This story of yours suggests that you have guided yourself far afield from your business.

I always push the MLK saying  “Keep your eye on the Prize”.

I would suggest that you have drifted far from that Prize and you are now asking others time to join you in that pursuit.

You know what your Prize is, you have been pursuing it for years.

Does this seriously threaten that Prize?

How much time have you spent on this and how has it gotten you closer to the Prize?

Relax, tend your field, it is your Prize.  Don’t get distracted, it will only cause pain.

Good luck, Barry

I think that many of us as entrepreneurs, as we are passionately slaving towards a goal, loose sight of the prize that we’re working towards.  As an example, around the Tech Ranch Austin, recently I recognized that one of our entrepreneurs, who is passionate about serving persons that have diabetes, was talking about how to go get investors here, and investors there… yet had yet to just serve the constituency that he is passionate about.  He’s now has the first 10 diabetics that he is serving… and the business has taken on a whole new tone of possibilities.  It does not matter what the distraction is… anything that is not core to the business can distract you from the Prize (as it has me too). Keep your eye on the prize.  Build your business.  Create success for yourself, and those that you serve. And through doing this, you’ll be making the world a better place.

Recently, there’s been one meme that has gotten tweeted and talked about by quite a few people, that till now, I did not think had any connection to each other.

And what this meme represents is what I believe is the first shot in the next American Revolution.

No, I am not talking about some group trying to send someone to some new political office.  As you might know, I was (and still am) in support of the choice I made in supporting President Obama…. yet, there’s something much more fundamental happening… and this represents the start of something revolutionary.

To steal a phrase from John Robb: “an aware citizenry can defend itself“.  Up to this time, every time some issue has come up, there’s been a question of turning to the government for a solution.  Yet, given what’s happened in the Congress for so many years, whether a Republican or a Democrat in the Oval Office, the citizenry I believe has now come to learn that the government is in itself fundamentally broken.

And by broken, what do I mean?  From John Robb’s article:

• Median male incomes today are the same as they were in 1974 in the US (and likely all over the western world).  No progress has been made despite a doubling of productivity and massive top line GDP growth. Worse, given that female incomes aren’t on par with male incomes yet, the typical American family makes much less per hour worked than in 1974.
• All of the requirements for entry into the middle class are now private expenses.  From health care to a college education, if you can’t afford the minimum (let alone high quality versions), you aren’t allowed entry.  Worse, those expenses are spiraling out of control at rates many times the rate of inflation.  Nothing is being done to address this.
• The system is geared to make us fail.  Not only has outsourcing/off-shoring just started (everything that can be moved offshore to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity in wage disparities between western and workers in developing countries will be) we are being laden with un-repayable debt. To wit: there’s been NO job growth in the last decade (despite tens of millions in population growth) and total debt from all sources is still near ALL time historical highs.

Whethere the  mishandling of healthcare reform,  security theater in the airports, or spending billions on companies that shouldn’t be bailed out, or trillions on a war that should have never been started, Americans are starting to speak out in a way that we’ve not done for a long while.  And recognize its the aware populace that’s been taking care of business. The genie is out of the bottle.

Although I might not be happy about the waste by our government, as an entrepreneur, and an American, I’m excited that some of my fellow Americans are waking up and starting the process that will reform, dare I say revolutionize this country again.   It is time to take up web browser, account ledger, and social network and remake our country.  There’s too much at stake, for “every revolution begins with the power of an idea” and this is an idea who’s time has come.

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

What’s happened for me is that as a Founding Partner of the Tech Ranch, I need time both as a Maker (getting things done for the Ranch and our portfolio companies)  and a Manager (involved with the Tech Ranch community).  Having those moments to work in without interruptions really makes a difference- say to review a spreadsheet, or respond to a strategic plan, or even to just handle email… As Paul points out:

Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager’s schedule, they’re in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.

