Bootstrapping

Are you thinking about starting your own business? Have I told you about the sleepless nights? Have I told you about the stress you are about to have for the next umm….5 years? Are you breaking into a cold sweat yet? How about if I tell you every time you try to sleep, you spring right up again because you thought of an idea that can’t wait until tomorrow?

Still want to start your own busines?? Are you serious??!!?

I’ll let you in on a secret….there has never been a better time to start your business with very little money.

The Network Hub is not my first and only business, I founded Atomic Media in 1999 and I wish I read this book back then. It re-educated and re-programmed my mind about how to start a business. The Bootstrapper’s Bible became an invaluable guide to help start The Network Hub. It literally is a bible that will give you practical advices but more importantly, it will also point out the million ways you can do wrong in your business – it is very realistic. No romanticism about owning your own business here.

Download this book for FREE: The Bootstrapper’s Bible

This book is by Seth Godin of the famed books “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable and Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea”

It is filled with great practical advices, how-to wisdom, ideas and some serious inspiration for startups, entrepreneurs and even seasoned veterans. It is about getting back to basics and away from the Enron and the dot com extravagances that brought a lot of devastations.

Here are some excerps from the book:

1 DISTRIBUTION. Never start by selling your product in major stores. Instead, use mail order. Or sell directly to just a few customers for lots of money per sale. Or use the Internet. The last step in your chain is traditional distribution.

2 ACCESS TO CAPITAL. Be cheap. In everything. Don’t pick a business in which access to money is an important element. That means that building a cable service, a worldwide cellular phone system, or a chemical refinery probably wouldn’t be on your list. When you do need capital, don’t pay retail.

Borrow from customers or suppliers. Find an equity angel. But don’t borrow at 18 percent! And don’t use your personal credit cards.

3 BRAND EQUITY. Position yourself against the brand leader. Be cheaper than Frito’s or faster than Federal Express or cooler than Levi’s. The more the other guy’s brand gets publicized, the more your positioning statement increases in value. Be brazen in the way you compare yourself to the market leader. Your story should be short, solid, and memorable.

You’ve probably already seen the Internet analogy. Almost every single dot com failure is due to studied ignorance of the points that lie above. Well-funded Net start-up companies didn’t act like start-ups. They figured that they had enough money to act like a big company. They were wrong.

4 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS. You don’t have much of a chance of grabbing a big piece of an established company’s business away from one of its good customers right away. It’s just too easy for the company to defend against you. Instead, you can try one of these strategies:

THE INCHWORM. Get a little piece of business as a test. Then, with great service and great products, slowly but surely steal more and more of the big guy’s business. Focus on one client at a time. By the time the other guy catches on, it’ll be too late.

SELL TO SOMEONE ELSE. Either to companies that don’t already have a relationship with your target customer or to someone in a different department at your target customer’s company someone who doesn’t know she’s supposed to buy from any particular vendor. This strategy works at home too. For example, Saturn found that by marketing its cars to women, it could grab market share that might have automatically gone to Ford if the car-buying decision for couples had been up to the man.

5 GREAT EMPLOYEES. Not every employee is searching for great reputation, stability, and high pay. Amazingly enough, there are lots of people who would prefer a great adventure, stock options, flextime, a caring boss, a convenient location, or a chance to grow without bureaucracy. By focusing on what you offer that the big guys don’t, you can capture your own share of greatness.
and more great wisdoms in this book…..

Any one thinking about starting a business should definitely give it a thorough read, not once but many many times over….

Quote of the day courtesy of Francis Bacon:

” A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”

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First 90 days of business

Hi World!

Why is the first 90 days so important for a startup? The first 90 days of being in business sets the foundation for successful survival. What does the first 90 days of learning consist of? An accelerated MBA course that is not found in any Ivy League University, but rather in the school of experience in strategic management, human resources, marketing, sales and every thing else.

It’s been more than 90 days since the doors of The Network Hub opened. My two partners and I have seen our initial goals fulfilled – a beautiful loft office as a workspace for startups and small businesses where every one can enjoy the benefits of working together to share resources and leads.

But before the celebration of meeting the goals, I still remember the 2nd week into construction of the space I asked myself more than once, what the heck did I get myself into. In the middle picture, you can see me in the picture pacing and getting a gray hair or two just from seeing the 1 inch layer of dust on the floor – although it does let me leave a really neat set of foot prints.

That was May 2006, construction took a little over three months to do but now we have a beautiful space that we are enjoying with other businesses. Fast forward to January 2, 2007 and The Network Hub now houses over 12 companies in our space and even more utilizing our services.

The biggest lesson I learned coming out of the 90 days is that knowing what to do is not enough if you haven’t developed the discipline to do it. You can attend all the seminars, read all the books and watch all the videos you can watch… but ultimately you cannot understand business until you are in a business.

Execution is key.

Minna Van
Junior Dreamer

Quote for the day courtesy of Stuart Henderson Britt:

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does”

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Sharing Library Resources: Yet Another Benefit of Coworking

I have a small library at home, but I prefer to separate my home from my work and thus had to bring those books to my office at The Network Hub. Recently, I brought a few books to my office that are particularly relevant to my work.

When I first moved to The Network Hub, it surprised me a bit to learn that the shared office space has a small area with books. Given that The Network Hub has an open space floor plan, anybody from the group of entrepreneurs and companies hosted here can access those books. Obviously, the honor system (where you take a book and you bring it back) works well in this particular coworking space.

