Business and Entrepreneurship

What Kind of Entrepreneur Are You?

December 28, 2007

If you're an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur, what kind of entrepreneur would you want to be, given the following three choices, and assuming your financial compensation would be the same regardless of your choice?

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Why is CompUSA Going Out of Business?

December 8, 2007

Perhaps you're as surprised as I am that CompUSA is going out of business, and perhaps, like me, you become less and less surprised the more you think about it. Here are some of the more obvious reasons:

1. Competition. Everything at CompUSA can be bought somewhere else, and probably for cheaper. Local computer stores, online stores, office stores (Office Depot, OfficeMax), electronics retailers (Best Buy), and warehouse stores (i.e. Costco, Sam's Club, etc.) are all in on the game. Everything CompUSA sells is a commodity and therefore it's all about price, putting CompUSA in a tough spot to begin with.

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What's Your Experience With Results Oriented Workplaces?

I'm writing an article for Connect Magazine on results-oriented workplaces or "results only work environments." Have you had any experience with one, or have you seen examples of workplaces where a results-focused approach is sorely needed? Post your experiences and you might get quoted in the article.

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Laundromatic.com

October 29, 2007

As I was saying, laundromatic.com is the second best domain I ever got a hold of, after mwi.com. Not that you, dear blog reader, would see it as I do, since you lack the glorious vision I have long held for what this domain name would become. Dare I share it? Promise not to steal my idea? Well then, listen close and I'll whisper in your ear my secret plan...

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Review of the Four Hour Work Week

October 26, 2007

A few weeks ago I said "Never has a book had more of an effect on me prior to reading it." with regards to Timothy Ferriss' book The Four Hour Work Week. But now I've read it, and I still think it's pretty good. Granted, it's not for everyone, and there's more swearing in it than I like to hear outside a war zone, but it's given me quite a bit to think about, and is one of the few books which, while reading, I kept thinking "Man, I'm going to have to read this again."

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Responses to Sundry Questions

October 9, 2007

I'm always looking for excuses to use the word "sundry" and this time it came as a result of an email from Kenny who asked me some questions regarding my previous posts on why SEO is a better business model than web development, why doing web hosting in-house was a nightmare, raising capital, and going to a virtual office. This one's for you Kenny. If you still want to take me to lunch after this post to discuss this more I guess I'll let you.

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The 4-Hour Work Week

October 4, 2007

Never has a book had more of an effect on me prior to reading it. Thanks Blake.

It's on hold in the library system, but there are 18 holds in front of me as of yesterday, so it might be a little while before I read it. But just the tidbits I've gathered here and there have been enough to catalyze some thoughts floating around in my head. It's as though I were already on this path, but didn't realize it until it was spelled out and I said "Ah ha! Yes! This is what I've been after."

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Is 24-hour electronic banking really that difficult?

September 4, 2007

I bank at Zions Bank. I know, I know, they're a monster. But it's easier to stick with them and put up with the hassle than to switch, and I think they know who keeps them in business.

My most recent frustration with Zions has to do with what happens if you make a deposit over the weekend.

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I'm a New Man

April 27, 2007

Sure, you've heard it before "I used to be that way, but I'm different now." But seriously, I've been through some life-changing events that started in December of '06. Not the kind of life-changing events one normally thinks of, like getting cancer, losing a loved one, or being publicly humiliated on national TV, but life-changing nonetheless. I guess you could say I've chosen to change my life, rather than waiting for something dire to happen.

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My Entrepreneur Story for 100 Profiles

February 28, 2007

I was invited to participate in the Entrepreneur Story 100 Profiles over at The Hundred Dollar Business, so here goes. I'm going to take the easy route and just answer the suggested questions.

1. What happened to make you start a business? It was a combination of experiences I had growing up and while in college. When I was five my dad gave me a financial ledger to track my earnings and expenses which taught me the basics of acquiring and managing money. In fourth grade a friend and I created a rudimentary business plan for a surfwear company we called Aqua Mount. In high school I would buy candy wholesale at Costco and sell it at school, turning a tidy profit. I also started a small retail business in high school selling skateboard goods. By the time I reached my second year of college I had decided to major in business, and while working at an Internet startup in 1999 I decided I had the ability to start a business, so I did, and here in 2007 I'm still running that same business.

