Fort Minor Album Provides Motivation

I love nothin more than reading an article, hearing an interview, or listening to a song that I think encompasses what is necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur. The new Fort Minor Album, The Rising Tied, released last Tuesday has several songs that capture the passion, drive, and frustration associated with living what you love.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Fort Minor, it is the first solo album by Mike Shinoda. Shinoda is probably the most famous member of the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning band Linkin Park. Shinoda wrote all the lyrics and played nearly every instrument himself in his solo debut. The album was produced by Jay-Z.

Many of the albums songs are about success - the sacrifices necessary to succeed, the desire to succeed on his own apart from Linkin Park, and succeeding in spite of those who doubted him. My particular favorite is 'Be Somebody' where Shinoda passionately and even angrily describes the battle he fights to live his dream. A sample is below:

This is the story of them against us
Win or lose
Forcin your feet into someone else's shoes
Everybody's got somein to say
That we oughta live their way
What were doin's not okay
In this world
Everybody's got a chip on
Both sides of their neck
Got no respect

I'm tired of them sayin the dream you have
Doesn't exist
Tellin you you're worthless
Sayin you should quit
Basically tellin' you
That you'll never be s***
Really they're pissed
Cuz they'll never achieve
Some opportunity they missed
Back when they were sixteen
And all they want to do is push you to be that
And all you wanna do is scream back

Yea, this one goes out
To those fantastic human beings
That keep us down and hold us back
And give us fuel for what we do
Thanks

Fans of Linkin Park will love this album. If you have never heard Shinoda or Linkin Park, give it a shot, you just might like it.

Patience is a Virtue I Don't Have!

Patience is one of my weaknesses. I want my goals to be accomplished and I want them done yesterday. Some say that it's an inherent trait of any entrepreneur - that it helps drive them. Well I certainly hope so because today my impatience is driving me insane.

Today I returned to work after the long holiday and all I could think about was getting to the point where I don't have to come to work everyday - the point where I can run my business and devote the rest of my time to other things in life that I want to accomplish. Right now it feels like I am wasting 9 hours a day at work. 9 hours that could be spent growing my business and instead just frustrate me.

I always feel like this after a long break. Anything longer than the standard two day weekend and I feel like I am getting a small taste of the life I want to live, only to get thrown back into a life where I waste over 1/3 of my day. It's a tease that drives me absolutely nuts!

I previously had set a hard date in my head of when I am going to leave my job, so that I don't just end up staying because of the comfort of a regular paycheck and good benefits. And that time isn't all that far away. I have a lot to do to get myself and my business to the point where I am ready to leave and I should be focused on that.

Nonetheless, I find myself daydreaming all day long about what I could be doing with the time I am spending at work AND with the time that I work on my business now. I want that life now! I want to spend my time running my business, working with a friend on starting a non-profit organization (more to come on this in the future), and enjoying friends, family, and hobbies (like video games, it eats away at me that I don't get to play enough Madden '06).

But I need to find a way to be patient. The company is still paying me to get a job done and for the meantime I need the money. But honestly, money is the only thing that motivates me to go there everyday and for me that is not enough motivation. I see the things that I could be achieving in my life and I see my job as the main barrier to those achievements. The only problem is that my job is the thing right now that is enabling me to pay my rent, pay off my college loans, and buy groceries. Damn money. It drives me nuts. I just want to be able to spend my time here on earth doing something I love. Part of me says screw the money and just quit today. The rest of me rationalizes that if I quit today I need to pay back my signing bonus (I have to stay at least a year to avoid that and it will be a year at the end of January) and would not be set up at all with health insurance, living arrangements, etc. So I know it's best to stay the course - I know I'll be there soon enough. But it still drives me nuts.

OK, that's the end of my rant. So far my posts had been rather calm, this is one of those days when I am totally frustrated with the fact that things aren't moving faster. Everyone is going to have days like this, I just need to relax and get back on track. I think I am going to take some time out tonight to watch some college bball to take my mind off of everything. Hopefully I'll come back fresh tomorrow. Have a good night everyone.

Overcoming Distractions is Key to Entrepreneurial Success

This past weekend I went home to NY for Thanksgiving. I spent most of the four days eating, drinking, and just hanging out with my family and friends. It was a great time. But guess how much work I got done over the long weekend - that's right, absolutely none of what I brought home to do. It illustrated to me how damaging distractions can be to being a succesful entrepreneur.

