I’ve been asked by a local high school teacher to spend some time with his students on Friday:
if you wouldn’t mind coming in and sharing some of your expertise with my Business, Organization and Management Class …
particularly what I would hope you could offer is how you as an entrepreneur have made the switch from a past life and career, some of the risks and challenges you faced, and of course how you have Managed and Operated your consulting firm to fill specific niches locally, regionally and nationally if applicable …
one of those niches I was hoping we could focus on is maybe a deeper look at cooperatives and how they are formed, structured and work, and your experience in them
I’m not really an entrepreur, as I view freelancing as quite different from entrepreneurship. Freelancers have less risk, but don’t build any equity. Anyway, I’m thinking about discussing how the web has significantly changed many business models and talking about some of the lessons I’ve picked up from my clients over the past decade.
Any advice or recommendations for a one hour session with these Grade 11 students? Does anyone know of a good, but short, video that I could use to generate a discussion on business?
Hi Harold: Your request brought lots of ideas to mind, having taught college courses about entrepreneurship many times.
In the world of eleventh graders, changing friends or which sport they went out for in high school — is probably the easiest way to relate to the change to self-employment for “former paycheck prisoners”. It’s a big decision that calls for some soul searching. It’s easier when we know ourselves and our reasons for what we like and do naturally. Your comment on my post on “Well marked exits” inventories might help you be transparent with the class about your reasons for switching to free lancing.
As far as the impact of Web 2.0 on start-ups, here are a few thoughts:
Brick and mortar entrepreneurs pursue due diligence to validate a formal business plan’s projection of demand and support for pricing of the goods and services. All that costs a lot of money and puts the startup on hold while the preliminary work is done. Web 2.0 simply begins by being valuable before anything is for sale. The “unplanned” startup instantly becomes visible via blogs, discussion lists, websites, personal profiles, etc. The feedback is free, fast and broader in scope than market research. An initial following is generated in the process of discovering what ideas (concepts, issues, problems) gets the most page reads, trackbacks, etc.
Subscribers to RSS feeds get to check out an entrepreneur for free and see how s/he thinks from day to day. That’s very different from a customer shopping at a new outlet and spending money on what’s for sale. I suspect their inside look at “the thinking behind what’s for sale” engenders more customer loyalty, word of mouth advertising and willingness to explore the offerings deeper.
Conventional startups rely on advertising, store location, and coupons to generate sales. All that is push marketing — that has similar side effects to formal instruction. Web 2.0 allows for pull marketing – that has similar benefits to informal learning. Entrepreneurs can show up on other blogs, in wiki archives or with uploaded videos/slideshows. This visibility “sells without a sales pitch” where the credibility, insights and talents are put on display. The value “goes without saying” and catches on more quickly because its intrinsic (eye of the beholder, context of the customer, solutions for the user).
The value network of brick and mortar start-ups are mostly about tangible “deliverables and transactions” because selling involves physical locations and occasional contacts. The value network of Web 2.0 start-ups — traffic in many more intangibles because the “store is open 24/7” and transcripts of conversations with other customers can be read anytime.
I hope some of this is helpful for you.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. Great advice and I’ll incorporate into my session. I think I’ll use the 2 minute trailer from The Corporation as part of my presentation.
Hi Harold,
Here’s a student business plan that perhaps your Grade 11s could relate to:
An Acadia University student duo won this entrepreneurship award last year for their business plan to open a hip-hop clothing and stuff store. http://www.nicol-award.com/alumni/2005/acadia.html
Somewhere out there exists a brief “elevator pitch’ video (the team making a brief pitch to a potential investor) that we watched at last year’s award event. I couldn’t find the video online, but here’s a link to the winning team. The video is very short and very cute, and revealed (at least to me) the combo of chutzpah and vulnerability that entrepreneurs require. I’ll be at this year’s ceremony tonight (which is what made me think of it!) so I’ll try to find out if the video exists online.
Another item that comes to mind for a balancing perspective was a quote from Mr. Trump (of all people) in yesterday’s paper (either Globe and Mail or Ottawa Citizen) saying that there’s nothing wrong with a good job.
And finally…. a friend of mine runs a very successful chain of coffee shops here in Ottawa. I will never forget bumping into her one day when she was in the middle of a deal to open a new location. Her eyes fair gleamed as she waved some papers at me and said “I LOVE this part”. You gotta love the deal, I think, to be an entrepreneur. Which is why I am not one!
Harold,
not exactly what you were looking for, but I once heard a business-management consultant speaking to a group of trainers (most working for others, some independent). He stressed the need to understand your cost of doing business, something I think independents can easily overlook.
(Meaning, something *I* can easily overlook…)
So you need to know your overhead, which for a person working from home could be the rent/mortgage, utilities, etc. (all fairly predictable); the typical cost of materials, supplies; the tax burden, etc.
He brought the point solidly home with this:
Suppose my margin works out to 25% — after covering my expenses, taxes, insurance, I get to keep 25 cents on the dollar. Then, if I want to buy a $500 printer, I need to bring in not $500 worth of business, but $2,000.
This isn’t to say “never lose sight of money,” but rather “to make a choice, you need to know the facts.”
Yes, Dave, when you work for yourself you learn the facts, one way or another. Life is the opposite of school. In life you first get the test and then you get the lesson.
That video I talked about won’t be available until after your talk. Too bad, because it would be really interesting and relevant to your students.
So I was at this entrepreneurship awards ceremony yesterday — university students presented business plans and a panel of judges chose the winner. The keynote speaker hammered home the point, “know your clients, visit your clients, talk to your clients”. And the ‘chief judge’ said that, in his view, what separated the winners from the rest was the sense that in a year, they would still be pursuing their business dream regardless of the outcome of the award ceremony.
you know those whole I got good news and bad news stories…here’s mine
the good news
I just want to let everyone know what a great job Harold did today in class,…engaging, entertaining and very very relevant…
the bad news…
now I have to redesign the tail end of my course to reflect the reality I’ve been introduced to
my spin…
don’t get me wrong…I’m a geographer…people, space, place,…change over time…that stuff…
I’m Business dangerous…now the really great news is that I might be able to create a course that will reflect what Harold’s shared with me and the class…
thanks again Harold….
oh ya….if are any of you out there in Harold’s community who might want to share some strategies based on the new realities we’re seeing…(not my 1988 text book) I’d be more than happy to see them…
anything you did you think might work well for a senior business management course in high school…
thanks again Harold …it was absolutely fantastic..
the
Thanks, Zach. I enjoyed being with your students. I’ll get a follow-up post up shortly, with all of the references that I mentioned.