Category:

Bootstrapping

How to Start a Bar for $12,000

March 12, 2013, Bootstrapping

From my interview with Joey Tatum, character in School for Startups book. Started with 12k, and now owns half of Athens, GA

So I started saving all the money I could, and I actually saved enough. Starting out, I had like $12,000 in it, which at the time that was a chunk of money for me. To be able to save that up in only a year making less than $20,000 a year I thought was pretty good, and it worked. I opened the door with really no money left. They never say that’s your best approach to business but it worked. So with the last $500, I bought some inventory – luckily it stayed fairly steady from day one. But by the time I opened the door, I started renting the place. Luckily people came in – I guess I had known enough people in this town that when I opened they came.

His first place.

Certainly, I didn’t have the confidence to think this is a no brainer. I guess I had enough confidence in it to think it’s got a good shot. It’s just like any business, you got your own niches in the bar business. So I was thinking along the lines of a local place that folks in the service industry would come to, but my main clientele, still today, is musicians and artists, people that don’t have a whole lot of money to pay for a beer but want to go out and hang out.

So I guess based on the fact that I felt like there’s room for a place that’s more of a – for lack of a better term, a county bar, on some level it was right. It did work, and now I’ve been open 18 years, probably seen 40 or 50 bars open in this town since.

Skip McGrath on Goals and Starting a 6-Figure a Year Amazon Business

March 2, 2013, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship Stories

An excerpt from the School for Startups interview with Skip McGrath….

I didn’t hear the previous show about setting goals, but I’ve got to tell you that’s something I’m a big believer in. I like to write them down. I like to tell people and have them hold me accountable. Maybe once you make your first million you don’t need goals anymore, but I don’t know I’ve found it’s helped me all through my life because it’s easy to get distracted and to go off on a tangent.

There’s so much about selling on the internet is new and so many new things come across your desk every day and it’s easy to lose focus. But I have mine plastered right up on the wall above my computer. If I find myself getting distracted I just look up there and say, “Okay, I’m supposed to be working on number two today. Let’s get back to work.”

I had about a 30-year career in International Marketing. I’ve lived and traveled all over the world. In my last job, I was the senior vice president for the American side of a huge Japanese company running their corporate marketing efforts. We were living in upstate New York at the time.

This was about oh 15, 16 years ago in a little town called Fishkill in the Hudson Valley. My wife had an antique in a little town called Millbrook, which was up in the horse country and had a lot of wealthy people around there. We did pretty well with that.

Then finally, when the Japanese, the big turn down, when the Japanese economy crashed about in the mid-early-90s, I lost my job.

We had two young kids and we moved up here. And I just – I got a job, a regular marketing job, but my son – my 16 year old came and asked me for my credit card one day. He was buying and selling comic books on E-Bay. That’s what he wanted to do. I watched him for a while. He was actually making some money. We had boxes and boxes. When we closed the antique shop, we sold off all the large furniture pieces, but we put all the small items in boxes and brought them with us. We never did open an antique shop out here.

So I started taking things out of boxes and photographing them and putting them on E-Bay and low and behold, they were selling on E-Bay for more than we used to sell then for in our antique shop. That’s what hooked me and we kept going until we got rid of all our antiques and then we started buying books and new merchandise, and stuff like that and just grew the business.

Today, I’m dressed for work in a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. My long commute is upstairs. I step over the dog on the landing and go up a few more steps and I’m in my office, and that’s our commute. We make a well into six-figure income doing this and operate totally out of our home.

Radio Interview Highlight w Entre. Hall of Fame Member Ray Margiano

February 16, 2013, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship Stories

This is an excerpt from the SFS Radio Interview with Ray Margiano, PhD, Founder of Foot Solutions and Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame Member. Listen to the full interview on Business Radio X.

Well, I guess I was destined to eventually get into business for myself. My dad was first generation Italian. He had a small garage where he pumped gas and worked on cars and I think he mainly had me for free labor.

I started when I was 10 years old, working in the garage and I loved it. I mean, I built racing cars and did everything I liked with it, but at one point I wanted to get out of the business and he didn’t think that was a good idea, so I joined the Navy. That’s why I ended up in the service, was ready to get out of the garage business, which my dad really wanted me to do. And so, when I got out of the Navy, where do I end up? Back in the garage.

