MacStartup

When it comes to an idea to start a business, even start a Mac business, the first step is the idea of starting a business. Usually the idea comes from a number of perspectives or reasons: seeing an idea that solves a problem, the need to want to make more money, the desire to use all of ones talents rather than the limitation of working in a “cubicle nation,” or even wanting to do something different with ones life. Whatever the reason, they all surround the main reason of WHY. Why do you want to start a business?

The steps needed to start a business are as follows

1. Why? What is the real reason for wanting to start your business?
2. Business Basics. Understanding the purpose of a business, i.e. solving a problem that someone is willing to pay money for your solution. It means there is the craft of your business and the business of your craft. Much like being a writer. You’re a writer, but there’s the business surrounding your writing, graphic artist surrounded by the business of graphic art, law and the business of being a lawyer, etc.
3. Business Research. Doing the necessary research into getting your product marketable and salable to your customers. Are there others that are doing what you’re doing? How will you do things differently, separating  yourself from the pack?
4. Business Plan. Business planning is about analyzing your business idea, i.e. crunching the numbers, to see if you can make a profit out of it. Making sales without making a profit means you’ve worked for nothing. It goes back to #2 above, but here’s where missing out how to calculate how you’ll make a profit, including covering for any sick days that you might have, medical insurance, etc., can cost you a pretty penny. As we use to say in the USAF, prior planning prevent poor performance. A suggested product is IONFreshStart.com‘s Business Planning templates made for Apple’s iWork.
5. Action or Project Plan. Once the planning for the Go/No Go decision is done, whether or not you’re willing to go forward with your business idea, now you need to put action to the financial questions and get it done.
6. Mac Software. What Mac software will help you with your business? Here, too often, the typical new business owner wants to “buy big” for the future or “wants what everyone else has” so that they can be “compatible with those they work with.” It comes down to this question: do you want to share information or  collaborate with others? You can share a PDF of information with others, but if you need for others to work with you on something, look at whether or not the software can use the same file format or not.
7. Mac Hardware. Once you have decided on the software that you need to run your business the next step is to decide which Mac to run it on, whether you need power, portable, or price conscious. Power refers to desktops, portable means laptops, price means the Mac Mini.
8. Marketing. It’s about getting your name out for your customers to find you. As it has been said by others, 10% of your effort is in getting your product to market, the other 90% is marketing. You will not stop this part.
9. Sales. Once your customers know who and what you do, it’s a matter of selling them what you offer. It is also a matter of listening to your customer and adjusting your product to keep and gain more customers.
10. Operations. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. If you can’t run your business cost effectively, even frugally, then you won’t make any money. If you love what you do, that’s one thing, but if you can’t run a cost effective operation you wont’ make money at it.

There you have the steps. If you want more detail, you can purchase my book, How to Start a Business: Mac Version because I go into much more detail as to how to get started. Or click on the book cover on the top right and order one today.

Entrepreneurs that are startups can get more from less for more. We have to change the way we think, and this TED.com video will give you examples on how to do it right.

What are your thoughts about this?

An elder cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

The children thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old cherokee simply replied,”The one you feed.”

And you can apply it to those that you deal with as well. How?

Feed only the good wolf of any family, friend, or neighbor that you come in contact with and not their bad wolf.

As an entrepreneur I’ve known that having a college education can open doors for you, but NOT have a college degree doesn’t stop you from pursuing your dreams.

Here’s a list of tons of people that have never finished school and went on to become successful.

Collegedropouthalloffame.com lists successful people and what they do.

If school is not the issue, what is stopping you?

I was at a friend of my fathers the other day for dinner with the rest of his friends and they were making some comments about kids moving back home. Their comments were typical of “parental units,” they jokingly said that the kids were “having difficulty finding themselves.”

After thinking about it for a few moments, I got a little upset with the thought that the premise these parents were taking. Whatever their reason for the comments: “lack of success” by the child, they’ve made it why can’t their kids, or just being “out of touch” with the state of our economy, it irked me. I considered it a little longer and I boiled it down to a few perspectives of one that is changing with the times:

1. Finding yourself
2. Finding a job
3. Finding work
4. Finding a market

1. Finding Oneself. Finding oneself is of utmost importance and a parent’s job is to encourage as much experimentation as possible for their kids growing up to see how they’re going to turn out. Once they know their kids talents parents need to put “gas on the fire” when kids find out what they love to do to encourage them to excel. Some kids have tons of talents, some have less. But parents forcing kids to do something they’re not talented for, or making “you’re not trying hard enough” comments, does not make a kid necessarily try harder.