Now, for just those four days it was completely fine with me to skip out on some work, it was even probably good for me. I hadn't seen my friends and family for a few months and I won't see them again until Christmas so I enjoyed every minute I spent with them and I am glad I didn't get any work done.

For me it's easy. I am now back in CT and back in my routine. But I know there are a lot of people who are constantly "distracted" by friends and family when they would rather have time to work on their business. It's hard to get anything done when your parents/siblings/friends are calling every five minutes to hang out or "just talk". As an entrepreneur you can't do everything. If you need to spend five hours a day on the phone with your friends and family then entrepreneurship might not be for you.

Friends and family mean well, but you need to pick and choose your spots. You don't need to play poker watch the game, or go to happy hour EVERY time your friends do. Limit youself so that you can focus on your business. If your friends and family truly care about you and your passion (and I am sure they do), they will understand and support you. While they may miss having you around at first, they will be your biggest supporters as your venture begins to succeed.

One word of caution: make sure that you still keep your priorities straight - friends and family are more important than whatever job you do, so make sure to be there when they need you, and don't miss important events because of your business.

Black Friday is Stupid

As much as I love Thanksgiving, it is sandwiched by two of the worst days of the year. If the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the laziest work day of the year, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the stupidest day of the year.

Lets see, yesterday was a day about love, friends, family, selflessness, and charity. So how do we follow up my favorite day of the year? With Black Friday.

The blame for Black Friday lies equally with consumers and stores. If stores didn't offer 30% off on their crappiest DVD player, people wouldn't wake up at 4 am and wait in line for two hours to get that $49.99 DVD player that will break before Memorial Day. Of course, if people weren't willing to line up outside of Best Buy at 5 AM stores would stop opening so early and stop offering their specials.

From a consumer standpoint, I understand the desire to save money, but in most cases it isn't worth it. While they spend three hours in shopping hell before the sun rises, I comparison shop online and usually come up with a price as good as or better. With the rise of eBay, I am tempted to make the statement that every single item for sale between 4 AM and Noon on Black Friday can be found cheaper online. Even if it is 5% or even 10% more expensive, isn't it worth being able to buy it in five minutes from the comfort of your home rather than having to fight off hundreds of other people to get it. Not to mention the hour you spend in line waiting to pay.

Maybe with the rise of the internet we will be talking about Cyber Monday instead of Black Friday in a few years. And you know what, I am okay with that. Of course I am not okay with the commercialization of the holiday season, but at least now people that want no part of the holiday aren't forced into it like they are now. I am going to spend today on my couch because traffic is ridiculous. There's no point in trying to go anywhere. Poor high school and college kids that work at these stores had to cut their Thanksgiving short to wake up at 3 AM to get to work by 4 AM to work the dreaded 4 AM to Noon shift. At least Cyber Monday would fix those problems. I'll can settle for that.

Thanksgiving deserves better than being followed up with Black Friday. Like I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, I think we all would agree that the world would be a better place if we embraced the values of Thanksgiving. No sooner than a day later do we blow it. It's like a switch goes off in peoples heads and the greed of the holiday season kicks in. Unbelievable.

Ok, I think I am done with my ranting for now. I promise to get back to entrepreneur related posts in my next post.

Thanksgiving is My Favorite Day of the Year

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. No other day in the year is about so many good things. Christmas should be just as great, but the commercialization has turned the day into a commercial holiday marred with greed and over spending instead of giving and love. But that's for another post.

Back to Thanksgiving. Lets break down my usual Thanksgiving: I wake up whenever I want (traditionally it has been around noon but this year I had a three hour drive to make so it was a little earlier), I throw on some nice clothes and make my way to Grandma's house where I eat food, see my family, and watch football. Who wouldn't love a day like that?

Even more than the sleep, food, and football, I love the emphasis on family and the things that you are thankful for. It seems like everyone is loved on Thanksgiving - people go out of their way to reach out to others who are less fortunate and give them one day away from their problems.

The only unfortunate thing about Thanksgiving is that it doesn't last longer. The world would be a better place if we all lived with the Thanksgiving mindset.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all of the gifts that I have been blessed with. I am thankful for all of the great opportunities that I have had in my life. I am thankful for being able to put food on the table, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head. But most of all, I am thankful for my friends and family.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are truly thankful for the blessings in your life.