This year, as one of my new years resolutions in order to grow the Tech Ranch I am going to have to spend more time on a Maker’s Schedule.  I am sure that it will take some time to work out this type of schedule, and at first, I am sure that its going to feel different for some members of our community…. but I see spending more time in a Maker’s Schedule essential for me to build our community.  Its not just about building out the Tech Ranch, but about creating situations that end up long term making the community itself stronger through seeing that our companies get to move farther and faster.  All I ask, in echoing Paul’s words, is that everyone understand the need that we / I have in spending more time as a Maker. I will still be available for meetings, and am really interested in interacting with the community in depth (as I always have been and always will be).  Spending more time on just getting things done is essential for 2010’s growth.  In order to create more hours to be a Maker, I’ll be setting up office hours. And I am open to other ideas as well.  Please let me know if you have other ideas that I should pursue.  Through this I am looking forward to serving our community farther than I could in 2009, and I am hoping that we together can take many of the Tech Ranch companies to a whole new level together.

As I make this transition to setting aside more time as a Maker, I ask for your patience with how I start to manage my schedule, and I hope you see what I am aiming for in bringing our community much farther than before.  Thank you for the support in 2009; Its now time to grow and strengthen our community together in 2010.

Do you have an idea for the next insanely great product or service? Are you having a hard time figuring out how you can step away from your current gig to launch your venture? Have you launched your venture and are now trying to scale it? Are you looking for the right team to make your venture pop? Do you need up to $100,000 in pro-bono services and expertise? If so, read on.  Tech Ranch Austin is excited to announce our next program for emerging technology entrepreneurs: Tech Ranch Venture Forth. The Venture Forth Program is all about accelerating venture success with a goal of getting your idea to the market as quickly as possible – testing and correcting along the way.

This program is the next generation of our successful Employee to Entrepreneur seminars.  But this time, we have kicked it up with up to $100k in free services and access to experts for each startup in the program.  The next Venture Forth program starts in late October and your venture could be generating revenue before the end of 2009!  We’d love for you to join us or share this information with someone who is itching to get their startup accelerated.

You can read the details, watch a video from Kevin and Jonas, and sign up for one of the 15 available slots here: http://techranchaustin.com/ventureforth

If you have questions, comments or ideas, please respond directly to us directly either through the comments or via email at info@techranchaustin.com

Best of luck in your venture!

Complementary currency is, as the name suggest, a monetary system for conducting business between individuals that can live along side a nation backed currency system (e.g. the US Dollar).  Complementary currency systems allow individuals to conduct trade / business without having to use money backed by a central government.  That is, as an example, I could do business with a graphic artist who in turn does business with an engineer with in turn does business back with me.  Instead of just “bartering” between us, the complementary currency system allows me (like when using dollars) to not have to intimately know who I am doing business with, for the currency (whether dollars or complementary currency) tracks the transaction.

It seems, that with the current economic conditions that the US and the world has been facing that there is even greater interest than before in this method of conducting business by a more general crowd than I had previously found when I was looking into complementary currency in 2006/7.  This article by Kevin Kelleher on the Gigaom blogging network speaks to how a wider crowd of individuals might be looking to use complementary currency in the coming year(s).   Kevin writes:

[Chris Anderson, writer of The Long Tail,] imagined this excess ability expanding as unemployed workers engage in labors of love for free, if only to do something valuable with their time and/or advertise their skills.

…

I wonder what kind of creativity could be unleashed by workers who, though deprived of a steady paycheck, are freed from such tedious tasks. Some could come up with new ideas that help vault the web to a more advanced stage. Others may make micro-contributions that are equally powerful in aggregate. Such creativity could then foster an entirely new generation of startups, which would eventually lure away some of those who had remained at steady jobs all along.

I believe that complementary currency has the chance of expanding something that ends up being much more resilient than just filling the gap in an under-employed market.  I believe that we could see the rise of not just a reputation system that tracks who did what, but a deepening of the currency system in general, where we have an environment that makes it possible for more former employees become entrepreneurs, exploring their capabilities, talents, and passions… ending up not just looking for a job for when the economy recovers, but in establishing themselves in businesses that the traditional monetary cost of capital would have been a barrier to them before.

So, for the Austinites following my blog- what became of this local complementary currency system?  Although it did not take off in the direction that we all expected, there is notable work being done here locally… led by one of the guys that taught me about it in the first place- Tom Brown.  Tom and Rich Vazquez are writing about these concepts at the Open Source Currency Blog, and have a full blown complementary currency system running at the Austin Time Exchange.  In fact, they just had a meeting talking about the “Next Economy”.

Its uncertain about what will be happening with the US and world economies- but it is good to know that there are alternatives that are being explored for entrepreneurs here in Austin.  Keep me appraised of what you are seeing out there as well, and I will do the same through this blog.