In March of 2010 I met local author Tama Kieves (and her “Awakening Artistry”) workshops. She talks about telling her parents as a young girl that she wanted to be a writer. She was told she was going to law school, which she dutifully did: Harvard Law. She graduated cum laude and got into a corporate law firm and hated it. After some soul searching she left it to pursue her new career in writing. It took her years to find, to undo expectations, and to grow into what she loved to do: writing.

There are ways of finding out what you love to do, but this the first step. You can take some personality tests that will help define who you are, take the Strengths Finder test to see what skills are tops and to concentrate on them, and lastly, once you have narrowed down what you are passionate about and have talents for, follow through to the next step.

2. Finding a job. Sometimes you have to take a job “just to get by.” But don’t look at a job as a death sentence. You can ALWAYS learn something from each place you work. What you love to do, and especially what you don’t want to do. But learn it anyway, it just might help down the road at some point.

If you have taken some tests to see what you’re good at and what you LOVE to do, now you need to see about working in that industry and see if you are any good at it, really. If you love to work in a bakery, then find a bakery to work in. If you love golf, find a club house to work at. If you love Macs, find an local Apple store or Mac reseller and see if you can work there to gain experience. Work in an area that is similar to what you want to do for the rest of your life.

3. Finding work. This means that you are open to the possibility that that might be more to making money than looking for a job, i.e. looking for an opportunity of starting a business or do some freelance work. When you say you’re looking for work, you allow the potential of doing something different or more to come into the picture.

If you have enough gumption, you can take the next step and find out how good you really are.

4. Finding a market. Now you’re talking. Here’s where you maximize your talent and start your own business in the area you love to work in. Or create a new market like “Hello, my name is Scott,” who worked for years in his parents basement to build a business around being approachable. And getting back to the parental comments above, here’s where finding “oneself” really means that you’re finding out what the market needs. Getting fired or laid off is personal, whether we like it or not. It takes a personal toll, but it’s a matter of working on bouncing back from this defeat.

Parents can never stop being parents. But those that are retired or have only been in the “job track” working for someone else may not understand Scott’s reasonings for moving into his parents basement. Scott moved into his parent’s house to save money on rent UNTIL he could move out. It’s no different when starting a bakery living inside your bakery until you can afford to live in a place to call home. You’re saving money to build a business so you can live better later on. Pay now to play later, not play and pay later.

Nonetheless, a parent’s lack of understanding of what it takes to run a business can come out as a negative that you’re “finding yourself” when in fact you’re trying to see where the market is in order to make money to live. Scott’s parents at least gave him the chance to work it out, as long as it took. Why? First, because they loved their son. Other reasons: they believed in their son, wanted to support their son, or they already knew what it took to start a business and keeping costs low.

But in cases where parents are “jobbers,” those that have only worked for others or the government, should not be so quick to judge their or any other kids. Times and environments change and what was true 10 years ago is not true for today. What was true just three years ago is not true for today. Applying old school ideas and jobs may not work in today’s market as things have a way of becoming obsolete. This includes attending college. Today’s college tuition is skyrocketing past most people’s ability to pay to attend and incurring debt is becoming a harder choice to say yes to being able to pay it off.

At the turn of the 1900s buggy whip manufacturers to make horses go were the hot jobs, but within a few decades they were replaced by carburetors that made cars go. That means a skill change. So the next time you come across someone that is “finding oneself,” it may be true, more importantly, they’re trying to find where their skills fit into a changing market. Where they fit into the change occurring within the market and society. It means finding oneself, again.

So, there’s your four steps. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

For all intents and purposes, iWork Pages is the equivalent of MS Publisher on the Mac. But better yet, most print shops do not like working with Publisher files. As Mac runs UNIX “under the hood” (Postscript) there is generally better use of this technology for printing.

iWork Page will NOT read MS Publisher files directly, all files require a filter that can convert a file from one format to another, and Apple has not decided to write this MS Publisher .pub filter.

Hint: Migrating all of your Windows files to your Mac may require extra steps than the perceived “one button push” to get them all over. In nearly ALL cases it is the FILE FORMAT that will determine the ease or difficulty to moving and transferring those files.

Entrepreneurs that move from Windows to Mac usually have MS Office files to deal with, and to a lesser degree, MS Publisher files. MS Office files cross over with little to no problems, but with MS Publisher, that’s a different thing altogether. There is no easy way, until now.

Well, my wife is in real estate and she has some old files that are in MS Publisher’s .pub file format. Of course, she turns to me to see what can be done.

After much research I found a cool web site, Zamzar.com, that helps out (it’s currently in beta) by converting files into various other formats, a LOT of file formats.

WARNING: Converting files into various formats loses, at the very least, some of the formatting of the file, at the worst, you’ve lost some of your data and may not recover much of it directly. But, there may be workarounds.

