There is an old, slightly crass saying in business circles, “Ideas are like assholes, everybody has them”.

It’s a fact that many people bump into ideas they think are business opportunities consistently. Studies show that about 6% of the working population have business ideas every year. Not including newly industrialised economies like China, that means that just between Australia, Canada, USA and the UK (about 410 million people), that about 10 million ideas a year, over 28,000 per day or 1 idea every 2 seconds.

Many of these ideas never see the light of day of course, but for the ones that are pursued there is a pretty consistent statistic. Of any 100 that viable or even practical; 90 will never get started, seven will fail, two will be the walking wounded and one will be a major success.

With those types of statistics, you wonder why anyone would even bother. Personally, in my experience, there is a euphoria that is like discovering a new land or underground treasures when one sees a new business opportunity then set out to make it happen. It is like the excitement I felt as a kid when, along with my two ‘investigator’ buddies Bill and Tom, we set out to discover the mysteries of our little suburb in Richmond . It’s an adventure, and the fact that we don’t know how it will go makes it all the more exciting.

Since then I have been a serial entrepreneur or what my wife calls a ‘Glitter Bunny’.

While I am content, my track record to an independent observer in terms of monetary windfalls would show both highs and lows. More recently, as a consequence of marriage and fatherhood, I have put some elements in place to shield my personal life from these highs and lows, but for me it’s about the adventure. The money is second to the freedom it gives me to live an exciting and fulfilling life where a simple idea over a coffee one day, becomes an asset on someone’s personal balance sheet a year later.

So, if you are young and want to make money safely and securely, I give this advice to you: sit quietly in the corporate work place, save 50% of all your money and invest wisely. Keep your outgoing expenses below $1000 per month and once you have $300,000 of funds under management in shares or property, you should be out of the rat race. You can then suntan to your hearts content, but for me that would be a less than ideal existence.

(originally written in 2005)

I was recently awarded a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It took me 3.5 years to study for and culminated in the normal pomp and ceremony of any academic achievement, namely a bunch of academic professors, etc., parading on stage in their respective regalia, a few mumbled words, pictures, hugs and a great looking A3 certificate naming yours truly as a pretty smart guy.

In the rattle and hum on the way to the city the next morning, I was overcome by a thought which I duly checked with a fellow MEI. If I graduated with a PhD in Astrophysics, or Mechanical Engineering, or any other discipline except say an Arts degree (sorry), I suggest I would truly have graduated. Perhaps I am wrong. Even the Arts degree is something the graduate can point to as something of merit.

I personally however, and I suspect a number of my fellow classmates, undertook the course because we sought the skills and tools to identify, evaluate and execute commercial opportunities that result in new and appropriate levels of wealth for ourselves and our families.

This somewhat stoical view comes from a degree of maturity and stands beside other worthy personal endeavours like the pursuit of health and well being, spiritual well being and, of course, the pursuit of knowledge and experience in things that ring my bell.

The school delivered reasonably well in the skills and tools department, but if I was a surgeon now and you the reader needed an appendectomy, you should be concerned.

A true entrepreneurial graduate, in my mind from my school (AGSE), Babson in the USA or wherever you went, is someone who took the learnings and applied them and put money in the bank.

Deal/Venture 1 is very important because it anoints you from the sidelines or the bench onto the playing field. In fact, you kicked a goal and chances are you’ll kick another.

Adding another layer of complexity is my situation (not unusual) where having recently and quite unexpectedly disappeared from the state of a 34 year old where life was a game laced with all sorts of the usual joys (loves, travel, excesses, half cocked business ventures), to the state of a 40 year old in the blink of an eye with two mortgages, a wife, a 22 month old and one on the way, and a new need to include ‘normality’ in my life so we can sleep at night.

To truly graduate as an entrepreneur of even the most basic merit, I need to deliver an outcome that ratifies my degree. Inside two years from graduation, I need, nay must, harvest a venture that kills my not so insignificant mortgage while maintaining enough income to prevent my wife from abandoning what may be been a bad choice in husband five years ago.

At this point I’ll quote my daughter … a gorgeous human being with insight of the whole universe … “Daddy, tick, tock, tick tock …”

I wrote a few years ago about the reality of big companies stifling competition. At the time I sited “Napster Patents and the Law” as the obvious example. The recent article in The Age, “Patently Absurd”, Richard Stallman, echoes my sentiments.

Some key points I have come across:

1.The movie industry that spawned in LA in the early 1900’s did so as a response to the patent Thomas Edison had in the New York area. Irony is, of course, that they are the ones now howling the loudest.

2.2004 study of Linux Kernel of the GNU/Linux OS found that it infringed on 283 different software patents.

