Biz-Fu-on-the-Streets

[tbanner color="green" title="Long Live the Revolution" style="3"]The following are micro-business forum posts, blog comments and off-site blogs posted by Jayson.  If you're reading these, you have WAY too much time on your hands.  With that said, they're a veritable treatise on the existence of the Cult of Entrepreneurialism and the witty reparte that's loosening the grip the Cult has over our minds - one post at a time.[/tbanner]

How Shark Tank Bites

Television’s Latest Assault on the Brain Cells of the American Entrepreneur

 

If you haven’t seen the ABC television show, Shark Tank, don’t do it unless you’d like to see your common sense eroded.  It’s like hashish for the entrepreneur’s soul.

Here’s how the show goes:  an entrepreneur walks between double-rows of aquariums (with sharks, of course) into a room with five very wealthy investors.  The entrepreneurs do a little dog-and-pony show to demonstrate their company and then the investors either tell them how their business is junk or they start haggling to buy the biggest piece of the company possible for the least money possible.  When an entrepreneur gets a deal he or she likes, “their dreams come true.”

Here’s what I hate about this hypocritical piece of reality TV:  it shamelessly perpetuates the Cult of Entrepreneurialism.  Check out the stats.

[list class="bullet-3"][li]After six episodes, the number of businesses that are NEW INVENTIONS:        12 (41%)[/li][li]The number of businesses that have NEVER-BEEN-DONE-BEFORE:               7 (24%)[/li][li]The number of businesses that REQUIRE BIG DISTRIBUTION DEALS:            7 (24%)[/li][li]Other businesses that I couldn’t easily classify:                                                    2 (7%)[/li][li]The number of businesses that seem like true MICRO-BUSINESSES:               1  (4%)[/li][/list]

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Research-o-death

smallbusinessbrief.com General Small Business Issues Forum 2/1/2010

[blockquote]Excerpts from other posters on this thread, unwittingly spinning the treads of bondage:

"Many people replying to these posts recommend research. Which is makes sense of course. but I don't think these start-ups quite realise the in-depth amount of research required. It's not like writing a paper on the subject. It's about the small, practical day to day jobs that need doing to make each business work. . .

Research can take years. Don't take it lightly. Take the time and make sure the business is right for you."[/blockquote]

Jayson's response:

2/1/2010

In my experience:

Business Planning: a futile attempt on behalf of the human ego to limit the risk of failure by spending buckets of time taking zero risk and delaying the day when the businessperson and the business idea will have to prove itself.

I'm hugely biased in favor of the bootstrapped business -- where little money is invested, the business is kept micro and the entrepreneur tries lots and lots of stuff.

I'd give a new business research MAYBE two nights of pouring over the internet and a few phone calls to entrepreneurs who are trying something similar. Other than that, I'm going to learn by doing and (mostly) failing.

I will give CF this: quitting your job and/or dumping money into a business is usually unwise. No need to have an entrepreneurial seizure. Work the "other workday" (from 9pm to 2am and weekends) until your business proves that it can take care of the bills, then jump ship.

Being a newbie to this illustrious forum, I hesitate to say this. . . but, I think the notions of research, business planning, raising capital (i.e. pretty much all of the conventional wisdom of entrepreneurialism,) is like rust on the soul of the entrepreneurial movement.

It repels folks who would've otherwise had a blast and made some dough. This isn't the IRS. This is the wild, wild west. Rock and roll!