find themselves over their heads because they lack the ability to trust those around them. The Leadership Challenge points out the basic traits that any team looks for in a leader. And, in all of their research around the globe honesty is at the top of the list.
I am becoming a fan of this website – The Art of Manliness – because it is entertaining and a good source of manly content. This post about a bootstrapped moonshine business for is a great story of business success.
This article posted there chronicling the one year business journey from idea to product launch is truly inspirational.
I’m not talking about illicit liquor, but a new cologne by three guys that challenged each other and brought their idea to market. It takes chutzpah to follow your ideas. And, it takes more to become a success. The story got me thinking right away about all of my hair brained ideas. Most of my entrepreneurial success has really been as an intrepreneur (entrepreneurial activities within an organization) = Less risk and less reward. But, I have other ideas simmering that may one day allow me to test the more dangerous entrepreneurial waters.
In MIT Sloan’s Management review, Arvind Malhotra, Claudia Kubowicz Malhotra and Alan See write about what does and does not work to make your tweets retweetable.
Niall Ferguson lists 6 reasons western societies with 19% of global population controlled 75% of the world’s resources. I think he missed one of the reasons the west won.
Niall’s 6
Competition – Many corporations, similar to the City of London Corporation in the 12th Century, along other governments were competing with one another. Think about the number of western European languages spoken around the world today due to colonization.
The Scientific Revolution – while we all know gun powder came to Europe from China, it was the Europeans that continued to experiment with it and mash together multiple scientific disciplines in order to improve it. Niall’s example is a German using Newtonian physics to improve the accuracy of bombs.
Property Rights – I think this is probably one of the most fundamental rights in American history that contributed to stability and growth of the middle class. Even the poorest could own property which might remain for generations. Though, many injustices occurred over property disputes, those legal protections help the poorest prevail against the richest.
Modern Medicine – ensuring people lived longer, healthier, and productive lives. Imagine the additional productivity of one person by nearly doubling their life expectancy. Just the simple act of surgeons washing their hands before getting elbow deep into another person’s abdomen probably saved a few million lives.
The Consumer Society – Henry Ford paid much higher wages than other manufacturers at the time. He wanted Ford employees to afford Model Ts which in turn kept demand high for his product. For all the benefits of consumerism, there lurk many dangers as 2008 proved. The rising middle class in China and India creates demand for high-end western luxuries, but desires in the west for those goods at ever cheaper prices led to the decline of manufacturing in the west.
Work Ethic – Western society’s work ethic turned virgin soil into vast acres of corn, cotton, tobacco and grazing land. Now the Native Americans that provided the seeds for tobacco and corn to the newcomers were equally (if not more) successful than Europeans at growing these crops. The difference was profit versus subsistence. It was the European demand for tobacco that encouraged a strong work ethic. Niall uses the examples of North and South Korea along with East and West Germany. The communist state produces markedly less quantity and quality than do non-communist states.
The One He Missed
Why? – I suppose you could lump this into the scientific revolution above, but really this is the ability to question authority, as well as, the desire to understand the reason an apple feels compelled to hurl itself toward earth. The inalienable rights of mankind to desire freedom and reject tyranny led to asking why. I think some of the basic tenets of Christianity contributed to this enlightened thought. Even though Catholicism suppressed western society for centuries, once peasants demanded the right to read and interpret the bible for themselves, The Church’s strangle hold loosened forever.
Niall fears (as do I) that the rest of the world will quickly catch up and overtake western society, but it is not too late. While governments are slow to react and bogged down in squabbles over Keynesian economics, we must act now to prepare our kids for challenges of the 21st century. Mark Twain said, he never let his education get in the way of his learning. Join me in teaching our children to be creative problem solvers that bravely seek answers to WHY.
I think the most surprising fact is that banks are not the number one place for business funding. This video shows a nice graphical representation of where entrepreneurs usually find their funding.
Thom Rhue (aka @thomatkauffman) is Making a List about the entrepreneurial teaching endeavors of the Kauffman Foundation and it’s partners. I am intrigued with everything they are doing including the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW). I aspire to contribute to this effort in the future.
Stop Adding Value. What a great reminder of what not to do. It is great to have enthusiasm for someone’s idea, but don’t commandeer it to make “improvements.” An idea can still be shepherded and given support, but allow the individual to mature the idea within the organization.
Simple axiom, but hard for some managers to remember.
Good tips for bootstrapping your startups or new business venture via Breaking Free 46 Ways to Start a Business with No Money. Thanks to Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) for both the reminders and new ideas for starting a new venture with little to no money. We know from the Kauffan Foundation that most entrepreneurs start with their own resources and/or borrow from family and friends when starting a new biz.
