Flush the Toilet: Young Entrepreneurs

Since starting my company in 2004 I’ve been using Commerce bank for my business accounts. At first everything was cool, but after the first year or so with them, things quickly began to fall apart.

Just over the past year I’ve endured numerous strings of fraudulent activity on my account. Most recently in August there was a deduction by a mysterious “Dr. Symantec”. Who the hell is Dr. Symantec?

Anyways, I filed a complaint and received my money back after a month… then just a few days ago they all of a sudden they decided to change their minds and withdraw the money from my account.

When questioned why they were doing that, I was told that the person handling my claim no longer worked at the bank and they wouldn’t be able to help me. Grrr… Commerce bank has been nothing but a pain in the ass since I started with them.

But enough about me and my banking problems. The point here is to do your research before you decide to go with a bank for your business. I’ve been told that Bank of America and Wachovia are much better banks when it comes to business accounts. I guess Commerce is still just a mom and pops operation, eh?

You shouldn’t have to be worried about someone stealing your money or some incompetent bank clerk misfiling your account papers every time that you use your bank card to pay a bill or register for a new service. You have better things to worry about like scaling your business and finding new clients.

That’s why it’s so important that you try and find the right bank from the beginning. If you do your research and weigh the pros and cons with each bank, then you’ll find that you’ll be worrying much less about fraudulent activity and much more on growing your business. Believe me, it’s worth the piece of mind.

What bank do you use?

How can I forget Jan 1 2004, the day when I finally decided that I wanted to become an internet entrepreneur. Just the winter before I remembered asking my friend Colin, “how do you build a website?” A year later, there I was, thinking of how I could build my first online business – a day that sparked my journey to become a successful entrepreneur!

So for those of you college entrepreneurs who’ve been itching to start a business but simply haven’t because of the tremendous workload from this current semester, well now you’ll have no excuses because winter break is right around the corner.

You’ll be off of school for about a month and that’s plenty of time to get the wheels rollin’ on starting that company of yours. Sure, make sure to have fun and spend time with your family while you’re free from the chains of school work and professors shoving exams down your throat, but also make a REAL effort to start putting your ideas into action.

You can’t even begin to image how happy I was last year during winter break. I came home after that semester – my last semester at college – and knew that I wouldn’t have to go back to college anymore, I finally graduated and it felt great!

Sure, I had fun while attending college and met some lifelong friends… but for many of us who are deep into our business want to get out of school ASAP and start running their businesses full-time, not in between classes.

That’s why it’s so important not to waste your winter break. Use the time to party hard, but to also work hard! You’d be surprised on how much you can accomplish during your break. You can lay the foundation to your business and even prepare to launch something for the upcoming semester if your business is college-oriented such as mine.

You just had a taste of a break with Thanksgiving; now go back to school, study hard, work on your business hard, and get ready to make BIG things happen on your winter break – there’s no time to waste.

Young entrepreneur + ideas + implement idea + idea fails + try again = Practice.

We’re young entrepreneurs and it’s just the beginning. The fact that we’re actually waking up every morning and taking steps to make our dreams a reality it a huge accomplishment.

Sure, we’re going to fail and also have a few successes here and there, but when all is said and done, we’re still training and practicing.

That’s what it’s all about. When a sports team loses, what do they do? They train harder and come back better than ever! So when you see your failures mounting up, don’t be discouraged as long as you stay on the playing field and keep working at it.

Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he created the light bulb. In fact, he referred to it not as failure, but as finding “10,000 ways that didn’t work.”

Just as muscles grow stronger with stress and conditioning, your ability to create successful ventures will increase over time; over many, many failures. That’s what being a practicing entrepreneur is all about.

Practice makes perfect!

There is no place like New York City. There is no other place in the world where you can walk through a park and within 3 minutes have 5 people offer to sell you a bag of pot (say no to drugs!), 2 people attempt to sell you the latest CD on the market, a drum band playing for cash and, of course, someone selling bootleg DVDs.

Whenever I come across these dudes in the city, I say to myself: “Some of these guys really know how to pitch and make those sales. And with the right amount of ambition, I think some of these musicians can really make it big.”

Most of these entrepreneurs aren’t fortunate to have things such as:

• Websites
• Storefronts
• Money to invest
• Mentors
• Support systems

They are the rawest entrepreneurs that you’ll ever come across in your life. They are hungry, determined to succeed, and willing to do just about anything to get your attention. They are playing on a different game field than most of us and have to rely upon their physical interactions with people in order to make things happen.