Today Is One of the Laziest Work Days of the Year

In addition to running SportsLizard.com, I put my engineering degree to good use by working as a Quality Engineer out here in CT. It seems hard for me to believe, but this is the first holiday season that I haven't been a student. It is also the first holiday season that I have been out in industry. I am not sure what the day before our Christmas break will be like, but today had to be the laziest day of work ever.

The rumblings started a few days ago. People started talking about how every Wednesday before Thanksgiving people kick out early. I was curious so I asked around and it was confirmed. Unofficially everyone leaves around 2 or 3 on the day before Thanksgiving. Of course I was pumped. Any time I can get time off without using my precious vacation time is a plus.

So today came and it was a weird experience. I understand that people want to get a head start on the busiest travel day of the year. I get that. Why not make it official company policy then? Instead I just sort of noticed people starting to sneak out around 2 or so. And anyone who was there was just socializing until the "professionally acceptable" time to leave came (i.e. a few minutes after their boss left). I played along and got home by 3:45 which was pretty sweet.

But I had to wonder from a business perspective if ANYTHING got done by anyone today. See, I would be fine with people leaving early, it's the social party that would bother me if I was running the business. It really shouldn't be social day. If everyone worked hard until 3 and then left, that would be fine. You would get nearly a full days worth of work in and still get a head start on the travel. But why do people see it as a free pass to do nothing all day?

This is just another example of one of the things that drives me nuts about industry (I sense a future post dedicated to this). The business will be shut down for the next two days (we get Friday off too). Each employee should feel as though they need to get as much done as possible to make up for the lost time. The fact that they feel entitled to socialize all day shows that they truly don't care about what is best for the business (myself included). And I don't blame this on the employees. It is the responsibility of the business to make every employee a stakeholder (or steakholder as I commonly misspell it) in the business in some form so that they truly want what's best for the company. Unfortunately, I will still pull my salary regardless of the performance of the business and that makes it tough for me to care.

So what did I do with my free time? I came home and worked on the business. Why? Because I know the next few days will be booked with family obligations and there is no way that I will be able to do any more than check my email. I had to get my Weekly Report up, do a few administrative things, and make this blog post. I needed to get as much done as possible before tomorrow. This is the necessary sense of urgency that I was talking about. Because I actually care about my business, I want to make sure I leave everything in good standing before embarking on the journey over to NY to my parents house.

Anyway, it was nice to get home early. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Why It's Best to Start a Business Before Your 25th Birthday

Being a 23 year old entrepreneur, I am slightly biased when I make the statement that the best time in life to start a business is before your 25th birthday. That said, I still think I make a great case for starting a business sooner than later (please note, I understand that the statements I make don't apply to EVERYONE, however I feel they apply to the overwhelming majority of people).

By starting a business when you are young, you avoid procrastinating

Ever hear someone say "I'd love to start my own business someday but...."? Those are the people who ultimately won't start their own business. They are waiting for the "perfect" time to do it. The moment when all the planets align. It will never happen. You can always make up an excuse. When you are young, it's college loans that need to be paid back or a lack of experience. As you age, it becomes your marriage, kids, house, etc. There will always be a reason to procrastinate. By starting young you avoid becoming a habitual procrastinator.

When you are young, you have less responsibility

If you think it's hard when you are twenty, it will be ten times as hard when you are forty. By then, you will likely be married with kids, a house, a nice car, and a lifestyle that you are pretty comfortable with. Think about how difficult it would be to try to convince your significant other that you are going to take on something that will occupy nearly all of your free time and might not reap any benefit for a few years. It's tough convincing yourself to make the plunge into entrepreneurship, it's nearly impossible to convince your family to dive into uncertainty with you.

When you are young, you are used to a hectic schedule

College age students are used to all nighters. They are used to getting emails from a partner at midnight about something due at 8 am the following day, telling them that they did something wrong and need to finish it up by the morning. Somehow, they find a way to meet the deadline.

This is very conducive to the entrepreneurial environment. Your day does not begin at 8:30 and end at 5:00. It begins when it needs to and it ends as soon as the work for the day is done. Somedays, everything goes smooth and you can work your 8:30-5. Other days you work until after midnight. It is all dependent on things that are somewhat out of your control. No matter how good you plan, you can't plan for everything - a shipping mistake by UPS, two feet of snow hitting the ground out of nowhere causing you to be an hour late for an appointment, or your website crashing - unexpected things will always go wrong. Students are used to this. People who have worked the 8:30-5 for twenty years tend to check out mentally at 5 every day. You can't do that as an entrepreneur.