As with any file format issue, there are six processes that come into play, starting from the best to the worst:

1. Direct file conversion: For example, a file that was created in iWork Pages or MS Word uses the “Save As…” menu export function to convert the file into another format straight through with few, if any, problems. The more complex the document, the more chances there are of having translation issues. Simple letters or other documents should not create any troubles.
2. File translation: While most programs such as iWork Pages and MS Word have filters built in (under the “Save As… menu) that will translate file formats, Zamzar.com does a whole lot more translations.
3. Work arounds: Translating files through a program can do a good job, but somethings the translation just doesn’t quite make it. In the case of MS Publisher files converted to MS Word .doc file iWork Pages files do not come through well enough and there are some problems. That’s where NeoOffice (and it’s twin OpenOffice.org) a FREE office suite, will see the .doc files correctly allowing you to work with the elements of the file into your iWork Pages documents. Sometimes it’s a “Save As…” function, sometimes it’s a cut and paste of some of the elements.
4. Scan and recover: Sometimes scanners have Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software that can scan a page and convert it. Just run the text through a spell checker if the document is a long one.
5. Redo by hand: If you have a printed copy you can at least retype your document into your program, if you have one somewhere.
6. Start from scratch: Here you begin again with a blank screen.

In my case, getting a MS Publisher file into iWork Pages I:

1. Download NeoOffice (or Open Office ) for the Mac for free or have a copy of MS Office.
2. Translated the MS Publisher file into a .doc format using Zamzar.com (It’s in Beta, so I don’t know how long it will be free).
3. Open the translated file in MS Office or the free NeoOffice or  Open Office  Writer program in order to access the elements, such as graphics, that do not come through the conversion process well.
4. Cut and pasted the elements into Pages, both text and graphics. Text was easy as a menu choice Edit > Select  All… and copy and pasted the text into Pages as Edit > Paste and Match Style. Graphics were a little more manual.

With a little luck I was able to recreate my wife’s file so she can continue her business. It may have taken some effort, but from here we can make many changes in the iWork Pages page layout part. It’s not a “one step” solution, but it beats having to redo completely her file.

What are your thoughts?

I read this blog post and I just had to respond. There is a lot of good business information out there, but some of it reeks of ignorance, stupidity, and fear and scarcity-driven thinking. So here’s the link to the article, “Why do innovation teams fails?” and my answers to his commentary.

1. Organized resistance. “Remember, the top priority of every organization is to preserve the organization. Doesn’t matter if it’s a company or a charity or a school.   Doesn’t matter what the stated mission or objective of the organization is. Once an organization gets started, it will naturally seek self-preservation as its first priority.” WRONG. Preservation of the company is NOT the primary function of a business, it’s taking care of its customers, without a customer you have no business. You can defend a company all year long, but if you are not bringing in the bacon, you’ll go under. Change is important, but change for change sake is wasteful and unproductive. There has to be a reason for the change. A CEO that  puts his ego before his ideal customer and his business idea is the end of the line for the company. It’s all related to your customer, failure to satisfy a customer’s needs means failure of a company and when you quit focusing outward to your customers and focus inward on yourself you become complacent. Same goes for focusing on your competitor, your competitor is NOT your customer.
2. Responsibility without authority. “A creative team sailing in uncharted waters towards an unknown destination is bound to fail.” WRONG. Do you think Christopher Columbus was a failure because he did not fine India, his original goal? How about Thomas Edison with his 10,000 failed experiments looking for the idea of the lightbulb? How about Henry Ford telling his engineers to figure out how to make a eight cylinder engine when they said it couldn’t be done? Lastly, how about Lewis and Clark looking for the trail leading to the Pacific Ocean, they failed in this primary function? What about all of the accidental successes such as Goretex and the like? What determines failure? When you read the book “Getting to Plan B” you’ll see that there are lots of failures, just don’t get hung up on them. It’s how CEO looks at the failure and those that make them that makes the difference. It boils to beginning with #1 above. It’s all about leadership and doing the right think, not about management.
3. Lack of self-awareness. “Self-awareness is in chronic short supply in most corporations.  And yet, the ability of the innovation team to convince the organization to adopt their recommendations depends entirely upon mutual self awareness and empathy.” Some Wrong. There are some good points here and Tercek’s comments have some validity to them. Taking various tests to determine they type of person you are, such as the Myers-Briggs, the DISC test, and the online multi-personality assessment tests are all great to tell us who we are, but until leaders embrace these “soft” ideas in “hard” business environment, businesses will not be as productive as they could be. Dan Pink’s book “Drive” gives a great idea as to how change is needed.

Your thoughts about this?