It’s easy to think of all the things you want to have in an app or all the services you may want to offer. “Why just cut hair? I want to add coloring, styling, sparkles, music…”

Ok, that was just a SLIGHT exaggeration but you get my point. You may absolutely ROCK at cutting hair and can build a huge clientele by doing so. You think “well if I add just a couple more services, I’ll be able to get even more people and make more money!” Yes…and no.

Initially, you may get some more people in the door. Great! Now think of the consequences of your actions. If you’re not prepared, a couple things could happen.

1. You’re great at cutting hair but suck at coloring. Word gets out that you suck. No good!
2. You spend time on things you’re not so great at, taking away from what you ARE good at. Your quality rating goes down.

This holds true for services, for apps, for pretty much anything you’re setting your mind out to do. “I’m so good at multi-tasking blah blah blah”. Great…I’m proud of you. You can do six things at a 60% satisfaction level rather than excelling at one thing.

Slow down, take a breath. Think about making ONE thing great and do it well.

(this post dedicated to a biz partner with whom some killer mobile apps will be made with)

ps – shameless plug…please donate to my AIDS/Lifecycle ride…you can see the link/logo up and to the left.

Just recently a friend (this one is dedicated to you Eggman) sent me an article that was basically bemoaning the fact that being an entrepreneur does not give you freedom but instead does just the opposite. Being an entrepreneur, having lived in the Corporate America world (and also the government world, non-profit world, etc) I have seen all sides and know what does and does not work for me. The question remains though…does being an entrepreneur give you freedom?

The simple answer, yes.

Then again, it could be no.

I’m sticking with the former however. It DOES give you the freedom that you hear about. What you DO with the freedom however dictates what your life will be and what free time you have (which some people mistakenly associate to freedom). “Freedom” does not equal “Free Time”.

Life as an entrepreneur may or may not consist of the following:

• Get paid what you’re worth
• Find your own way to get paid
• Deal with your own tax issues
• Work with who you want
• Deal with HR issues if you have employees
• Work from home if you have the space
• Set your own hours
• Worry about every aspect of your business 24/7
• Take two weeks vacation without asking for permission
• Don’t take a vacation for three years because you have work to do

So which is it? You read article after article about “getting your freedom by being your own boss” yet you may know entrepreneurs who never have time to do things with you because they’re working until 11pm every night.

It’s what you make of it. It’s how YOU decide to structure your new company and how you decide live your life.

• Open Hours – You can worry about it 24/7 or you can “shut the office down” at 5pm
• Working Hours – You can take a four hour lunch on Tuesday and make it up Tuesday night or you can work a strict schedule
• Vacation – You can take one whenever you want or you can be a slave to your own company
• HR Issues – If you have employees you can worry about it all yourself and burn your time or you can hire someone to do it

I think you see my point here. You can choose to be a slave to your own company or you can structure your company around your life. The choice is yours. Having your own company isn’t for everyone. It requires discipline and it also requires you to know yourself. Many people have fallen for the “freedom” schtick thinking “freedom” means they can work  two hours a day and screw off the rest of the day. Sure, you have the freedom to try that. The freedom of being your own boss means you’re free to make your own decisions and this freedom can overwhelm people if they don’t know how to handle it.

• Software – Remember when you needed to be a programming genius and to work at a designated software development company to create software? That’s not really the case anymore with computers now being a household item and programming languages getting simpler and more powerful. There are more than a few iPhone apps that have been created at home in someone’s spare time.
• Manufacturing – Back in the day, if you wanted to make a small trinket you had to find someone to design it (and you pay for it), find someone to create some prototypes (and you pay out the nose for that), figure out what’s next, spend more money, you’re done…thus it was mostly for large companies with their own equipment or loads of money to do. Now anyone with a good CAD program (getting cheaper now so you can have this on your home computer) and a 3D printer like the MakerBot can create stuff right at home. Sweet!
• Writing – No longer do you need to toil on your typewriter, have an editor, hope you get a deal with a publisher, and cross your fingers to be an author. Now you can write and self-publish your books in various outlets, in various mediums (print, ebook, etc). If you can think it up, you can write it!
• Audio and Visual Arts – Gone are the days of needing to work at a top design firm or Disney to have access to the best computers, cameras, video cameras, recording equipment, and so forth. Now you can create, edit, add effects, produce, and distribute from the comfort of your own home. We all know how much the recording industry is loving this.
• Business Opportunities- The shrinking of the world has created opportunities for everyone. You can outsource programmers if you need, you can import/export more easily, collaborate with your team on the other side of the country, not to mention finding funding or being found is easier…it basically makes everything mentioned above so much simpler.

The barriers are gone…or at least lowered to a manageable level. What the hell are you waiting for? Get out there and create something. There’s really no excuse to sit around thinking you can’t do something. Many fortunes have been created by some industrious folks sitting around in their garage or dorm room recently. I believe it’s your turn to create some cool stuff. I’m working on it as we speak.