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Jason Fried and the Power of "No"

February 10, 2007

To be honest, over the past few years I've gotten a bit lazy. In fact, I've always been lazy. That might not make much sense to those of you who know me as the guy who has worked 60-80 hr work weeks for the past four years while not taking a paycheck, but trust me, I'm lazy. But I'm breaking out of it. It's been in the works for a while, one of those things you feel coming on but which you're not sure you're looking forward to. I was going to make an analogy about my favorite food here, namely burritos, but why get crass.

There have been a few catalysts over the past month that have finally started me on the journey of emerging from my cocoon of laziness and half-measures. The first was a conversation my wife and I had while driving down to California to visit my parents for Christmas. The second was having my application to Harvard Business School rejected. There have been a number of other, smaller events, one of which was an exchange I recently had with Jason Fried, founder of 37signals, a company that has created my favorite piece of software dubbed Basecamp.

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Some Reflections on MWI's 2006 Financials

January 12, 2007

Rather than burying my thoughts in the comments of last week's post on MWI's 2006 financials I decided to create a new post because I think there are some things that may be of interest to other entrepreneurs. As I've had a chance to reflect on the MWI experience of 2006 there are a few things I've realized:

1. It wouldn't have been that hard for me to have ended the year with a decent net income.
2. Nothing risked nothing gained, but take smart risks.
3. $5K in the red vs. $5K in the black feels like a much bigger difference than $10K.

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T Mobile Customer Service, or Lack Thereof

December 18, 2006

Here's why I will soon be switching from T Mobile to another cell phone service provider, any provider, after being with them since 1999.

I just listened to my wife cry, unable to continue speaking to the T Mobile sales rep, after spending an hour trying to get her phone replaced. We have both been loyal customers for seven years. For most of that time we were not under a contract but chose to stay with T Mobile anyway. At one point I set up a company plan that had 15 active lines. I have pumped thousands of dollars into T Mobile. Today, my wife's phone, which has been having problems for a few months, finally quit. All I ask for our years of patronage and thousands of dollars is that they give my wife a replacement phone. It doesn't matter which one, it could be the cheapest one they've got, the ones they give away when you sign up for service.

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Best Buy's Results Oriented Work Environment, a Workplace Revolution in the Making

December 13, 2006

I'm a business owner with employees and maybe you are too. Now think about this with me. Do you care how much time your employees put in, or do you care what they get done? Unless you run a law firm or another service business that bills strictly by the hour, you probably lean towards the latter. Then answer this question--do you care when your employees get their work done, or just that the work gets done by a certain time? Again, not all, but many companies would lean towards the latter.

You might be aware of small companies here and there that don't have set working hours and focus on results rather than time put in, but now major companies like Best Buy are jumping on the bandwagon.

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Why Zune Will Fail to Unseat the iPod

November 3, 2006

My prediction is that Microsoft's Zune mp3 player will absolutely fail to compete with the iPod. I attribute my reasoning from what I've learned by reading The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen as well as The Innovator's Solution from the same author.

The crux of the matter is that while the iPod was a disruptive technology, Zune is a sustaining technology, and trying to unseat an entrenched competitor with a sustaining technology is difficult, if not impossible, even when you're Microsoft.

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Ideal Age for an Entrepreneur

October 27, 2006

I'm writing an article for Connect Magazine that explores the question of what is the ideal age at which someone should start a business and am looking for some quotes from other entrepreneurs.

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Entrepreneurs - Born or Made?

September 12, 2006

I just read 'Born' or 'made,' entrepreneurs share key traits by Joseph Walker who has been affiliated with the Center for Entrepreneurship at BYU for the past ten years. As part of his article he shares a list of entrepreneurial traits he got from John G. Burch that I found at first elementary, but then fascinating in how it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurs.