I wanted to go to college. I was able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill. I went to college full-time, working in the garage 50 hours a week. So people that say they can’t do that, they can if there’s a desire and they really want to do it. So, I did it in three years because I went through summers. I was in school from 8:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. I came back to the garage and worked there until 11:00 P.M. at night. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and top two percent of the group.

And we didn’t have the money to go to school, so even people talk about equality and chances. I mean, the bottom line is you have to make your own chances and you have to take advantage of the opportunities that did exist or do exist at the time. I was dedicated, didn’t miss any classes, but I think if I would’ve went to college before I went in the service, it would not have been this same.

There was no playing. I was there to study and learn. Look, in high school if I got C’s, I was lucky. I mean, I would never been able to go college if I had gone right after high school. I just wasn’t ready for it mentally or intelligent-wise, so the four years during the Navy was my breaking away and sort of developing myself as a person. And while I was in the Navy, I studied hard and wanted to grow intellectually, so just set the bar for where I was going.

Pretty clear why he is so successful, isn’t it. Want to succeed, work harder. I think Ray is an inspiration to us all. – Jim

Intro to Kenneth Darryl Brown Radio Interview

February 12, 2013, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship Stories

This is an excerpt from the SFS Radio interview with Kenneth Darryl Brown, the Passionate Entrepreneur. Listen to the entire interview on Business Radio X!

Detroit, Michigan is who I am today and what I got out of Detroit, Michigan is hard work and effort and it’s who I am today. But I left there in ’74, but it’s part of who I am today and what makes me who I am and successful and focused. I really got started into the sales stuff as a paperboy back in 1968, ’69, maybe ’70. Well, it really got started when my mother – my mother – I grew up in the Jeffries projects and we moved out of the Jeffries projects, I think, out of the frying pan into the fire. It was the year after the riots or maybe two years after the riots. And she bought a house and it – everything was great. However, what happened was, she fell down the steps and she couldn’t work and we ran out of money.

And I remember, we had crackers and water and the crackers ran out. And for a couple days, we didn’t eat. I didn’t eat, I don’t think my mother was eating either, but – and she was kind of – it didn’t seem like she was real concerned.

On the third day, I was getting very concerned (chuckle). Okay, what are we going to do today? I think I was 11, or 12. And so I’m – I’m going outside. I say, “Well, okay what am I going to do now?” And my friends, I had three friends that lived with their grandmother, Floyd, Tony, and Terry. And they said, “Hey, why don’t you come over and have breakfast?” And I’m like, “Wow, this is great.” Because I hadn’t eaten for three days – well, going on the third day.

So, they fed me pancakes and sausage, my very favorite breakfast. And one of the boys – well, two of the boys had paper routes, Tony and Floyd. And Tony said, “Hey, if you – you know, if you help me on the route, I’ll pay you.” I’m like, “Man, I would have did this for free,” because I just – I just got pancakes and sausage and I hadn’t eaten for, you know, in two days.

But I went out and helped them. He paid me and then I went back home. I said, “Ma, what do you want from the store?” She said, “Where’d you get the money.” I said, “I helped Tony on his paper route. What do you want?” And that changed my life because I went to work with Tony, he paid me. And I said, “Okay, well I don’t have to wait for my mother to say, “Okay, what are we going to do to eat.”"

And I started – that was my responsibility from then on. I brung (sic) the groceries home. It was my duty, my responsibility – there were ups and down. But that’s what happened, it changed my life and Tony said, “Hey, why don’t you get your own paper route?” And I said, “My mother doesn’t want me to get a paper route because they rob paperboys in Detroit.” And he said, “Man, you got to go make that money.” And so I said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

And so, I went down to the newspaper distribution center and – on Linwood and said, “Hey, I’d like to get a paper route.” And the guy’s kind of put you on. Said, “Well, you know, we don’t’ have too many. But we do have this paper route that has I think three or four apartments and I think it was three, or four, five, six stories.” And he said, “Hey, you might want to take this one, but – but it’s a lot of work. Yeah, like lots of stairs.”

But at this point, I need to make money. I said, “I’ll take it.” And so I took it and then I took another route on a – on another street and I built that route up. And that was my first sales job, if you will. I would go door-to-door selling newspapers, collecting money and – and that’s when I said nobody has to give me something. If I want it, I’m going to have to go after and get it.

And every day or every week, I had money and I – I made – I bought groceries for my mother and I changed my life. And the reason why I’m a coach and consultant and trainer today is if it wasn’t for that entrepreneur that opened up that paper distribution center, I would not have the opportunity to deliver and help my mother.