I sometimes wonder that if these entrepreneurs had websites, some additional capital to invest in their businesses, or perhaps an actual legit storefront instead of a sidewalk… would they be able to breakthrough into success?

Actually, I think that many of them would. Many of these entrepreneurs have a hunger that is quite rare. Sure, I would venture to say that the need to eat, live, and survive is their motivating factor, but that’s what makes them so hungry to succeed!

Sure, they aren’t your traditional internet entrepreneur that we have become to know like the back of our hands, but we can learn a lot from these entrepreneurs. One walk through New York’s popular Washington Square Park and you’ll get the idea.

So the next time you see someone on the street selling books, candy, pot, food, whatever it may be, take a few moments to watch and observe them. Get a feel for how they interact with clients; how they close a sale; and how they pick themselves back up after every denial. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from the street entrepreneur.

Do you see these type of entrepreneurs in your town?

Can you believe it: the internet recently passed the 100 million page mark. That’s amazing. Personally, I’m proud to be a part of such an evolutionary time that we’re going through. The internet is changing our lives and helping us to do things never before possible.

Many of us young entrepreneurs have ventures focused around the internet. It only makes sense that we work with that we know best, the net. But how well do we really know the net? All too many times, entrepreneurs will decide to start something on the net because –in their minds — they believe that it’s the super easy way to make cash.

Not true.

Sure, the internet allows for us to explore the opportunity to create a successful online venture, but it’s never a surefire deal that you’ll succeed. It’s never that easy. Many entrepreneurs are looking through a cloudy lens of false reality right now.

Many of us are thinking:

Sure, in theory, you’d be correct.

But when push comes to shove, you will need to know about all of these aspects of running an internet business. I strongly believe that you’ll even have to be on an intermediate/expert level with at least one or two of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m on the internet to stay. I’ll always, always be here working on various ventures. But after 3 years of trial and error, failures and success, I have come to understand that the ones who really make it big on the internet are not just the idea generators, but the technical people who know how to implement and execute.

An idea is venomous. A technical understanding of how to design, code, manage a server, and write effective web copy is dangerous. You combine the two and you’re DEADLY!

Losing My Virginity has been one of the most – if not the most – enjoyable autobiographies that I have ever read. Learning about Branson’s life from a young child to a successful multi-billionaire entrepreneur was an amazing journey for me – very inspirational!

Branson is one of a kind. His philosophy is to live life to its fullest, have as much fun as you can, and do something that you’re passionate about in life. He literally became a billionaire by having fun and “doing business his way.”

One of my most memorable parts of this book was a section where Branson was sitting with 2 of his best friends and business partners at lunch. Branson was pitching them the idea of starting an airline and they both vehemently disagreed with Branson.

But Branson knew – deep down in his gut – that starting an airline was the right thing to do, even if it didn’t make the most “business” sense at the time. He knew that he had to follow his intuition and he decided to go ahead with establishing Virgin Atlantic which turned out to be a huge success; becoming the crux of the entire Virgin Group.

This autobiography is filled with all sorts of adventures and lessons learned from Branson’s adventurous life. It very well may be one of the most inspiring books that you’ll ever read.

My only problem with the book is that the readers gets stuck in the air (literally) with about 100 pages of following Branson as he goes on his many hot air balloon journeys across the world. In my opinion, it gets a bit dry and redundant, but when the book progresses out of the “hot air balloon” chapters, the momentum picks back up and you’re back on track to following Branson amazing life as an entrepreneur.

Get yourself a copy here.

Have you ever read this book? What was your favorite part?

Remember that movie Pay it Forward? I don’t remember all the details of the movie, but I remember the main idea: a young student comes up with an idea for a class project. His idea is called “Pay it Forward” which means that every time he helps someone, that person doesn’t pay that person back, but pays someone else “forward” with an act of kindness or help; hence, paying it forward.

I absolutely love this concept and I have lived my life in that manner for as long as I can remember. As a young child, my mother instilled a sense of compassion and willingness to help others in my brothers and me.

I have since taken my mother’s wisdom with me as an entrepreneur and have never stopped giving and paying forward. As a new entrepreneur who endures the ebb and flow of making money and not, it’s not always easy to pay forward financially. However, I have always made the conscious decision to always help people financially no matter my own financial situation may be. Sound stupid? Oh well, not to me.