Three topics, seemingly unrelated, yet all quite relevant to any entrepreneur or business. Taken individually, they all make sense. Put them together and you’ve got a great recipe for success.

• First, let’s discuss creativity. When I say this, I don’t necessarily mean you have to be a designer. A coder needs to stay creative and focused while coding away. Yes, code requires creativity along with logic. A businessman needs to stay creative while thinking about new ways to grow the business. This article from Copyblogger titled “8 Bad Habits That Crush Your Creativity and Stifle Your Success” outlines a few ways to get keep yourself from falling into common pitfalls that keep you from reaching your maximum potential. It’s a great read and I recommend reading and taking the relevant ideas and using them yourself. We all need to keep those creative juices flowing and to continue pressing forward. Let’s stop those annoying habits or thought processes that hold us back.
• Next, an article titled “PlentyOfFish Architecture” from High Scalability that a friend sent to me recently. It’s a year old but still very motivating as it shows you that you don’t need to be a giant organization with a load of money and resources in order to run a very successful business. Highlights include the fact it’s ONE GUY running this entire process on two hours a day of work and raking in $10mil/year on Google ads. You should check out the other stats…truly mind-blowing…and exciting if you can use this as inspiration to do your own thing without fear of not having enough resources.
• Last…you just have to be patient. I don’t know of any great business that was TRULY an overnight success. Some things may have grown quickly, but that is a very small percentage of success stories out there. Look at all the great companies and you’ll see most of them have taken some time to ramp up. Some have had bumpy roads to success, others have had smooth sailing, but both ways it has been a bit of a journey. I want to remind others as I must remind some of my partners out there that sometimes you need to grow one aspect of the company before the other (ie, it’s easier to sell to a customer if you actually HAVE a customer-to-be. Get people in the door first). Be patient. Build the infrastructure, and have fun while you’re at it.

Many of my posts may seem to have an entrepreneurial twist to them. Perhaps that’s because I have an entrepreneurial twist to my mindset. Almost everything written here however can be applied to any organization anywhere. It may need a little massaging and manipulating but they can be applied and they can be beneficial.

Be patient.
Stay creative.
Start that project even if you’re  a small outfit with limited resources.

Tie all three together and the sky is the limit.

So just where IS the land of opportunity? Is it everywhere? Is it in special pockets of the country? It doesn’t seem as if you can just create an opportunity wherever you may be.

It can be said that surrounding yourself with creativity makes you more creative. I believe this to be true. Likewise, surrounding yourself with self-starters will help fuel your fire of creating something. We can all feed off each other’s energy, share ideas and help each other avoid problems. It’s also much easier to solicit help (ANY kind of help, be it financial help, work, bartering for work, etc) when everyone has the same mindset. Imagine going to a rigid banking institution and trying to get a loan for some “idea” that hasn’t been proven yet. It’s much easier to do when you can approach someone that has seen other start-ups, that has helped start-ups, that knows what it’s REALLY like out there.

Go forth and prosper. Look online and find the pockets of people and organizations that have the same interests that you do and start shooting the shit with them. If you need to make a big geographic move and you believe in your project, just do it. It’s much easier to do something high tech in Silicon Valley than it is in Death Valley. Not that it can’t be done, but it’s a hell of a lot easier when you’ve got all those tech resources available to you. Charlotte, Atlanta, New York City are all known for their business centers. Perhaps you should give that a try. Hollywood is the obvious choice if you’re trying to break into showbiz.

Immerse yourself amongst others that have that same drive, that same passion, and you’ll be surprised at how much energy you gain from this and how easy it is to get rocking.

On a very related note, I’m writing this all up while sharing some office space at the NextSpace office in Santa Cruz. The creativity, the energy…wow…it just drips from the walls here. I highly recommend joining if you’re nearby or finding a similar type thing wherever you may be.

There’s opportunity out there…we just have to grab it! Surround yourself with good people and let’s get to it.

It’s funny how companies can change…sometimes it happens immediately (Give Me a Mac went from a “please help I need a new computer” concept to this new vision within half a week of inception) and sometimes it takes decades (remember when IBM made typewriters…moved into the computer hardware arena and now they are a software and services company).

Change is good. Helping out the needy is good. It’s good to see that entrepreneurs still care about the community (yes, I’m talking about myself here but mad props also go to the Woz and, as much as I’m not a fan of Microsoft business practices, I’m fairly pleased with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

Go check out Give Me a Mac, donate your old Mac if you can (not looking for money…just computers), and ponder how we can use technology to improve the lives of others. Once you’ve looked it all over and pondered it all shoot some comments and ideas on over and we’ll continue to teach the ways of being a computer geek to those that need it.