A Criminal Success Story in Progress – Part 1

February 10, 2013, Bootstrapping, Business Ownership, Entrepreneurship Stories

This is a guest post from Nathan Lefebvre of Forensic Training Source, LLC

Writing a success story may be a bit premature but…here’s what I have done since starting the School for Startups with Jim and Chris…

First a little back story: For many years, I ran the National Forensic Academy at the University of Tennessee. Somehow, with a Master’s degree in elementary education, I found myself as the administrator of a new standard in forensic training for law enforcement from around the world. The job was very rewarding and, as one might imagine, I made a tremendous number of contacts. I realized that there are many facets to law enforcement and my experiences with them were no longer limited to receiving a speeding ticket…or two. I developed a network of forensic practitioners around the country and came to call some of the nation’s most esteemed forensic experts my friends. Through a strange turn of events, I was lured away from my beloved NFA in the Spring of 2011 and moved to Metro-Atlanta. Shortly thereafter, I realized how much I missed being an active part of the forensic training community. Sooo. That’s enough back story, I think.

Although, I had left the academy, I remained connected with trainers looking for opportunities to teach and practitioners looking for opportunities to be trained. Although, I have never imagined myself as a business person, I began to realize that I had some opportunities that not many people have. Because of my unique experience and loyal former colleagues, I realized that I had the pieces that would be required to create a private crime scene investigation training organization.

Forensic Training Source is Born

In March of 2012, I found a CPA that helped me file the paperwork to actually create an LLC called Forensic Training Source. I spent $16 on a website template and a friend agreed to host a website for me for free. I had never spent a single moment creating an online content but I was determined to create something that would make my concept feel real. After many, MANY nights staying up until 4 am, I clicked the button that allowed the Forensic Training Source, LLC website to go live. I was so proud but now, I also look forward to the day that I can look back on this first generation of my website and smirk at how terrible it “was”.

Now, I was exposed to the world. I was nervous and hoped that people liked what they saw. As exciting as the concept of owning a business was, I had serious trepidations about publically acknowledging that I was giving it a try. Telling people I was going to go out on my own meant that they would know if I failed. It wasn’t a secret anymore. This sh$t was getting real!

The forensic community welcomed me back with open arms! Immediately after learning about my new company a friend that was planning a national forensic meeting approached me and offered to give Forensic Training Source some exposure during his event. I was grateful and asked how I could help him with his preparations. Turns out I had a skill set that he was looking for: I would handle his online registrations and payment collection on my website! I offered to do this without any compensation because I was anxious to gain the awareness that would result from everyone having to go to my website to register. That was a lot of people that would learn about Forensic Training Source that I might not otherwise reach. The arrangement was a tremendous success and my forensic friend was thrilled with my contribution. My registration system worked almost flawlessly. Nearly $50,000 of revenue flowed through my new, baby organization. People that had never heard of me or Forensic Training Source were more than willing…eager, almost… to send me checks and give me their credit card information. Apparently, my website was instilling enough trust for people to at least do business with me.

Well, that was great, but now what? I needed to generate some revenue. I needed to more effectively move from the theoretical realm to a practical, real-life business. Like I said, I was not a businessman. I needed some help making this happen.

School for Startups

“You should check this out.” My next door neighbor, David told me one day. “I’m going to send you a link to a school for startups. Maybe it could help you with your new business.” I found a schedule for 8 weeks of classes that would last all day for 8 Saturdays in a row. Jim and Chris appeared to local guys and everything I read made me feel like this appeared to be something worth investigating further… maybe even legit. I was relatively new to Atlanta and I was definitely hoping to connect with other people in the area…especially if they would be good resources, sounding boards and guides as I pursued the creation of my company. I decided to go.

Saturday morning rolled around and when that alarm went off, I thought very seriously about shutting it off, rolling over and going back to sleep. A 45-minute drive on a Saturday morning? My only morning to sleep in? All day in a CLASS? It went against ever fiber, but I got up and drove downtown. I was prepared to bolt the moment I realized I had fallen prey to a scam. Instead, the presentation began. Jim described how sponsors like UPS and Wells Fargo were making it possible for them to deliver the courses for free. I didn’t need to buy a single thing. The information was great. I started to breathe a little easier and settled in. Amazingly, 8.5 hours passed incredibly fast and we were leaving. I had pages upon pages of notes. Lists of resources. Ideas of where to go to get more ideas. Practical advice and stories of real successes and avoidable failures. Jim and Chris seemed real, down to earth and approachable. The information that they shared was practical and realistic and I left feeling like there were tangible baby steps that I could start to take so that Forensic Training Source could begin to move forward. Before I pulled out of the parking garage, I had already used my smart phone to register for the next week’s session. I was hooked.