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Guy Kawasaki's Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs

September 5, 2006

Guy Kawasaki's Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs isn't just a blog post, it's part of the curriculum he uses when teaching and training wannabe entrepreneurs. Several years ago I had the chance to attend an entrepreneur boot camp put on by Garage Technology Ventures, the venture capital firm of which Guy is the managing director. Garage also happens to be one of MWI's clients.

Just because we designed the Garage website doesn't mean I'm chummy with Guy or anything. I've only met him once, and that was before he became a client. But the one time I heard him speak I enjoyed his frankness and the content he delivered. What he says is not only entertaining but it makes sense, at least to me based on my own experiences. Here are Guy's top ten lies of entrepreneurs with my own commentary.

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I Could Write a Book...

August 28, 2006

I've been an avid reader since I can remember. Even before I could read I would beg my mom to keep reading books to me at night while I was in bed. My parents read to me almost every night as I went to sleep and when I could read we would read together. I never realized how much I read until I went to college and during my first year of college I filled up a shelf about four feet long with books that I had read during the school year. It was probably 30-40 books, and I had read most of them twice, and none of them had anything to do with school.

But I'm never been much of a writer. Sure, I have a blog, but whenever I would sit down and try to write a book I would get about a page into it and give up. I could sense something was missing and I wasn't going about it the right way, but I didn't know what the right way is. I still don't, although I think I'm onto something as far as one book might go.

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Free and Legal MP3 Songs for Download

July 31, 2006

I know, I know, it sounds like the subject line of a spam email or a link leading you to a website that will open 10,000 popups and infect your machine with spyware so fast you'll be lucky to get a click in before your computer is hosed. At best it sounds like a website where you can download some songs from Russia shortly before you're arrested by the RIAA.

But no, I'm talking about a completely legitimate, legal website where you can indeed get free MP3 songs, no strings attached. Well...there is one catch--you might not like the music. But I sure do.

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Entrepreneurship - Don't Do It

June 28, 2006

I thought Jack Britain, Dean of the David Eccles College of Business at the University of Utah, made some good points about entrepreneurship in his presentation that was covered in Utah Business magazine. His main point? Don't do it.

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The Minimum Wage - Should it Stay or Should it Go?

June 21, 2006

I've been wanting to write a post about this for some time, and after reading Lou Dobbs column Congress stiffs working Americans I now have enough motivation.

For my part, I would be inclined to vote for politicians who would be willing to seriously consider abolishing the minimum wage entirely. My reasoning is that citizens of this country rarely benefit from government's intervention in private industry, and I believe more people would be financially better off today if a minimum wage had never existed.

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It's None of the Government's Business

June 20, 2006

In this article entitled Are Acquisitions Replacing IPOs? Tim Draper of famed venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (whose logo would do well in a worst-logo-ever contest) makes a statement that expresses my frustration with the US government's involvement in the business world.

"Sarbanes-Oxley has been a disaster for all entrepreneurship. There is no way. We used to be able to take a company public that was profitable at $20 million in sales. But today Sarbanes-Oxley means that you have to pay your accountants and lawyers about $2 million a year to keep the thing going."

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Micromanagement, Management, and Leadership

May 15, 2006

I like failure. I like failures. I like letting my employees fail. Why? Because I want my business to succeed. I believe failure is one of the quickest and best ways to learn how to suceed. Those leaders who do not allow their followers to fail are micromanagers, and they rob their followers of opportunities to learn how to be successful and therefore they rob themselves of the opportunity to build truly successful organizations.

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Health Insurance Kills Small Businesses

May 5, 2006

Since I previously posted regarding the topic of health insurance and small businesses, I've gone through the process of getting quotes for a group plan for MWI. We discontinued our plan last year. My hope was that when we signed up again our rates would be lower because some of the employees who had made the premiums so high in the first place had left, but such is not the case.

