If you Want to Become an Entrepreneur, Check your Ego at the Door
If you Want to Become an Entrepreneur, Check your Ego at the Door
Within weeks of completing franchise training in June 2002, I convinced the New York Yankees to allow me to run a concession in the Stadium. By early August, I was at Gate 4, right at the entrance, dressed in my wacky shirt, selling smoothies (with rum, lots and lots of rum) from my tiki hut to the well-heeled season ticket holders who sit in the good seats. I was so busy getting my business up and running that I hadn’t gotten around to telling a lot of my friends what I was up to. I will never forget the day my buddy Scott showed up at the stadium. The astonished look on his face when he saw his former publishing industry colleague slinging smoothies to hordes of rowdy Yankee fans was, well, astonishing! Not only that, but I had also recently memorialized my break from the corporate world by getting a tattoo on my left forearm. When he saw that on top of the tiki hut, blenders, and me in my shirt, well, I don’t think his eyes could have widened any further. I was immensely entertained by the look on his face as my one employee and I frantically made drinks, hundreds and hundreds of them, for $8 apiece ($3 extra for rum). For me, this business was the perfect rejection of corporate life. Rather than selling advertising programs for $100,000 or $1 million, here I was selling instant gratification in a cup. I felt not the least embarrassment for trading in my suit for jeans and an Aloha shirt.
The business has morphed almost entirely since then. I have shifted it from a high labor content/moderate margin to much lower labor and very high margin by dealing only with catered events and getting out of retail completely. I have hundreds of customers, including over 50 colleges, dozens of event planning firms and corporate clients, and countless individuals who book our services for parties.
It’s a perfect business for me. It offers nothing in the way of status, though. For many corporate executives looking to do something else, status is still important. In many businesses you might get into, after corporate life, you can count on your friends not “getting it” and wondering what’s up with you. If you care even slightly what other people think, my advice is not to go down the entrepreneurial road.
If you Want to Become an Entrepreneur Check your Ego at the Door - To learn more about this author, visit Mitch York's Website.
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If you are a newly minted entrepreneur, you will need to stop caring what your former work colleagues and your friends think about what you are doing. When I started my business in 2002, my friends and ex-work associates thought I had gone completely nuts. I began as a franchisee of a company with the unusual but catchy name Maui Wowi. To go from being a bigwig at the likes of Ziff Davis, LendingTree and other respectable employers and plunk down a big hunk of cash to wear a Hawaiian shirt and sell smoothies for $5 apiece at events is rather a change of professional pace. Hey, no wonder my friends thought I was nuts!
Within weeks of completing franchise training in June 2002, I convinced the New York Yankees to allow me to run a concession in the Stadium. By early August, I was at Gate 4, right at the entrance, dressed in my wacky shirt, selling smoothies (with rum, lots and lots of rum) from my tiki hut to the well-heeled season ticket holders who sit in the good seats. I was so busy getting my business up and running that I hadn’t gotten around to telling a lot of my friends what I was up to. I will never forget the day my buddy Scott showed up at the stadium. The astonished look on his face when he saw his former publishing industry colleague slinging smoothies to hordes of rowdy Yankee fans was, well, astonishing! Not only that, but I had also recently memorialized my break from the corporate world by getting a tattoo on my left forearm. When he saw that on top of the tiki hut, blenders, and me in my shirt, well, I don’t think his eyes could have widened any further. I was immensely entertained by the look on his face as my one employee and I frantically made drinks, hundreds and hundreds of them, for $8 apiece ($3 extra for rum). For me, this business was the perfect rejection of corporate life. Rather than selling advertising programs for $100,000 or $1 million, here I was selling instant gratification in a cup. I felt not the least embarrassment for trading in my suit for jeans and an Aloha shirt.
The business has morphed almost entirely since then. I have shifted it from a high labor content/moderate margin to much lower labor and very high margin by dealing only with catered events and getting out of retail completely. I have hundreds of customers, including over 50 colleges, dozens of event planning firms and corporate clients, and countless individuals who book our services for parties.
It’s a perfect business for me. It offers nothing in the way of status, though. For many corporate executives looking to do something else, status is still important. In many businesses you might get into, after corporate life, you can count on your friends not “getting it” and wondering what’s up with you. If you care even slightly what other people think, my advice is not to go down the entrepreneurial road.
If you Want to Become an Entrepreneur Check your Ego at the Door - To learn more about this author, visit Mitch York's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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