Books, magazines and a variety of learning resources are an integral cornerstone of university libraries and research centres. Individual research and teaching departments (like Linguistics, Political Science, Geography) usually have a reading room where graduate students and faculty can access books, journals, magazines and other learning materials that may either be in high demand at the university library or simply, more relevant to the area of study within the department.

It hadn’t dawned on me how important it was to share library resources amongst entrepreneurs until a couple of days ago, when Amin (another entrepreneur whose company has offices here at The Network Hub) asked me if he could borrow a book of mine. And at that point (yes, recently, just a few days ago) it became clear to me that being able to access a collective pool of learning resources (including books/magazines/journals/articles) is yet another benefit of coworking.

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Sharing space with other entrepreneurs leads to synergy

Synergy — The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

There’s more to shared office space than a business bargain. Not only does investing in a shared office space save you money it provides you with lots of intangible benefits. If you are going to compete in the competitive Vancouver market, you need to be at your best. An isolated entrepreneur loses his or her edge in communication skills.  It’s impossible to sell your product or ideas if you never practice the language of business.

Shared office space gives you a built in group of colleagues who can act as sounding boards and moral support.  You can do more business from a shared Vancouver office space because you are working in the heart of the business community.  Association with a group of carefully vetted tenants like those at The Network Hub gives you access to a dynamic networking group as well as their varied talents. Successful entrepreneurs need teams; the days of “wearing all the hats” are over.  A shared Vancouver office space can cut down on the time you spend searching for expertise in areas outside your core business.

The perfect partner or collaborator could be sitting at the desk next to you.

About the author: “Karen Southall Watts has been training and coaching entrepreneurs for over a decade. She teaches business courses for Bellingham Technical College.”

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Thinking about guiding principles for coworking spaces

Coworking spaces vary in design, implementation models and philosophies/strategic views. Coworking spaces may share many attributes of entrepreneurial incubators, yet they may also have fundamental differences. A quick overview of philosophies and ground principles of coworking spaces in the US shows a few shared commonalities.

Carrboro Creative Coworking Principles (Adapted from the Citizen Space Philosophy)

1. Collaboration – We strive to include a diverse group of people with a wide range of knowledge.
2. Openness – Transparency is important. We all benefit from sharing ideas.
3. Community – Creating good social connections for business and personal life benefits our work.
4. Localism – Working in our downtown helps achieve our principles and contributes to our local economy.
5. Sustainability – Sharing resources is good for our local community and the planet. Plus when we share we save money.
6. Accessibility – Coworking spaces are affordable for a diverse group of people. Spaces are handicap and wheelchair accessible.

Since the very concept of coworking is rather new (arguably around 2005), having guiding principles hasn’t become yet a pre-requisite for coworking spaces to emerge. While it’s true that explicit guidelines are not yet a requirement for one of these spaces to succeed, but they are very useful.

Having principles or philosophies made explicit within each coworking space allows for potential entrepreneurs to filter themselves according to where they are located within a spectrum of collaboration.

As I had mentioned before, the mere geographical proximity does not guarantee that an entrepreneur that spends his or her time in a coworking environment will succeed. But a healthy combination of physical closeness, collaborative environment, coworking principles and entrepreneurial spirit are all factors that might lead to success.

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega is a Vancouver-based researcher, educator and consultant in the environmental public policy field. He conducts research in water governance, urban sustainability, comparative environmental policy and economic geography. Dr. Pacheco-Vega’s consulting studio has a home at The Network Hub.

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What are the benefits of a virtual office for an entrepreneur?

Let’s face it, Vancouver office space is expensive. However it is difficult to convey the image of stability and professionalism when you are limited to meeting clients and customers at your kitchen table or in a series of coffee shops. So, what’s a smart and enterprising entrepreneur to do?

A virtual office space provides you with a location and resources that you might not otherwise be able to afford. In a virtual office situation, like The Network Hub on Richards Street in Vancouver, you get the visibility and prestige of a downtown address without having to shoulder the entire cost. The expense of office space, meeting space and even reception and answering services are shared by the tenants. A quality shared space will offer you not only a desk or office, but shared reception and involved management. This allows you to focus on the core of your business and avoid wasting time on administrative confusion. This arrangement provides you as a business owner with the professional image and location that you might not be able to afford, especially in the start-up phase of business.

And since the shared office space is managed for you, your office is “open” for messages and mail even when you have to be somewhere else.

About the author: “Karen Southall Watts has been training and coaching entrepreneurs for over a decade. She teaches business courses for Bellingham Technical College.”

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Answering services keep customers happier for mobile entrepreneurs ((tag: answering service, the network hub, mobile entrepreneur)

Telephone tag—that annoying thing that happens when you and your customers call and call and never connect. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your customers could leave a message with an actual person? Think of how annoyed you are when you need to leave a message and you end up listening to a recorded voice. Well your customers feel the same way.

The Network Hub can help you avoid losing customers because of telephone tag. People are far more likely to leave a message when they get a real person on the phone. This means that live answering services from The Network Hub can get more of your customers to leave messages for you—giving you the chance to follow-up with them. Discouraged customers who hang up on your voice mail mean lost business and lost dollars. An answering service can be especially beneficial for mobile entrepreneurs. If your business has you traveling all over Vancouver, Canada or even farther, professional answering services allow you to still be “there” for your customers.

Flexibility is a key to success as an entrepreneur, and The Network Hub provides additional phone services designed just for entrepreneurs who need scheduling and meeting room access. No more telephone tag and no more hunting for a coffee shop that’s quiet enough for your meeting.

About the author: “Karen Southall Watts has been training and coaching entrepreneurs for over a decade. She teaches business courses for Bellingham Technical College.”

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