To provide basic health insurance to MWI's employees would, on average, cost MWI $616 per month, per employee. That means if we have 10 employees we're paying out $6,160 per month, or $12,320 if we have 20 employees. That's a decent amount of money per month for a small business. But what is really interesting is that the same plan that costs an individual $270 per month if he were to get his own personal insurance plan costs MWI almost $1,000.

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How to Get Robbed

April 24, 2006

There's getting robbed and then there's getting robbed. The kind of "robbed" I'm talking about is the kind where people break into your office with screwdrivers and take off with some laptops and the projector from your conference room and you spend part of your busy morning talking to a cop. That's the kind of robbing I experienced this morning.

With no further ado, I give you my 8 steps to getting robbed:

1. Don't put a deadbolt on your doors. Don't even think about it. A deadbolt makes it impossible to jimmy open a door using a screwdriver. If you put a deadbolt on your door then the only alternative the thieves will have is to rob your neighbor's office.

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False Impersonation in Blog Posts

March 22, 2006

I've had an interesting experience during the past 24 hours. I just found out that someone, we'll call them Person A, who posted on this blog several months ago was not who they represented themselves to be. We'll call the real person Person B. That is, Person A submitted comments on two postings pretending to be Person B, and due to the negative nature of the comments this affected the relationship I have with Person B, up until yesterday when I found out that Person B had never been to my blog before.

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Is Linkedin.com Worth Paying For?

March 8, 2006

I've been using Linkedin.com for some time now. You can view my profile at www.linkedin.com/in/joshuasteimle. I've used the system for keeping track of contacts, marketing my firm, finding service providers, and finding employees. Up until recently, I could do all of this easily for free, but since Linkedin.com has to make money somehow, they have started providing additional services. The question is, are they worth paying for?

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Who Do You Want to Be?

January 31, 2006

What do you want to be when you grow up? Who do you want to be? Most healthy kids want to be an astronaut, fireman, or athlete. As kids get exposed to more things they might want to be an artist or an athelete. Some kids might be exposed to certain things at the right time and decide they want to be a computer programmer or an entrepreneur.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. At least that's what I thought. Later in life I realized I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I can only trace it back to fourth grade, but I think there might have been signs of it even earlier.

But some days, I wonder if I made the right choice in 1999 when I told my wife I'd like to quit my job as a web designer at MyComputer.com and start my own web design firm.

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Give it Away Now

December 31, 2005

"Give it away" marketing is nothing new. Give people something of real value at no cost in order to develop credibility and/or a relationship, and then they'll come to you when they're ready to spend money.

We do a little of that at MWI with our email newsletters, whitepapers on web development and such, and of course, this blog.

The latest example I've found that I like a lot is the website for Ignition Consulting Group.

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Bait and Switch Marketing

December 30, 2005

During the last year or so my cousin hired another web development firm to build him a site. Yeah, don't you hate it when your friends and family buy something you sell from someone else because they don't know what you do? "Oh, Uncle Frank owns a car dealership? I just thought he had a car for sale. If I had known he had a dealership I would have gone to him, of course!" And so forth. This is why all family reunions should have a business networking component, but that's another topic.

My cousin now really wishes he had gone with my firm because he's been taken advantage of by the firm he's worked with. They've pulled a bit of a bait and switch tactic with him that I find interesting.

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Media Play Going Out of Business

December 13, 2005

In case you haven't heard, here's the article.

Media Play stores closing

The question is why? I'm sure plenty of execs at Musicland (the parent company of Media Play) are asking themselves the same question but haven't found an answer. I just happen to have the answer, and it's because I don't shop there.

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Blank Decks at MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com

November 17, 2005

Those who know me well know that I'm heavy into skateboarding and have been since 4th grade. I started a little retail skate shop business while in high school, and I've always wanted to get back into it but either lacked the time or funds. Finally I've been able to get my toe back in the water with the launch of MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com.

At MyBlankSkateboardDeck.com we sell lots of blank skateboard products like blank decks, blank wheels, griptape, bearings, and hardware. We also sell some graphic decks and graphic wheels when we have 'em.