HOUSE WINE

408 Josephine
Austin 78704-1017
+1.512.322.5210

Here is a map.  This location is very close to the Barton Springs / Lamar intersection.  They have wine and beer inexpensively priced.  Moreover, if you have a good recent war story (whether the outcome was good, or if it created a lot of scar tissue for you) I will buy you your first drink.  (Ok, so I am only going to do this for the first 10 good entrepreneurial-scar-tissue-stories, as we comisserate together.  )  Catch me via twitter if you have any questions, or post a comment here.  I look forward to catching up with you then.

Q. What is your advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding or growth opportunities if the credit and capital markets continue on their current course?

A. My advice is that they melt wax into their ears and go forward. If they are waiting for wonderful credit and capital markets, they probably aren’t entrepreneurs. They’re much more likely to be consultants and bankers looking to quickly flip a company.

It feels like a great time to be an entrepreneur. I am sorry to see so many other people in the world upset about financial doom and gloom.  Maybe at some point I will change my song…. but for now, I am glad to be building a company, and helping other entrepreneurs build their companies.  Yes, all of us entrepreneurs have to be somewhat more conservative right now than we might be during boom-times, but it is a GREAT time to start a company.  If you have been displaced from your previous job, or have the general entrepreneurial itch that you have not been scratching, and you have the entrepreneur jean (not the consultant or banker gene described above) build it now.  Sure, calculate it out… but realize that right now, entrepreneurial businesses will be the first to recover and thrive from the present credit crisis. Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!

Enterprise Tribes: Supporting Emerging Tech Startups In the Age of Web 2.0

Failure to receive support early enough in the startup cycle is a challenge that has kept many promising technologies from ever making it to the market. Venture capital and angel investment have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high-risk ventures at the earliest stages. The fate of the typical entrepreneur has been to build his business through sweat, credit cards and friends-and-family investments. But now, social networking technologies are making increasing amounts of social capital available – significantly reducing financial costs faced by entrepreneurs. Mr. Koym shares stories of startups that use social capital in place of cash and the principles that benefit emerging technologies companies – whether bootstrapped or investor-backed.

One page abstract:  for Track 5:  Business & Economic Development

The sad truth standing in the way of getting many promising technologies to market is that most startup support programs don’t work early enough in the startup cycle to be significant at the times of entrepreneurs’ greatest need.  Venture capital and angel investment certainly have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high risk at the earliest stages. Until recently, the typical entrepreneur stood alone in building his business through his own sweat, credit card and the cash offered up by friends and family. However, social networking technologies now are creating opportunities to significantly reduce the financial cost of building a business, by making social capital more widely and easily accessible.  In this speech, Mr. Koym will share examples of startups that are leveraging social capital in lieu of financial capital and the principles that work for companies in the emerging technologies arena.

As a technology visionary, including predicting and ushering in web based eCommerce in 1994 and building the startup company that subsequently leading Dell Computer Corporation’s billion dollar eCommerce site in 1996; Predicting the usage of Linux in embedded devices in 2002, subsequently leading the deployment of this startup’s products across Schlumberger’s world wide network; Mr. Koym now is charting where social networking technologies are opening up opportunities to change the face of entrepreneurship, culminating in four conceptual shifts that he sees will drive change across the five domains of the individual, the corporation, the enterprise tribe, on demand services, and governments.

The Four Conceptual Shifts that Mr. Koym is predicting will show up in the following ways:
1.    Superempowerment of the individual, where individuals exchange the mythical stability of a corporate job for the stability of self-employment, producing an entrepreneurial mindset that creates a truly resilient workforce.
2.    New open corporate structures that allow much greater flexibility by coordinating many outside players in an open, yet not vulnerable, value chain
3.    The rise of the Enterprise Tribe- a presently emerging social structure where entrepreneurs connect and support each other much in ways resembling America’s agrarian past
4.    A “Chinese menu” of on demand, robust, Internet delivered services, organized by vendors large and small
5.    Governments that become agile, and in many times, partially replaced by grass-roots community efforts organized through social networks.