There have been many, many times when my parents have helped me out when I’ve ran into financial difficulties and there have been times when I have had the fortune to land good clients for various web-related projects. When good things like that happen in my life, I always make sure to “pay forward.”

I’m the person who gives that dollar to the homeless person on the street begging for something to eat; I’m the person who will always donate to the charity helping to cure world hunger; and I’m the person who’s going to help you up when you have fallen.

In no attempt am I sharing these traits of mine to make myself look “big” or to boost my ego in your eyes. I share these qualities of mine so that you may start paying forward in your own life.

As an entrepreneur, hopefully you’ll be around true people who will be willing to help you out spiritually, financially, and emotionally when you are in need. It’s very important to be around people like this – these people are your support system and if they’re truly your friends, they’ll be by your side unconditionally – no matter what.

Sure, you should practice reciprocity and seek ways to help those whom have directly helped you, but please never forget about paying forward. Use the same compassion that you have received to help someone else; someone as random as a person you meet on the street; perhaps a relative in need of your guidance; or maybe another struggling entrepreneur who can really use you in his or her corner for whatever reason.

Just keep on passing along those positive acts unto others – do that and you’ll not only become a better person and a better entrepreneur, but your contributions will help create a better world. Never stop paying forward.

I remember once upon a time when I wasn’t an active entrepreneur (can you believe that? ha) and I always seemed to be cooking. I feel that back then, I had a lot more time to cook in the morning, afternoon, and at night. It was pretty fun, too.

Nowadays, to be honest, there are some times when I have to remind myself to eat. Instead of spending the time to actually cook my meals, I opt to purchasing prepared food from Whole Foods Market, which is absolutely awesome by the way.

Don’t get me wrong (I love saying that, don’t I?), I eat great and all my meals are extremely healthy, but I simply don’t have the time to cook anymore; at least not in the day times.

I probably eat around 5 meals throughout the day, each meal taking on average about 5 minutes to prepare since there is little to no baking or frying needed. I actually like it that way, my food is already cooked and all I have to do is put it together and munch away – instead of spending an hour or so slaving over making a meal.

But there are times when I go back home and see my mother creating a meal and enjoying every second of making that meal a perfection for the family to enjoy; it reminds me of the times when I had a blast taking the time to make a meal and then enjoy that meal knowing that it was made by “me.”

It’s just that we entrepreneurs get into our routines throughout the day and it’s sometimes hard to go from making a meal in 5 mins to spending 45+ mins making one. However, I think that I’m going to try and set aside some time – probably on weekends – to get back into cooking again, as opposed to just putting my food together.

What about you? Prepared foods, cooked foods, or what?

A few months back I started a series called Flipping Classhelpers.com. After reading a few articles on how students were selling sites on the net for pretty decent profits, I decided to start Class Helpers and see what I could do with it.

A few weeks into the project, I decided that I really liked how it was turning out and made the choice not to sell it — I saw a future for the site. Now, many months later, I have found myself with less and less time to devote to the project which has led me back to my initial decision to sell Class Helpers.

I am really hoping that someone who the right determination and will to help students as much as I love helping students is able to purchase the site and turn it into some very successful — something bigger than it is now.

Though the site has only been up since June, I see it growing in something great with the right entrepreneur behind it.

You can bid on the site here.

I also plan to consult with the winner and offer some ideas I have on how to make the site a success.

As an entrepreneur you’re going to come across a lot of business opportunities. There will people who want to work with you because they love your vision, enthusiasm, or for whatever reason or another.

It’s important that you always give each opportunity a lot of thought and consideration before you jump right into bed with it. There’s no crime in “dating” an opportunity and learning as much as you can about it, but make sure that you are fully comfortable with the business proposition before wedding it.

There have been many times when I’ve jumped into partnerships with people – blindly – only to see things fall apart and crumble right before me. It’s a given that there will always be ways to work with other entrepreneurs to make big things happen, but you have to choose wisely and be selective – time is money, remember.

Sometimes things may seem rosy and dandy at the first sight of a new business opportunity, but after time you’ll catch yourself saying: “Why did I get involved in this project?”

So be smart and be super selective when choosing your next (or first) business opportunity with a partner. There’s no time to waste.