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Givers and Takers

November 14, 2005

I just read a post by Alex Lawrence called Win-Win Is Not A Tired Buzzword - It Is An Important Business Concept .

Almost a year ago I posted to this blog my top ten list of things I had learned by being an entrepreneur, and Alex's comments reminded of what I had written down as #1, that there are givers and takers and you had better know the difference, and you had better decide who you want to be.

This is something I've thought about frequently and I think it could bear having more written about it.

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Bad-Mouthing, Gossip, Hating, and Winning

October 28, 2005

I've been running my own business for over five years now. That's enough time to have a few lessons pounded into my head. When I see people making mistakes with their businesses or having bad luck, I don't laugh at them and say "What an idiot" I think "Ha, I used to be there, I know what they're going through."

We all make mistakes, and hopefully we all learn from them. Sometimes our mistakes cost us money, such as when we say or do something wrong while trying to sell our services or product and because of a simple slip-up we lose the deal. Within the last year, my advertising firm has lost deals (Stampin' Up, Hugger Mugger, Spring Communications). We've also won deals (Workers Compensation Fund, Bank of American Fork, Hogle Zoo, California Pools). And sometimes we've lost deals or clients but then they've come back later (Speaking Roses, Chapman Innovations).

Sometimes it's obvious what we did to lose or win a job. Most of the time it isn't. But what has been obvious to me, at least in a few cases, is why our competitors lost against us, and that's what this posting is about.

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CEU's Online - The Rise of Small Online Businesses

October 11, 2005

The Utah web design firm I run just picked up a new client called SpeedyCeus.com. They're a small client. At the moment all we're doing for them is a minimal amount of search engine optimization, helping them get ranked for some of their keywords like CEU's, CEU online, nursing CEUs, CE online, etc..

What's interesting to me is how easy the Internet has made it to start a small business online. It's not as thought this is a new topic for most people, and certainly not new to me, but it doesn't cease to fascinate me.

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What it Means to Be an Entrepreneur

June 18, 2005

A lot of people think they've got entrepreneurial experience. After all, they started or ran a business, and isn't that what an entrepreneur is? Maybe, depending on your own definition. Well, here's mine. These are not all necessarily descriptive of what I'm going through right now, and they are not all things I'm proud of or would recommend for other people, and most of them certainly were not intentional, but they are all taken from my personal experiences. Some are humorous, some are not.

These days I'm happy to say I have reasonable work schedule that allows me to spend plenty of time with my family, train for an Ironman triathlon, skateboard, and work on side projects, at the same time that my business is doing better than ever and my personal pocketbook is the best its ever been as well. And now, with no further ado...

You might be an entrepreneur if...

1. You've maxed out more than $50K in credit cards to fund your business.

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Investors and VCs Aren't as Smart as You Think

Before writing this, I'll make the disclaimer to my friends at VC firms and my other investor friends that I'm not necessarily writing specifically about you. I know many people at many firms and these observations are taken from six or seven years of experience. And I'm in no way saying that VCs are dumb, I'm just saying they don't know as much as most young entrepreneurs think they do.

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Where I've Been Lately

June 3, 2005

And in case anyone is interested what I've been up to lately and why I haven't posted much here, it's because I've been quite busy. MWI is in the process of acquiring two web development firms, and the acquisitions will probably about double MWI's revenues and almost double the staff. In addition, MWI has simply been busy lately with new work.

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Skateboard Blogging and Business - Sublimited.net

April 21, 2005

If you're reading this then you know at least something about blogging because you're reading one. But what do you know about using a blog as a business tool? Well, you might be surprised if I told you people are really making money off of blogs in and of themselves. For myself, I get a little revenue whenever someone clicks on one of the Google ads on this site, but I also get traffic to my web development firm and other web properties as well.

But the thing is that I never intended Don Loper to be a way for me to get business for MWI or anything else, it was actually intended to help me write down things, like a journal of sorts. But now that I've seen how well blogs get indexed in search engines and how much people read them I'm moving into the space of purposefully setting up blogs for business purposes. And with that introduction, I give you Sublimited.net.