A simple demonstration of this insight can be found in my friend Felipe Contreras Haye’s statement:

Hemos venido a hacer una invitación a varios establecimientos educacionales a sumarse junto a nosotros a un proyecto de Innovación Educativa basada en los principios (NO EN LAS HERRAMIENTAS) de la Web 2.0. (emphasis added by Kevin)

For my friends that don’t read Spanish, I will translate, adding my understanding and interpretation to his statement- “We are sending invitations to various educational establishments around a innovative education based on the principles of Web 2.0, not the tools of Web 2.0. ”

This is a profound insight… why ? Many times the focus of entrepreneurs that I work with in the US, especially because of our technological prowess- we sometimes are drawn to think that technology is driving the dynamic growth of the Internet. Hardly. The social disposition of Internet users drives the net… and education should be directed at the social underpinnings and changing users perceptions of the net- not just training individuals on tools. Tools will change, within 6 months. The ability to “see” opportunities and how to respond to them in the world will stand, no matter what changes in the domain of technology. This need to “see” opportunities and not be blinded by shinny-object technology is essential for all entrepreneurs.

Just like the Internet was not “just like TV, but better”, the shift that is coming is not “just like Web 2.0 but better”.  A fundamental shift is occurring.  Do you see it?

Activities on the Internet are shifting from (1) broadcast to (2) Web 2.0 conversations to (3) cooperation (taking action together).  Greater than at any point in the history of the Internet cooperative behaviors are taking place- where people are not just talking with each other, but an even greater amount of collective action is happening…. and in this, what is significant is not the large system collective action (as an example, political campaigns like the Obama campaign) but the small scale activities.  What is unique about these new small scale activities, compared to grass roots activities of the past?  This is not just grass roots happening, but the fact that these small scale activities are producing real business impact.  Small groups of entrepreneurs around the world are connecting together, getting real work done, and creating better economic outcomes.

For myself, I have been doing this round the world with working with software developers world-wide- and other business people both in Austin as well as at considerable distance.  Constraints- whether they be financial,  skills, or resource limitations are being more easily overcome than at any point in the history of the world.  Cooperation, not just conversation is the new, coming language of the Internet.  We see this already in open source software projects and in the remix of certain parts of the music industry… but cooperation is not going to stop there.  Although risk abound, a new language and new practices for cooperating world-wide is emerging.  We’ll keep around Web 2.0 just like we have kept around our old TV’s… but it is time to make space for the cooperation-economy, and realize that it is not going to be “just like Web 2.0 but  better.”

“…the most significant factor was the state of a nation’s Social Technology. The rule of law, the existance of property rights, a well organized banking system, economic transparency, a lack of corruption, and other social and institutional factors played a far greater role in determining national economic success than did any other category of factors. Even countries with few resources and incompetent governments did reasonably well if they had a strong, well-developed Social Technologies. On the flip side, no countries with poor Social Technologies performed well, no matter how well endowed they were with resources or how disciplined their macroeconomic policies were.”

What community leaders of all stripes (local, state, government) should see in this statement is that the opportunity for using social networking technologies can have an even more profound effect for amplifying more general social technologies for supporting entrepreneurs. Clearly community leaders that embrace the adoption of these new tools for supporting their entrepreneurs will win. The entrepreneurs (and communities!) whose leaders ignore these trends will lose out.

Thank you to my colleague Greg Hennessy for bringing Beinhocker’s work to my attention.

As you have heard here at this blog, the shift towards the superempowered individual and the attitudinal shift towards work will drive entrepreneurs to create businesses that follow their passions.  No matter where the economy takes the US in the short term, this long term outlook of aligning individuals with their passions in their work bodes well for the future.

What is needed most, though, are structures to support these entrepreneurs.  In the coming days and weeks I will be blogging about new initiatives that we will be doing to create large scale efforts of supporting entrepreneurs.  Get in contact (through email or comments on this blog) if you are interested in being a part of these efforts in your community.

“O.K., but how are loosely organized workers going to replace and compete with companies like Dell? Can hundreds of I-build/support-PCs-in-my-bedroom companies make it in Austin? What other things are these people going to do?”

This is a good question, and there is no simple answer. No, I am not recommending that a number of loosely connected entrepreneurs try to go head to head in the computer assembly business with Dell. What is needed, is creating whole new types of connections and organizations of companies, to create and release whole new levels of value through innovation. A very timely article just came in from Fast Company, called The World’s Most Innovative Companies:

[P&G created the] Connect Develop program, which allows outside developers to get their concepts and designs into P&G’s product pipeline. An applicator developed by Cardinal Health (now Catalent), for example, helped P&G launch Olay Regenerist Eye Derma-Pods, now its top-selling skin-care item. Today, 42% of P&G products have an externally sourced component. And this giant is growing: Revenues rose 8%, to $78 billion, last fiscal year, while profits climbed 14%, to $11 billion.

