8 fault lines on the road to entrepreneurship

All the while I wrote about small businesses for the Denver Post and ColoradoBiz, people asked me: Why don't you go into business for yourself?

My answer? I'd have to work too hard! The many entrepreneurs I wrote about were working too hard all the time. I also did not know then, but felt fairly certain, that starting a business around my own writing would be as difficult a task as I had ever set out for myself.

I'm now learning the truth about both those preconceptions as I try to make a business of RobertSchwabPoet.com, where this small-business blog and my other writing become my products, products I want to sell to advertisers.

Note well: The visible lack of advertisers on this blogsite is testimony to how difficult I'm finding converting "the dream" into profit.

But I'm not alone in this digital camp. Even big organizations like the New York Times have struggled to "monetize" their digital offerings, and today marks the newspaper's erection of a "pay wall" intended to eventually do just that.

So now might be the time to click here to see one example of a good source of information for small-business owners, the NYT's small-business blog called "You're the Boss." I've linked you to Jay Goltz's post last Wednesday, "Eight Fallacies of Entrepreneurship."

Goltz, who is identified by the Times as an owner of five businesses in Chicago, says: "I have compiled a list of frequently used phrases and comments that I often hear when people are discussing this decision [to start their own business] and that I think reflect serious misunderstandings. At best, these misunderstandings can lead to a waste of time. At worst, they can lead to very bad decisions and very big losses."

In the interests of saving both time and money for Colorado entrepreneurs, I thought I'd direct you to Goltz's well-conceived list. I'd also recommend "You're the Boss," which has a half-dozen other writers working for it each week, although I don't know how the "pay wall" will affect your access to the blog.

While you are in it, however, one way to multiply the value of reading each piece is to check out the comments of other active entrepreneurs who read them, even days after posting. The comments can be as instructive as the original prose.

Startup ideas from two cafes

When you start a small business, your first transactions are not conducted in dollars and cents but in the idea you have for the business: You have to convince people your idea will make money.

Sometimes you even have to convince yourself. So finally, after working to hone the idea of my own business for years, I decided to take in a Denver Idea Cafe, where founder John Wren says people meet to "share startup experience & ideas, NOT advice!"

Wren has been holding these meetings for years, usually to a group of five to fifteen people gathered at 2 p.m. on Fridays at the Panera Bread shop at 13th and Grant streets, near the Capitol Building and downtown Denver. I took in the session on March 12, and then another session closer to home at the Koelbel Library on March 19.

The second group has been organized by Richard Oppenheim, a business coach, and Ken Wyble, a marketing consultant with the South Metro Chamber of Commerce. It is intended to serve a South Metro clientele of would-be entrepreneurs.

Each group specializes in "brainstorming" ideas that might help attendees get started on the business of their dreams.

As Wren says from the get go, attendees can take or leave the ideas that cross the table. That way the atmosphere remains informal and encouraging. People come to hear something helpful, not to have their business concept shot down.

Wren enforces a confidentiality rule, too, so I'll limit what I report here to what was said about my own business concept. "Have a story," one entrepreneur suggested, when I asked about raising money to finance my business.

Naturally I took to the idea. My concept for RobertSchwabPoet.com is all about telling stories: stories about other businesses through this blog; other peoples' life stories and family histories written in books or private manuscripts; stories I tell in my poems and short stories which I want to sell from my website.

I've already written two books about Denver businessmen whose stories are compelling tales of overcoming adversity. Starting my business on a shoestring is slowly becoming my own story of adversity.

At the second session, I heard suggestions for connecting with other organizations that might help me, but the best idea I came away with from there was a realization that I need to get a lot more help in the technical area of business formation. I already knew the South Metro Chamber's Small Business Development Center is the best place for me to go for that, so I've resolved to take advantage of more of its services for startups.

So the cafes are interesting and valuable if for nothing more than to keep your dream alive. The nicest idea I took from the cafes was that starting a business is a journey where it's possible to meet helpful fellow travellers. The work remains yours to do. But the best time to start is now. 

Space entrepreneurs wanted

eSpace, the Boulder business incubator for space entrepreneurs, is looking for a half dozen new companies to launch into Colorado's growing space industry.

Part of The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, the incubator was started in 2009 by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems Group in Louisville. This week, it opened its third round of recruiting for prospective entrants to the space business.

The program provides money, physical space and business mentoring to successful applicants. Diane Dimeff, executive director, said three nascent companies have already applied, and she expects up to two dozen more to try. To apply, go here. The center plans to incubate six successful applicants.

eSpace has six young companies currently enrolled; the firms are developing products from new spacecraft propulsion systems to moonlanders, like the craft shown here. It was designed by Next Giant Leap, a contender for the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million contest to maneuver and land a small spacecraft on the moon and relay data back to Earth.

Those may seem like lofty ambitions, but in just its first 18 months, eSpace has already graduated two firms to the open market: Net.Centric Design Professionals, which sets up ground-to-space computer networks; and Zybeck Advance Products, a manufacturer of synthetic moon rock that also has developed a milling system able to melt nearly any material at temperatures up to 20,000 degrees centigrade.

Dimeff has a $1.4 million budget for the next 18 months and, naturally, is looking for more earthbound donors and investors. The center's goal is to grow a space-industry workforce in Colorado that literally reaches for the stars.