In Part 2, we will learn what happened to his business next….

“JOBS” Law Has HUGE Impact for Entrepreneurs

April 5, 2012, Angels, Bootstrapping, Raising Money, Venture Capital

Last week both houses of Congress passed the JOBS Act (JOBS stands for “Jumpstart our Business Startups”). The law, making it easier to raise up to $1million from a larger pool of investors, garnered bipartisan support, passing the House 380-41 and the Senate 73-26 (all votes against were Democratic). President Obama indicated that he plans to sign the law on today, with Eric Cantor (a major sponsor) in attendance.

The law will create very few jobs, the name is purely political, but has huge implications for entrepreneurial funding. I think what excites me the most is that from now the excuse “I can’t find funding” is mute! Funding is now so much easier to get, maybe too easy! Can we say “invitation to fraud”? And “You got funding for that?”

The big change is the formalization and government blessing for crowdfunding. Crowdfunding opens startup investing to almost all individuals (is that good I wonder? The Hope Scholarship here in Georgia makes college much easier for all, and has hurt education I would argue!) and gives young companies more funding opportunities. Companies can sell securities to non-accredited investors using the various crowdfunding platforms. Websites such as Indiegogo.com, Kiva.com, and Kickstarter.com allow entrepreneurs to post business plans for thousands to read and possibly invest. Instead of fighting to get meeting with pretentious venture capitalists and angels, entrepreneurs can get capital from willing small investors just by posting online. Individuals making less than $40,000 a year will only be able to invest 2 percent of their annual income in startups. Those earning more than $100,000 can invest up to 5 percent.

The biggest change perhaps is the so-called 500 rule. It becomes the 2,000 rule, meaning that certain SEC reporting is delayed until the company has 2,000 shareholders. This extra room allows companies to sell shares to 1,500 extra people, the crowd.

For more advanced companies, they have greater flexibility in filing to enter the public markets, hopefully making it easier to IPO. By allowing general solicitation, companies raising money will operate under new rules, which should make it easier. But like the rest of the bill, the final implementation lies up to the rule-writing SEC. Some VCs opposed this easing, arguing that going public is supposed to be hard.

The effect of all this? Some crappy companies will get funded for sure. Fraud will go up, and the cheated will be the poorest, even though they are supposedly protected. The number of jobs will certainly NOT go up. Nothing in the bill does that.

This is the most important aspect: funding should become much, much easier, even for bad ideas. I predict that for awhile, 2-3 years, this sort of investing will be cool, in vogue. Crappy ideas will get funded. Everyone should list their young companies and see how much money they can get off the table. Reduce risk, see how much Kickstarter money you can get. I plan to.

How to Get Free Legal Advice!

March 15, 2012, Bootstrapping, Legal Issues

From time to time, all businesses need some legal counsel. Just this last summer, this business, School for Startups, had some legal issues that could have been all consuming. I will tell you that story another day, but today I want to tell you what you as a small business person should do if you face a legal situation.

So, on the Friday before last Memorial Day weekend, I got some hate mail from a lawyer. I was at my family vacation house, and told my entire family the story over breakfast. My brother said he had read something similar in BusinessWeek recently, and might even have an article in his car. This started step one, extensive research. I spent most of the 3 day weekend on the internet researching stories similar to mine. The amount of data was immense, especially once I found a starting point. The popular media gave me several names of attorneys that were working in the relevant space.

Step two, get free advice by playing dumb, something I am good at! I called each attorney, and several in town, and asked for a free consultation hour, to see if I wanted to hire them. They all said yes, and I spent several hours, for free, getting great advice. Some of each call was repetitious, but you have to ask some dumb, starter questions at first. Soon, we had amassed enough knowledge to deal with the issues. However, let me make one point very clear: we decided NOT fight this particular battle. So, we never went to court, when we certainly would have needed real help. But, I would bet that if we went to one lawyer in the beginning and paid him to get to us the same conclusion, it would have cost $10,000 at least.

I told a friend of mine about this, part of a couple adopting a 1 year old baby, child of a drug addict and multiple time felon. The couple went to many lawyers and got several hours of free advice, one hour at a time. They think they saved thousands too.