Students are used to being without money

College kids get by on Raman noodles and cheap beer. They live with three other roommates and walk to class. Most of them have part time jobs for some spending money, but they could probably get by on what they earn over the summer or what Mom and Dad give them. Why is this important? Because as an entrepreneur you are probably not going to see any income for at least six months (it depends on the business of course) and maybe for as long as a few years. For the college entrepreneur, not a big deal. For the guy who was used to pulling in $100,000 a year, it's a big deal.

When I started SportsLizard.com a few years back, I was able to do it with about $3,000 of savings from an internship I had the previous summer. I didn't make any money for a while, but it didn't really matter. You know why? I was living in my parents basement. When your cost of living is $0 it takes away a lot of the stress.

Young people are better learners

Everyone is good at what they do. Computer programmers are good at computer programming. Artists are good at art. Athletes are good at being athletes. What are students good at? Learning. That's right, students are good at learning. It is, after all, what they do for a living. They are used to seeing something completely foreign to them and mastering it in a short amount of time. Professionals tend to become more and more focused as they get older. While they are really good at one or two things, they haven't learned something completely new in a long time. The workforce has a way of unintentionally limiting you by narrowing your skillset. This works against them as an entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, you will be low on resources. Don't count on having a secretary to do the things that you don't know how to do. You can't afford a secretary! While your main focus is living your passion, something you are inherently good at, you will have to do quite a bit of learning to be an entrepreneur.

For example, it may appear that I run a website and the only real thing I needed to learn was in regards to web programming. I don't think many people would consider the amount of time I put in learning how to run my business. I had to research trademarks before choosing a name (you wouldn't want to pick a name that someone else already has), I had to figure out how to register my business with my county, and I had to learn basic tax laws to make sure I correctly report all of my income. I also handle all of the PR and marketing for my business, not to mention customer service and budgeting. There is a lot to running a business, even what appears to be a simple one that I run from my house (imagine if I had employees, rented office space, etc). A business owner is going to have to learn a lot of things quickly and be able to execute what they just learned with confidence. Young adults are better at this than any other age group.

Young adults are used to change

One of the reasons you will need to learn so much is that you will need to change often to compete as a startup business. College kids are used to moving every few months, changing classes every semester, and having different summer jobs each year. This comfort with change will make it easier to make the necessary changes for the good of the business. Someone who has lived in the same house and worked the same job for fifteen years will naturally be more resistant to change.

The other side of the argument

Obviously the downside that everyone will point to is the lack of business experience that young people have. If you can't tell already, I view this as an advantage. I feel that industry will focus you on what you're good at. For years people will tell you how good you are at what you do and encourage you to grow in that area. Ten years later you are a master of that trade but can't even conceive of switching professions. At that point, becoming an entrepreneur is a lot harder.

Life is Short - Love What You Do, Do What You Love

Life is short. Are you doing what you love? Are you living your passion? If not, why? I am guessing most people will answer that question with "I have a mortgage, a spouse and three kids to support, and $20,000 in college loans to pay back. In the real world people have responsibilities. They have to make sacrifices. You aren't supposed to be happy with your job but you do it because you have to."

With all due respect, they are wrong. You can take care of your responsibilities and be happy with your job. We spend over 1/3 of our day, at least five days a week performing our jobs. This is a lot of time to be wasting on something we don't enjoy, is it not? Why not spend that time doing something you truly are passionate about for 50 hours a week instead something that lacks meaning?

I think there is one main reason people don't follow their passion - fear. Fear of how others will react, fear of failure, and fear that they can't do it themselves. I think the first part is for people realize that they can conquer their fear. You will fail at times and others will think you are crazy at times, but if you believe that you will succeed than you ultimately will.

I always tell people that it's a three step process. First, figure out what your passion is. Second, figure out how to make money doing it. Third, do it. It might seem simple. In a way, I think it is.

Step 1: Figure out what your passion is

Everyone is passionate about something - sports, dancing, painting, roller coasters, computers, family, religion, politics, etc. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what that passion is. Pretend as if money is not an issue. Whatever you would spend your time doing is your passion. I love to quote office Space (one of my favorite movies of all time) when I talk about this step. Peter makes the statement "Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you would do if we had a million dollars and didn't have to work. And invariably, whatever we would say, that was supposed to be our careers. If you wanted to build cars, then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic." What would you do if you had a million dollars?