Seriously people…be HAPPY you can get two million dollars, especially now in this economy. While so many people (save from those AIG execs) make a modest living and live paycheck to paycheck. A few more put in a good day’s work and make a bit more. However, this being the celebrity-crazed, sports-loving, voyeuristic society that we live in, we love to see the football players with their multi-million dollar contracts, the movie stars that make $40 million per movie, the companies that are being run by college kids that are being bought for hundreds of millions. Time to come back to reality…

I was reminded that we need to come back down to earth as I was talking to a friend (and coincidentally a business partner from another company we co-founded and sold off many years ago) about one of his pet projects that we’re about to revitalize. Years ago we parted ways (on a good note of course! no speculation here people…we’re best friends and always will be) as he went off to law school and I continued on with my wily ways. As a Mac user he was having a frustrating time in a PC-centric world of law and education, thus he started up the site Mac Law Students. He was bound and determined to find solutions to his Mac problems (what time tracking software is there for the Mac? How can you take an exam that was designed for PCs? What’s the best solution for…) and report this to other law students who didn’t want to trade in their Macs simply to go to school and practice law. (In a funny random side note, my first real gig out of college was doing support for an IP law firm that was all Mac-based aside from the Netware server here and there). The site became fairly popular but as we all have time constraints he could not continue on with this after graduation. It’s been a while since that decision was made and he decided it’s time to bring it back.

So just what does this all mean? What am I rambling about? I start with billion dollar deals and then move on to a small niche site? Stay with me here…

We  have no illusions that doing this site will make anyone stupid rich. And ya know what? That’s ok. It’s kind of a fun project to work on and could bring some sort of notoriety down the road, but it’s just a fun thing for now that could help fund a hobby or two.

Or could it get bigger? Who knows. I mean, wasn’t that company Apple started in a garage? Did you know the first Apples had a WOODEN case? Or those other little companies (FaceBook, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) started in dorm rooms or as small things that happened to get big? I believe so.

Not EVERY venture needs millions in seed money just to get off the ground. Take a good idea, some passion, and some hard work and you can succeed. Not only can you succeed, you can go nuts and thrive.

So if you’ve got a good idea that you want to try, just go ahead and do it. Maybe you’ll get rich. Maybe you won’t. However, if you don’t even try there’s a 100% chance you WON’T have something to sell off for a hefty price. At the very least, find something you enjoy doing and then you can have something fun to do. At the upper end you’ve got something you can possibly retire on. Think small and go big.

1) Have An Idea And Put Your All Into It – This school of thought is just like it sounds. You have an idea. This is your baby. Your drop everything else and you work on it. You eat, breathe, sleep to this thing. You ignore other opportunities as you work on this. Your entire life is dedicated to getting this idea off the ground and you won’t rest until you do so. The pros to such is that you won’t distract yourself with other ideas. You won’t spread yourself too thin…especially if another project you are working on develops a problem. You know you’re doing all you can for this idea. There can be cons though…if you go into this with the blinders on and focus solely on this you may miss a great opportunity simply because you’re working on this. You could also burn yourself out. And if this one fails, then what?

2) Work On Many Ideas At Once – Again…it’s just as it sounds. You’ve got a couple great ideas and you work on each one. They can be similar ideas or completely different. They may complement each other or they could be totally separate from each other. You find yourself spending your days working on everything and anything that pops up. The cons to this are immediately apparent. You could quite easily stretch yourself too thin and end up neglecting one (or more) idea(s) if you end up working on one (no matter if it’s filled with fires you’re trying to put out or if it suddenly gains momentum and your time/energy). It could sap your financial coffers as you work on them all. Then again, the pros are there too. If one fails, you’ve got the others to work on. Perhaps one will take longer to incubate while others offer a faster return. You can work on one idea if you get burned out on another on any given day.

As I stated earlier, I’ve been in both situations. I’ve seen others in one situation, the other…or both.

Which one works for you? Thoughts on such?

I am a firm believer in working hard but I believe even more in doing the right thing. I’ve been a proponent of helping those with goals and passions and doing what I can to help them achieve their goals. It may be a dog eat dog world out there but sometimes you gotta give some to get some. Times are tough for all of us. We can’t squeeze blood out of a stone so why do we try? Sometimes all you need is a little break…and that little break can make all the difference.

Sometimes you gotta give a bit…on the spreadsheets that your account has there’s something called “goodwill”. This is generally used to describe activities that your company has performed (which usually involve money) that really have no tangible explanation. However, it is this action that will help increase sales down the road as it shows the commitment of your company to support the community, your commitment to your customers, and so forth. You can do other things that help both you and your customer though…give a little and you can get something back in return.

What exactly am I talking about? There are a few ways this can work. Some firms/individuals do pro bono work. Good…keep it up. You get to build up your portfolio, build your experience, and help those that need it. You can also be a bit more lenient in your billing. There are many small companies that are living on a shoe string budget however just given the proper chance these companies can grow to be thriving entities. Partner up with them. Do good work and help them out as you work on it all. Who knows where things will go.

Now I’m not saying you should give all your work away and work freely with reckless abandon. I’m just saying you should evaluate each scenario you are in. Put yourself in their shoes and see if it’s worth helping them succeed. In times like this you can never build up too many quality alliances and good relationships.

Give some and get some. It works in general life and it works in business. Give it a try.