Interestingly technologies that were never patented that delivered enormous benefit to our planet:

1. The railway track.
2. The novel (book).
3. TCP/IP (internet protocols).
4. The Printing press.

There are many more!

Big firms engaged in the provision of services or intangible products (programs) know that the balance sheet is an illusion at best. The real and only asset they have is the willingness of their people to continue to collaborate, spawn ideas and new products/services.

I’m not suggesting a conspiracy BUT businesses foundations are firmly based on its ability to manage risk. Business does not like uncertainty. In financial terms, businesses use hedging strategies to protect themselves.

What follows (and I quote Mr John Warkentin) “they circle the wagons tighter and tighter”; this is not a strategy, it’s a knee jerk reaction.

I also suggest that courts are not exactly on board either with respect to what is necessary for innovation to prosper in our community. As described in this month’s “Economist” (July 2-8, P133), patent copyright protection laws have been amended from 28 years to 95 (Mickey Mouse ©) and I quote, “It makes no sense. Copyright was originally intended to encourage publication by granting publishers a temporary monopoly on works so they could earn on their investment ….” He goes on to say that, “due to distribution of works being much cheaper ….. publishing should therefore need fewer, not more property rights to protect their investment. Technology has tipped the balance in favour of the public domain”.

Absolutely right on!

The 'Entrepreneurial Business Plan', A Perspective by Peter Christo 2007.


There is an old quote..”Give me an A class team implementing a B class plan rather than the other way around”

Business planning has little to do with the document at the end, and much to do with the person undergoing the process. Their ability, tenacity and commitment to the venture is what is required. The business planning process is the first step required to reduce the risk of failure in the future.

The assumptions, economics, the objectives of the business/idea owner is what need scrutiny to establish, with little ambiguity, what space we are in and what this business opportunity is about.

Committing to a program (eg: The Arion Program) of activities forces an outcome one way or another that is measurable. Like anyone else, small business/venture owners struggle with various life problems, cash-flow, family issues and even health issues and their own personal development.

Committing to a venture is about committing to a journey, and that means, stopping only when milestones are completed. It means having the tenacity to endure though the hard times.

I offer three basic principles:

Have a destination in mind - Journeys need a destination. This is an important principle, even if where you end up is not where you intended That needs to be crystal clear in the mind of the person undertaking that journey to ensure success.

Seek to change your perspective - Buddhism espouses,” I change my life by changing my thoughts!” Successful people in all fields know this. This will happen as you undertake the journey and it may affect what you finally decide you want as the dividend from that journey.

Be the student – Seek knowledge and wisdom during the journey. Even if you teach, seek to learn. Learning means that you avail yourself of a range of weapons and tools to use in your journey.

Why make it hard for yourself?

Happy Trails!

Entrepreneurial Spirit!

We have a product in the business called the Arion Program. It’s a 12-session DIY/Coaching program that results in our clients developing their own business plan and pitch. Inquiries usually come from start-ups, or small businesses looking for away to develop a solid roadmap forward for their business.

I genuinely believe that it’s a great program that forces the thinking that needs to happen in order truly quantify the opportunity, the right business model, and a harvest strategy that will afford them the best chance of actually pit some money in their pocket one day! (Advertisement over).

There is a fundamental issue we face, as do aspiring entrepreneurs. Convincing the spouse! Of what? I hear you ask.

Well at the very least:

1. I should continue this journey, even though I could be bringing in double the income in a job working for ‘the man’. Including fewer headaches?

2. I want to invest in help to improve my chances of success (eg: Arion program, marketing, staff, new premises).

If you are in a relationship that you want to keep for all the right reasons, whether you like it or not you have a fundamental sales objective that is as follows:

Convince your spouse that this entrepreneurial adventure is of the utmost importance and that it needs his/her unwavering support. That incudes financially, emotionally, and in any other capacity they are able to offer.

Why?

You can’t leave the house each morning with anything less than passion, commitment and enthusiasm in what you are doing. A screaming match at 8am followed by a 9am sales meeting is a ‘lose lose’ situation. There is also a ‘negative multiplier effect’ on the business. If that meeting was to result in a client, it may have resulted in 4 ‘word of mouths’ and a host of other opportunities.

It goes much deeper than that though. For many entrepreneurs, this is as much a personal or even spiritual quest to understand their own nature and developing as a person. They are taking a dream, the most intangible of objects and manifesting it into reality.

So when you are arguing with your spouse about the direction of the business, it’s as much an argument about the right to your life’s journey in my humble opinion. The reality is that you need to manage the risk of the venture as it pertains to your partner’s own risk tolerances.

Tricky but not impossible!