What Every Aspiring Entrepreneur Should Know

My freshman year of college was a disaster. I had a hard time sitting in classes. I had to do so much remedial work, especially when it came to math and science, due to my limited middle and high school education. I got headaches completing assigned reading because all the words seemed to flip on me (a brain thing that I would later learn was dyslexia). 

The only thing I was really excited about that year was taking some business classes. 

Finally, a subject that makes literal cents/sense.

Week Two of my first semester, I raised my hand and asked the PhD behind the lectern a question during the discussion period of the class. 

He listened to my questions, laughed, made a couple mocking statements about my accent, western outfit, and gender (it was an all-male class, besides me), and told me - and, I quote - “I’m gonna give you some advice you’d be smart to head…You have no business being a business major.” 

I remember feeling so humiliated, and I never got an answer to my question about accounting. After the professor refused to meet with me or answer any of my questions, I dropped his class - a requirement for my major, and he was the only instructor for it - and ended up leaving the school. 

I ended up pursuing advanced degrees in business, taking collegiate-level business courses as a faculty member, and bootstrapping a company that grew from a corner in my one-room apartment into a successful government contracting firm that provides nationwide service and support to federal agencies. 

Turns out, the curmudgeon of a PhD who expressed doubt about my business acumen was incorrect in his assessment of my actual capabilities.

Always the Oddball

Finding accurate advice and guidance for my entrepreneurial journey has been a challenge. 

Most of what folks told me to do didn’t work. I’m an odd-ball. It’s not unusual for what worked for other successful entrepreneurs to not work for me. I don’t have a fraternity-like network to generate leads, I’m not a super charismatic sales professional, and I never really had an ingenious idea. 

I just work hard - that’s my professional “superpower”, if you will. I’ll outwork most anybody, whether that’s processing cattle on a feedlot or pitching defense agencies on the latest and greatest in technology. It always bothered me to work my butt off for others’ gain, in employment situations. If I was going to log that many hours, I wanted the profits to be mine. It seemed only fair. I was willing to take risks and be accountable for the potential consequences of failure. Thus, entrepreneurship was a pretty natural fit for me. 

The initial process of starting and growing a business was something I had to learn on my own. Given that undergraduate business professors weren’t any help, I used the public library and free blogs on the Internet to figure out how to do it. I made a lot of mistakes along the way and had a few “wins”. Trial and error can be a painful process, but I did it. 

Here are a few unsolicited pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs:

Start with what you have, where you’re at.  

When I started a business, I had no money and mountains of debt. I didn’t have much of a professional network (all my friends were equally broke college students), and I didn’t have an ingenious idea - I surveyed my area for market needs that were not being addressed. It was at the peak of the Great Recession, so there were lots of homes being foreclosed on. Turns out, the financial companies needed a vendor to manage the properties in foreclosure. 

On paper, this included landscaping, winterizing, and re-keying properties. In reality, the scope of work I had to do included being jumped by squatters, pulling hibernating snakes out of kitchen cabinets, and dealing with Quick-crete being poured down toilets when the angry former residents were being evicted. Not exactly a glamorous line of work, but it was a profitable business that had good cash flow and gave me the resources and experiences I needed to explore other lines of work (ones with fewer snakes!). 

When I teach entrepreneurship at colleges and universities, speak at business conferences, or share my story on industry panels, there’s an overwhelming misconception that self-employment is completely out of reach for many members of the audience. When folks tell me they want to start their own business, I ask them, “What’s stopping you?” and routinely get a litany of excuses - the economy, my finances, politics, etc.

You don’t have to wait for “perfect” conditions to set sail in entrepreneurship - start where you are, with what you have. Adjust your sails as needed, learn as you go, and see where the winds take you!

People matter to profit. 

“Your network is your net worth” is a quote by Tim Sanders that I’ve kept at the forefront of my business growth strategy. In a world where people have thousands of online “friends” and followers, the value of human relationships has been significantly undermined and dismissed. Many professionals approach people with a “user” mentality, focusing primarily on what the person can do for them in the here and now. That approach will always fail in the long run. 