Another way to bootstrap…..

I Need Restaurant Introductions and Will Pay for Them!!!

February 25, 2012, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship Stories, Startup

One of the reasons I think School for Startups is the best place to learn entrepreneurship is that the teachers here are real working business starters. I am excited to announce a new venture and to solicit your help! I would like to pay you for successful introductions in the restaurant industry. And as blog reader here, you will get to follow the progress of the company.

Briefly, you know that the only place left in America when your credit card leaves your hand is at restaurants. And according to the Secret Service, 80% of identify theft starts at a restaurant. We are selling a hand held credit card processing unit that the wait staff can bring directly to the table, allowing the patron to pay instantly and securely. Diners love it because they get security and they get to leave faster, no waiting for your card to come back. Staff love it because tips go up (from about 11% on average to 15% on average), they have less runs back to their station, and they get an extra table per night. Owners love it because they get an extra table per busy night and their costs go down on credit card processing, saving them tens of thousands. Learn more about it here at our site, Dine Fraud Free. We have already installed systems in about 70 restaurants mostly in Las Vegas and Texas. And, the new tech totally integrates into the restaurants existing point of sale system.

Most restaurants in Asia, Europe, and South America already feature this technology, you may have seen it on your travels. Many restaurants tried it 5-7 years ago, and it failed. Improvements in Bluetooth technology, increased awareness of fraud among consumers, and the new Durbin Law make this the perfect time.

For each restaurant I sell that you introduced me to, I can pay about $1,500, depending on size. If you introduce me and I sell to a chain of 5, that’s a lot. So I need intros to decision makers, owners or general managers.

Think about it for a few minutes. Got any ideas to make us both money?

Thanks for reading all this.

Jim

james.beach at att.net – no spaces

A Friend Wrote this About Getting Money From Family

October 2, 2011, Bootstrapping, Business Ownership, Business Partners, Financial Concerns, Humor, Raising Money

Your first section on “bootstrapping” is really great: “Most businesses get stuck.” I have this uncle who is a rocket scientist. (Really…a “rocket scientist”…In the 60s/70s he designed rocket propulsion systems and robotics for handling nuclear material)….So in the 80s he decided to

School for Startups at UGA bookstore!

raise money for a company for manufacturing robotics. Great idea and businesses do it every day…but he had NO idea how to run it as a profitable business himself. So he went to raise money from…family. Dad grudgingly participated (knowing better and loudly complaining in the process) because of the relationship. Almost thirty years later the uncle still sends out investor letters, still takes “annual losses” that enable him to take fun vacations around the world. No family ever made a dime. Dad passed away years back.

Well, we all very much still love that uncle. It’s how we roll…Dad was smart enough not to expect anything – it was a gift for family even if the uncle didn’t take it as such. My lesson: NEVER NEVER EVER EVER raise money from family unless you’ve got some crazy reason to know it is a SURE bet (maybe a contract in hand or product pre-sold…maybe). Because if you’re going to family…It’s probably because your idea isn’t strong enough to show to somebody you don’t know as well. So even subconsciously it’s just not honest and somebody will probably loose because you wanted to play around.

Critical Shortage of Experts

August 31, 2011, Bootstrapping, Business Ownership, Buying a Business

Apparently, there is a critical lack of things to talk about on TV and they are running out of people to say stuff: click here.

My old favorite restaurant, the Radial Cafe on DeKalb, has changed hands and WXIA was reporting on this as a sign of the times. A career food guy lost his corporate job and bought the restaurant as his job. Buying a job. I didn’t say in the interview that I prefer starting from scratch instead of buying, but still job well done. He is feeding his family.

Coincidentally, I used to eat at Radial everyday. They had a fried chicken, bacon, provo cheese sandwich there named the Jim Beach!

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Bootstrapping

How to Start a Bar for $12,000

Skip McGrath on Goals and Starting a 6-Figure a Year Amazon Business

Radio Interview Highlight w Entre. Hall of Fame Member Ray Margiano

Intro to Kenneth Darryl Brown Radio Interview

A Criminal Success Story in Progress – Part 1

“JOBS” Law Has HUGE Impact for Entrepreneurs

How to Get Free Legal Advice!

I Need Restaurant Introductions and Will Pay for Them!!!

A Friend Wrote this About Getting Money From Family

Critical Shortage of Experts

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