Guilty as charged. I didn't reveal in my last post that I was among those folks that pitched John. Last April, I wrote in a private email: "But now that you mention Starbucks, you don't happen to have any contacts in the Tazo side of things..."
Yikes! But by fall 2005, my thinking's 180 degrees. I registered early for Rob May's very intriguing The Business Experiment.
The number one reason I backed out? They were going for VC money and I had no interest in the One Day An Investor Will Discover Us route (been there, done that). This recent TBE post outlines the fallacy:
I honestly believed, 100%, that someone would step up and donate or invest 20K in the project. It seems to me that wealthy people give money to all kinds of causes that are nowhere near as helpful to society as advancing business knowledge and exploring new paradigms, so this was a slam dunk. - Should Askspace Be Discontinued?
Waiting for capital is no different than waiting to be picked up by Miramar Films.
Forget grants and figure out a way to make it happen on your own. Don't let the lack of resources get in your way. Do not let limitations prevent you from doing your art. Do not rely solely on the generosity of others; this is a seductive trap. It means that your work can only progress when someone else wills it. Ultimately, no one cares about your artwork and your artistic progress more than you do. - "Twenty-One Ways to Improve Your Artwork" (Download .pdf, article starts page 6), May-June 2005, Lenswork magazine
Perhaps you get to Jason Fried's point of view only through (painful) wait-for-money or throw-money-at-it experiences. Or perhaps others are brighter than I am out of the chute:
Jason Fried I hadn’t heard that much about before, but I’d heard of 37signals. He had a fascinating premise regarding how “less” is better when it comes to delivering product. If you have less time, you waste less time! If you have lless money, you’ll spend it wiser! - David Seah, "SXSW Day 1 Panel Impressions"
I've also written: "It's easier to admit that with $1.5 million in seed capital the start-up I was CTO of (though not a founder) in 2000 "just didn't have enough money" to roll-out the full-out infrastructure and services we wanted to provide... Yeah, we'll do that when we get the next round. The most creative thinking I did that whole year was when things started looking shaky. It's obvious many of us have learned - a lot - from the dot-com years. Sometimes, as I've said before, having too many resources makes you stupid - creativity can go out the door when throwing money and bodies at problems seems like a solution."
In Rich Dad Poor Dad, multi-millionaire Robert Kiyosaki shares his true story of working for his best friend's dad, a business mentor to the boys at the impressionable age of nine.
"Rich dad" as Kiyosaki calls his mentor didn't grant him any lectures or advice upfront. They learn by doing. At first Kiyosaki's mentor has the young boys stock his grocery shelves for peanuts.
When Kiyosaki finally complains about not making enough and not learning anything, "rich dad" says he's ready for the next lesson. Now Kiyosaki and his buddy are paid absolutely nothing. After initially balking Robert agrees to give the 'work to learn not for pay' theory a try.
Kiyosaki notices that the comic book suppliers clears out all the old comic books from the magazine rack on a regular basis. A light bulb goes off. He can create a comic book library with the old issues and rent out the books to neighborhood kids. (The publisher didn't allow them to be resold.)
They soon had a brisk business concern going.
Only through being put to the test did the boys' ingenuity and creativity flower and burst forth. ("Necessity is the mother of invention"?)
I shudder to think where they'd be today had they been paid handsomely to shelve canned peaches and baked beans and dust off counters.
p.s. I'm retelling Kiyosaki's story by memory so a few details may be off. That's the power of stories though. I read this three or four years ago and it's imprinted.
Try this litmus test for yourself and notice what you retain from your reading.
If you were at 20X2 at SXSWi on Monday night which performance still stands out for you today? I bet it was a story and I know which one my money's on.
p.p.s. Easy for me to say? What's good for the goose is good for the gander (hmmm, I think that's how it goes). I'm partnering with handcrafted artisans, healers, designers, microfinance/microenterprise non-profits and travel aficionados I like and trust that fit together to market and sell their products & services for % of sales. Bootstrapping all the way with near zero capital.
tags sxsw sxsw2006 marketing art innovation startup bootstrapping entrepreneurs
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