Step 2: Figure out how to make money doing it

Whatever your passion is, I guarantee you can make money doing it. If your into roller coasters then get a job at a company that designs roller coasters. If you are into computers, consider starting a business building computers or designing websites. Now, if your passion is music, you may not be able to be a concert pianist, but you could sell pianos or give piano lessons. Whatever skills you have, you can find a way to make money. At the very least, you can start a blog like this one and make money from advertisements. You can syndicate your posts as articles across the web to drive traffic to your site. That pretty much covers any topic imaginable and requires very little technical knowledge.

Step 3: Do it

Without a doubt this is the hardest step. I'm not saying everyone should run out and quit their job today. It takes planning to do it right. The key is that you are planning. That you have started working towards that goal of living your passion. One of my passions happens to be sports collectibles. So, as a senior in college I started SportsLizard.com. At the time I graduated, I wasn't making enough money from the business to live so I took a job as an engineer. I am working toward being able to live my passion full time but for the time being I need the income from the job. Again, the important thing is that I am doing it. I have goals set and each one that I achieve brings me closer to being able to focus my life on the things I am passionate about (SportsLizard.com and other things).

I understand that it is not easy. I am in the middle of going through it right now. But understand that there are other people out there who have been through what you are going through and can help you immensely. They have failed, been ridiculed, and come out on the other end extremely successful. They are living proof that you can do what you love.

Why Would Anyone Read a Blog About Me?

Who would be interested in a blog about me? If I asked myself that question a year ago, I would have said no one. I had just graduated from RPI (recently ranked the 43rd best school in the country) with an B.S. in Industrial Engineering and took a good job as an engineer with a large consumer goods company in Connecticut. While I was very proud of those accomplishments they don't exactly warrant a blog. I can see the title now - "Kid Graduates College and Gets a Job."

The thing that sets me apart is that I am an entrepreneur. In the summer before my senior year of college I started SportsLizard.com, a sports collectibles marketplace. My vision was (and still is) to become THE place that people go to when they are looking for sports figures, cards, autographs, etc. I wanted SportsLizard.com to be to sports collectibles what Amazon.com is to books (that's an analogy, for those who bombed their SAT's).

So what happened? Well, I started the business completely with my own money (I am not the kind of guy to give up control of my business just to get a little cash) with the hope that it would catch on so fast that I wouldn't have to get a job right out of college. I knew most businesses took years to turn a profit but I somehow figured mine would be different. I was wrong.

I was now faced with a few choices as graduation approached. I could take a huge small business loan (on top of all the student loans I already had) and try to get the business going that way. I could drop the business and use my degree to enter into the workforce like everyone else. Or I could do both - take a job and run a business. I knew I would make plenty of money to live on and operate the business. Where it gets interesting is trying to have enough time and energy to work as an engineer 40 - 50 hours a week and then come home and operate and grow a business.

I chose option 3. This is where I think I am unique. This is where I think others can learn from me. I think there are a lot of young adults out there who WANT to start a business but don't even know where to start.

A few months ago a longtime friend who had just graduated college called me and began asking questions about how to do it. How to start a business, how much money it took, how long it takes to start making money, how much time it takes, etc. He knew that I was able to grow my business while working a demanding job and he wanted to do the same.

At that moment the proverbial lightbulb went off. That is when I decided to start this blog. I realized people ARE interested in me because what I am doing is uncommon. They want to know how I do it and they are curious to find out if they can do it too. Now, I can only speak to my own experiences, but I truly think that people, especially young entrepreneurs, can learn a lot from me and find strength in knowing that they are not going at it alone.

Coincidentally, I am starting this blog at a very exciting time for me and my business. I recently won honorable mention in the Microsoft Start Something Amazing Awards for starting SportsLizard.com. It is an honor to be recognized by Microsoft and this accomplishment gives instant credibility to SportsLizard.com. It goes a long way towards reaching the point where I can leave my job and focus solely on the business.

In the few years that I have been a business owner I have learned that the road to success is not an easy one. Through this blog I hope to provide you with a very candid look inside of the life of an entrepreneur. Most people only see the success and don't see the countless hours of work and sacrifice that go into growing a business. I hope to show you the daily ups and downs of being a 23 year old internet entrepreneur.

I appreciate any and all feedback and will do my best to respond to anyone who contacts me. I can be reached at ajm@sportslizard.com. Good luck to all!