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Retail Display Fixtures - Display Cases and Counters

April 6, 2005

This is just a quick note of frustration. I'm trying to start a retail business at the moment on the side from my day job at MWI and of course I need some display cases and a counter and such (the business will be a skateboard shop).

Do you know how hard this stuff is to find? It's amazing. NOBODY who builds or sells this stuff is doing a good job marketing themselves online.

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Debt or Equity? Financing Your New Business

April 5, 2005

There are many options for financing a startup business, but they generally fall into two main categories: debt and equity. Which is better for you depends on a number of factors.

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Do Business Networking Groups Really Work?

February 4, 2005

I don't feel like I'm boasting when I say that I am a master networker. At least I was. I have spent countless hours over the past six years networking around Utah. I've joined every networking group I could find. I've donated my time and have been in the leadership of some of them. Out of over 1,000 people registered on www.linkedin.com I am in the top 3 people with the most connections. But has all this networking really worked? Has it been successful? The answer depends on what your definition of success is.

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Basic Competence is Rare

February 3, 2005

Do you know what it means to be competent? It means you can get things done. That's all. Do you know someone who gets things done? I'll bet you know fewer people who get things done than you think you do.

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Government vs. The Private Sector, Who Does Things Better?

January 27, 2005

When all is said and done, a lot of your money goes towards paying the government to do whatever it does for us. You pay income taxes, FICA, sales taxes, and hidden taxes everywhere, because every middle-man builds taxes into his cost as does every service provider. When you pay a lawyer he doesn't charge you tax on top of his bill, but he might as well because he pays taxes, and that is part of where your bill goes to.

It's your right as a citizen to be concerned how and on what your money is spent. It doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to you, and the government belongs to you too. The people who work in government are there at your mercy, because you have the power to vote people into office who can terminate their jobs.

The job of the government is to get certain things done. My question is whether government gets things done as well as the private sector does.

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The Business of Being Nice

Do nice guys finish last in business? What does it mean to be "nice"? When you're running a business is it better to be a mean guy or a nice guy? Does being the nice guy sometimes mean you're the mean guy in the end and vice versa? I'm fairly convinced that being a nice guy pays off in the long run, but I'm still trying to figure out what being a nice guy means.

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Resume Hints

January 13, 2005

I didn't come up with these, I got them from someone in school, but I can't remember who. But they've been pretty useful. Actually that's not true at all. They've been completely un-useful for me because I've been running my own business and haven't applied for a job since I received these. But they seem like they would be useful if the situation ever arose.

1. One page please

2. Access is important. Use white space, balance

3. Prepare from audience point of view. What does the recruiter see in my resume?

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Ten Things I’ve Learned by Starting a Business

By no means is this list inclusive, but if you don't want to read 100 things I've learned then we better stop at 10.

1. Personality-wise, there are givers and there are takers. Know the difference, be a giver, and work with givers.

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Sense of Humor - A Life Preserver

January 1, 2005

I'm currently writing a recommendation letter for a former employee who is applying to the Wharton MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania. One of the questions they ask is "How would you describe the applicant's sense of humor (seriously)?"

Yes, that is the question they ask--verbatim.

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The Apprentice - Fear You or Like You?

December 17, 2004

I have to admit that although I don't watch much TV, and while I certainly don't consider The Apprentice reality TV, I do find it mildly entertaining if I'm forced to watch it. What I have a hard time believing is that out of a million applicants these are the best people they could find. Out of this last group there was only one person I would consider hiring, and luckily that's the same person Trump picked.

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Good Products vs. Good Marketing

November 25, 2004

I don't think it's just a Utah phenomenon, I think it has more to do with the mindset of many engineering types. The mindset is "a good product sells itself." Reality is slightly different. Cases in point Novell vs. Microsoft, Betamax vs. VHS, and Apple vs. the PC. Two examples of situations where the better product failed, at least in part, because of marketing, or lack thereof.

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