As a startup entrepreneur you’re always on the lookout for ways of serving more customers at each chance you get, whether it’s through marketing, generating leads, sales, or just plain ol’ helping someone else out. It’s about earning more than a starving artist’s wage. But as with any business, there is the craft of your business that you love to do and then there is the business of your craft, how to make money doing what you love to do.
Having said that, there are a number of quotes that I’d like to share:
- Never hand an ill workman good tools.
- An ill labourer quarrels with his tools.
So, what do these mean? A poor technician, i.e. workman, artist, writer, etc. makes excuses for the tools they use in getting the required results. It’s the same as saying that buying a great word processor will make you a good or even great writer. Not quite.
A good word processor (the tool) makes the task of writing easier, but it does not make your writing (your skill) any better. Whether it’s a book an author is producing or a graphic by an artist, it takes work and talent, using good brushes to do oil paintings with or using a good saw to finely and precisely cut wood. If you don’t know how to use them well, i.e. your talent or skills, it won’t make the results any better.
Apple is a tool maker
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I posted the blog because I wanted to showcase how laws affect both businesses and customers.
We in the US started out being run by rule of law, a Republic, not a Democracy, and we’re still a Republic, although somewhat watered down some in the last number of decades. If you don’t agree, then refer to this 10 minute Wimp.com video titled The American form of government explaining the different forms of government. The rule of law affects businesses, both startups and established businesses, as well as customer behaviors.
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As I have talked with numerous people regarding their businesses I am in constant discussion with others about what they do and how they do it. I had a conversation with anther small business and he stated something that reenforced what I have seen. He said, “More people only love what they do, not do what they need to do.” What does he mean?
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THREE DAYS ONLY!! Sept 5-7 Codes Below
Who am I?
I’m Kevin Cullis and I’m a business geek, that’s what I love to do, blend strategies, tactics and knowledge of both business and Macs together. I also love Apple technologies and have used them since 1985, when I bought my first Mac 512ke. Today I use a MacBook Pro. My whole family is on Macs, except my brother, who is the last Mac holdout, but then he’s a System Administrator on UNIX.
What do I have?
I’ve written a book taking my years of selling computers to businesses and helping businesses get more done with their computer and put all of it into my first book, How to Start a Business: Mac Version.
Why do you need this?
Can you answer “Yes” to any of these facts. Are you:
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Well, almost there. It took a while to get my book completely done using iWork Pages, but it’s finished. But, as with any non-fiction book there are potential updates as changes occur with the content. But I have written the book in such as way as to:
- reduce the amount of changes that are required if content does change, i.e. if significant changes in Mac OS X occur.
- using a POD (Print On Demand) publisher means I can change my book anytime I choose and do not require a publisher to do the work.
Here’s what I have done.
If you’re beginning to consider being a startup entrepreneur, you’ve often hear that 70-80% of the start ups fail in the first year and the next large bunch fail in year two so that most fail within their five years. At least, that’s what we all hear. But what is really behind these numbers.
Let’s take John C. Maxwell’s book “Failing Forward” and see where these first numbers come to. When he asked a number of millionaires how many times did it take for them to become successful the average number of failures was around five!!
So that means that while most small businesses fail, the business owners keep on trying and moving forward!!!
So, it’s not the failure that is the issue, but how you look at the failure. Do you:
Dwell on your failure and keep harking back to your failure?
Deal with the failure by learning from your mistakes and moving on?
Deny your failure and blame everyone else for your string of bad luck?
If you are in the middle of the road camp and deal with it, then you’re not a failure.
Keep on pressing on.
Here’s a unique idea for those startup entrepreneurs that want to get funded, but not by the normal routes: crowdsourcing.
Check out Kickstarter.com‘s web site for more info about getting crowds to fund your startup or your project from the “worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.”
Oh, and if you want to help local startups, check out Kickstarter’s Denver projects.
Better yet, sign up and see if you can get funding.