P&G is showing that it has learned the need for leveraging a knowledge ecology around its business- they are leveraging the brains outside of their corporate walls…. with profits climbing.

The opportunity for entrepreneurs in the future is not just in “sourcing of components” but also the sourcing of new ideas, and creating even higher value add activities than what they might have previously done at former employers. Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with a P&G executive- who is actively exploring how to enhance P&G’s marketing programs- by identifying companies that are (1) sourcing of ideas, (2) placements of advertising or (3) media outlets… with one unique strategy: engage companies that are one or two of these types, but not companies that are trying to be all three (which by the way, allows smaller companies to play a part in P&G’s go-forward marketing strategies).  For the sake of this blog post, the key thing to glean from this article is that what I am talking about- moving to ecology strategies of organizing work- is already happening. This article about P&G confirms that this is already happening.
As a community (whether that community is Austin, or Texas, or the US, or the world), we need to support the timely transition from employee/former employee to entrepreneur, and supporting companies like Dell transition from command-and-control strategies to “ecology” strategies as quickly and smoothly as possible.  No, this won’t be easy, but the reality of massive layoffs are not creating many other choices…. but in the end, it is my belief that this transition will lead to healthier workplaces, with more direct control over one’s own work, resulting in people actually doing what they love.

First and foremost, I recognize that this is a business decision, that Dell is making in order to survive…. Yet recognize, how is it that Dell has had to make such a drastic decision- when there could have been other options previous to this choice?

What options? This is where the opportunity to transition from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology” is happening… if not by strategists at Dell, certainly by some of the disaffected workers that are losing their jobs today. Some number of these former employees are going to recognize the false illusion of the stability of the “job” of the past, and start transitioning to becoming entrepreneurs- making their own employment. And in the end, this will benefit both Dell and Dell’s former employers- for the ecology of work will become much more resilient…. (right now, as an example, 900 workers hitting the unemployment lines at the exact same time. This will make finding the next job for each one of them very, very difficult. Moreover, many of these workers will not have yet developed the skills to become entrepreneurs yet )

And to the former employees that just lost their jobs… make sure that you wake up when you read the word opportunity in the line above “We believe we have a $3 billion opportunity to drive both productivity and efficiency“. When a former employer looks at cutting your job as an opportunity, it is time to change your outlook on the idea of a job.
What needs to happen is we, the Austin community, need to start working together at a level that we have not done before- and fight the recession that we are in head on. I am hopeful, that although this economic downturn will be very hard on the workers that are displaced, that through the shattering of the idea of long term employment, better entrepreneurial outcomes will come for all.

Moreover, it is time to stop coddling companies like Dell. From the article above:

Dell also received almost $280 million in incentives from the state of North Carolina to build the plant, which is not operating at full capacity.

This is a shame…. If you remember that over 50% of the jobs created in the US last year were created in firms of 10 people or less. It is time that US economic policies start promoting our entrepreneurs to create resilient business ecologies. $280 million dollars would have gone a long way to create opportunity for entrepreneurs, whether through the programs that we are doing through Bootstrap Austin or Door64 here in Central Texas. 900 people lost their jobs today. Let’s do something to ensure that we support our entrepreneurs into the future to create resilience in our job marketplace, and to fight this recession that we are in.

To take advantage of the conceptual shifts that I have written about my forthcoming book, a number of Austin entrepreneur support organizations are meeting together at the University of Texas’ IC2 Institute. I will be facilitating the session, following the design of some of the meetings that we used while I was in Chile- focused on facilitating dialogue between entrepreneurs. Here is a map to the location.

Please sign up here and join us in making Austin’s community of entrepreneurs stronger.

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

We are seeing a new class of worker emerge. This worker is taking advantage of Conceptual Shift #1- the Superempowerment of the Individual. Passion is what is driving “superempowerment”. It is also what is driving a massive shift in how work is being done- and this will force a major change among individuals and companies into the future.