All the financial rewards of knowing someone in my career came months to many years after meeting them. Instead of approaching these professionals with a “What can I get out of you?” mindset, I invested in them as people - regardless of whether or not I would ever see a financial return from the relationship. Following the example of a few great mentors and colleagues I’ve had the privilege of working with over the years, I make a point to treat everyone with respect and professionalism - from flag officers to the folks waiting tables (the same job I held for many years).

I get to know the people around me - who they are, what they’ve lived through, and what they want in life. I am straightforward in my requests of them, and I don’t play games. If I want you on a team I’m putting together, I’ll tell you straight up. If you’re not qualified to be on that team, I’ll tell you straight up. My approach to folks tends to infuriate “users” but attracts a lot of good people. 

Investing in people who are respectful, professional, and who demonstrate ethical values is a long-term process. No “wham-bam thank you ma’am” relationships here. Ten years into my current company, and 18 years into self-employment, I can confidently say it’s a process that has paid off. The people I invested in have made a world of difference in positively contributing to my professional success.

Accomplishing hard things such as bootstrapping a business won’t succeed as a solo - you need people, and you need to treat them right. 

Accountability is key to entrepreneurial success.  

Starting your own business isn’t easy - nor is growing it in a sustainable way that consistently makes you a steady profit. The cold and brutal realities of entrepreneurship serve as a brutal mirror of all your weaknesses, failures, and oversights. If you can’t make money on your great idea, life’s passion, hardest of work/best effort, etc., you aren’t what you thought you were. 

This is the point where most folks turn around, as the realities of bootstrapping a business don’t make for viral TikTok videos, glowing headlines, and pretty pictures. Instead, the realities of launching a new company, retooling the model incessantly, failing over and over in a very public way, and eventually emerging from this capitalist purgatory with something viable is a difficult process that most “entrepreneurial” folks don’t make it through. 

Unlike employment, there’s no one to blame failures on within entrepreneurship besides yourself. Sure, you can cite the market, politics, competitors, etc., all day long as the source of your woes; however, that won’t do you any good in the long run, as you’ll be discouraged, exhausted, and still broke. 

Successful entrepreneurship requires you to own every single aspect of your business - what worked and didn’t work - and figure out what to do to make it work. If you’re me, you’ll forgo vacations and days off for seven long years, take client calls from a hospital bed, and pawn your engagement ring without thinking twice to cover payroll when there’s a cash flow issue. People will do you wrong, competition will pull ahead, you’ll feel terrible about the whole damn deal, and if you want to pull out of this you will figure out a way forward for the company. 

Successful entrepreneurs take it all - the good, the bad, and the holy-&%$#’s-I-didn’t-see-that-coming events and they hold themselves accountable for navigating all of it. If there’s a problem, they fix it. If there’s a win, they celebrate it.

The level of personal accountability self-employment requires can be brutal; however, it makes you a better person. You become more agile, empathetic, industrious, and future-focused. You respond to the world vs. attempt to subdue her. You readily acknowledge your own fragility and stupidity and weakness in a way that makes you a lot less of an A-hole, and a lot more competent as a professional. 

Still interested in Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship presents an almost infinite level of opportunities for those of us who are willing to work hard, work with others, and work on ourselves to become the people we need to be to turn a business dream into reality.

No, it’s not easy. Many times over the past 18 years, I’ve reflected on the critical words of my undergraduate business professor. When I was dealing with a business failure, I wondered if he was right - maybe I wasn’t cut out for business? But when I had a successful year with a company, I grew from a barebones idea sketched out on a legal pad to a contract-winning, profitable firm, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that that professor was wrong, and I did indeed have “it” to be in business. 

If you survive the demoralizing hazing experience of a startup in a way that results in a thriving operation, you can rest assured that you really are that good. You have what it takes to do it in a world where most people don’t even give it a try.