]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2008/01/18/seth-godin-speaking-about-conceptual-shift-3-an-attitudinal-shift-towards-work/feed/ 1 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2008/01/17/meet-the-man-that-created-an-economic-miricle/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2008/01/17/meet-the-man-that-created-an-economic-miricle/#comments Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:02:08 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2008/01/17/meet-the-man-that-created-an-economic-miricle/ Over the holiday weekend, I had the honor of meeting a man that has catalyzed an economic miracle for a part of Chihuahua, Mexico. Spencer MacCallum discovered the work of Juan Quezada, and over 30 years took the little town of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, Mexico creating “the fairy tale of Mata Ortiz”.

Spencer spoke of how Mata Ortiz went from a poverty stricken dust bowl to now a hopeful place of over 500 potters among the town’s 2500 citizens. Moreover, the town has galvanized together an industry that anyone of the town’s members are invited to be a part of. Juan Quezada’s artistic influence has been an open door to the whole town- giving others the skills to pull themselves out of poverty. And the pottery that they are creating is not the run of the mill stuff that you might have seen in some random flee market- many of Juan’s art pieces go for over $4,000 USD when sold in Mata Ortiz- or much, much more when sold in the US market.

What I found so profoundly interesting is this community created social capital with each other- building their own “business ecosystem”, and with this pulled each other out of poverty. And even more so- great acknowledgment goes to Spencer MacCallum in recognizing what this community had to offer to the world- and how he catalyzed this community out of poverty.

]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2008/01/17/meet-the-man-that-created-an-economic-miricle/feed/ 1 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/30/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/30/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:27:49 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2007/11/30/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/ A friend of mine that I use to work with at NeXT, Inc. just forwarded the following Youtube video. Working with Steve Jobs at the start of my career has forever positively warped my sense of what is possible in the world. Steve says “Follow your heart, even when it leads you off of the well-worn path”. Also “If you live your life like today is your last day, some day you will be right.” Thank you Steve. Thinking like this changes the world. Here is Steve Jobs’ commencement speech to the recent graduates of Stanford.

Entrepreneurship is not just about building great products.  Steve says “You can’t connect the dots looking forward”. You must follow your heart.  Thanks to Kedar Mhaswade for helping Conrad Geiger at Sun find this video.

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Tags: entrepreneurship

]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/30/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/feed/ 3 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/urgent-focus-small-business-growth-and-tightened-credit/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/urgent-focus-small-business-growth-and-tightened-credit/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:37:40 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2007/11/29/urgent-focus-small-business-growth-and-tightened-credit/ Recently there has been a bunch of press about the growing threat of recession coming to the US.  Today’s front page article of the New York Times tells a story that all of us as entrepreneurs need to start preparing for called “As Lenders Tighten Flow of Credit, Growth at Risk“

From the article there are two important paragraphs to note:

Credit flowing to American companies is drying up at a pace not seen in decades, threatening the creation of jobs and the expansion of businesses, while intensifying worries that the economy may be headed for recession.

The article goes on to focus on small business, and how small business is getting hit the worst.  So why is this important? Small business is where all of our growth and job creation is coming from. From the NY Times article:

In recent months, smaller companies have been adding jobs even as larger firms have been shedding workers, according to the ADP National Employment Report, which tracks changes at companies with payrolls overseen by ADP. From May to October, 276,000 of the 378,000 jobs added were at companies with fewer than 50 employees, the report found.

It is the entrepreneurs that are building startup and small businesses that are contributing to the greatest growth of the US economy.  Programs that are being structured by the government should take this in account- and support small business- versus focusing on solutions for large, slow moving corporations that typically are the benefactors of the pork coming out of Washington DC.

So what can entrepreneurs do in lieu of dealing with a drying up of financial capital other than make sure that they voice their vote strongly in the coming election?  Although I will go over this in a coming blog post and also in my forthcoming book, given today’s news, it is worth mentioning here sooner as well.  Even though financial capital might not be as available, social capital can be utilized to continue to build businesses.  Social capital, called “human capital” in Paul Hawkin’s book called Natural Capitalism can be a somewhat replacement in lieu of financial capital.  Creating social capital is what we have been doing in Bootstrap Austin and other entrepreneurial social networks that I have been building.  To get an idea of how this is happening…  think back to times when farmers helped each other raise barns together… these farmers were creating social capital with each other (“I help you, you help me”).  As many stories from my family members can attest, they had no access to financial capital… but they could help each other, and survive the worst of recessions.  It appears that the US is entering into a time that once again that entrepreneurs building social capital together will be the way that we are going to be building our businesses, as financial capital runs and hides during the storm.  Thanks goes to David Armistead for one of the conversations that helped me clarify some of the distinctions in this capital transformation.

]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/urgent-focus-small-business-growth-and-tightened-credit/feed/ 2 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/superempowerment-at-your-doorstep/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/superempowerment-at-your-doorstep/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:05:51 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2007/11/29/superempowerment-at-your-doorstep/ The following New York Times article “Personal Assistants on Call, Just Not in the Next Office” is further evidence of a growing trend of entrepreneurs hiring, at a few hours at a time, personal assistants to lower the “80 percent of their time on the trivial 20 percent of tasks”. As I mentioned in a previous post about the Superempowerment of the Individual we are at a time that entrepreneurs that allow themselves to get bogged down in the minutia won’t be focused on their true strategic value… These entrepreneurs should be embracing support at very affordable prices, allowing them to live easier, while still building their businesses. And this is not just about offshore resources. Local Austin companies are providing these types of services as well. It is great to see support to be now in reach of the individual entrepreneur or employee, at a level that has never been present before. Expect access to these types of services to expand, as our economy shifts from being a knowledge economy to an knowledge ecology, with further specialization of services that are available on an hourly basis, at an inexpensive price, as needed.

]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/29/superempowerment-at-your-doorstep/feed/ 0 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/12/a-preview-of-exponential-entrepreneurship/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/12/a-preview-of-exponential-entrepreneurship/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:36:46 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2007/11/12/a-preview-of-exponential-entrepreneurship/ Here is a quick preview of the conceptual shifts that I am wring about in my forthcoming book Exponential Entrepreneurship: Building Business Ecologies for the 21st Century.  Marla my editor has been kicking butt (mainly mine and taking names  as we refine the trends that I see shifting the way work is being done.  Please share your feedback with me as well- whether through this blog as a comment or a private email to me- let me know how you see these shifts driving the way work is happening.  Jumping right in- there are four trends that I am trending as well as predicting:

1. The Superempowerment of the Individual: we’re entering a time that not only is it cheaper to build a business because the cost of doing so has gone way down, but also, a true shift to knowledge work is empowering entrepreneurs at a level that has never been seen before on this planet
2. Shifting from a Knowledge Economy to a Knowledge Ecology:  Talking about the Knowledge Economy is oh-so-1999.  Knowledge Economy companies used their old industrial mindsets to drive knowledge work.  Yet work changed, and now many of these old world companies are getting their lunch eaten by swift forward thinking competitors that know how to leverage human minds.  What is emerging is a Knowledge Ecology of providers of open knowledge flows.  Most interestingly, this shows us how even one individual, if he or she is prepared, can create their place in the ecology and thrive.
3. An Attitudinal Shift:  The Millennials (sometimes called Generation Y- individuals that are in their early twenties) are driving a new relationship with work… where work serves living (not the other way around).  Although many companies try to placate these new workers “helping them fit in” what entrepreneurs and companies need to see is that the Millennials are driving a new paradigm of work- that will dominate the way that all work gets done within this decade.
4. Superconductivity:  Social networking technology and word of mouth combined with these new attitudes are drastically shifting how ideas, technology, and life are perceived and adopted.  The world is in motion, and it is moving faster.  Some will see these changes as chaotic;  If you understand the underlying dynamics that are lowering the barriers between people, superconductivity can be leveraged for benefit.

How are you adapting to these trends? what do you see happening?  Let me know.

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]]> http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/12/a-preview-of-exponential-entrepreneurship/feed/ 8 http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/12/web-20-tv-interview/ http://www.kevinkoym.com/blog/2007/11/12/web-20-tv-interview/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:49:02 +0000 kevin http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/2007/11/12/web-20-tv-interview/ Web2.0 TV interviewed me about what I thought about how “Web2.0″ is shaping the Internet.  My interviewer was very nice- and you will see that I went ahead and prompted him a little bit about how the Web2.0 phenomena is not just about a new way of building web applications (which was the focus of many of the other interviews that had been done that day) … but is truly a revolution in the way work is being done, and the way that startup companies are being built. 

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Tags: enterprise2.0, entrepreneurship

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