Almost immediately after I published my blog last week, Dealing with the Impending High-tech Layoffs!, I started getting a stream of emails from my clients and others concerned about what to do if they were affected by these layoffs. Many getting back to me were in the mid 40s and 50s and were particularly disturbed by one statement in my blog: Those past their mid 40s are twice as likely to be RIFd as those in their 20s!
Being in the Silicon Valley and in California geographies, where most impact of these lay-offs will be felt, many were curious about scratching their itch to launch their own start-up if they were out of work. Many of those curious about this new career path were in their mid-to-late careers and had enough cash stashed away to venture out on their own with a significant tranche of their retirement savings to satisfy their entrepreneurial curiosity, keeping with the geographys ethos. Many were also encouraged by some articles they had read about the median age of start-up entrepreneurs at being 39-1/2 years, and not 22 or 23 as it happened for Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and for the founders of more recent upstarts like Snapchat, Uber, and Airbnb.
Today and tomorrow is TiECON 2016 in Santa Clara, CA, the worlds largest entrepreneurship forum, where nearly 4,000 or so are expected to attend from around the world. I have been invited as a mentor to participate in its MentorConnect event on both days to guide fresh entrepreneurs eager to launch their start-ups. On both days I expect those curious about the start-up world to ask me about all sorts of questions that intrigue them, but the focus will be on high-tech ventures, not on launching and running other types of promising businesses.
I am writing this blog to also address the questions many asked in private emails to me following my last weeks blog and to lay out my thoughts on entrepreneurship and how it is not merely limited to launching just a high-tech, high-risk startup; it is well known that such start-ups succeed only about 5% of the time.
Knowing the current uncertain VC-funding climate, high-velocity changes in the technology space, and the state of the economy with its apprehensive outlook, jumping into launching a high-tech start-up is a cautionary move. In my view entrepreneurship is not just limited to launching a high-risk, high-tech start-up, but extends to starting or owning a business on your own as well. There is nothing disparaging about starting, running, and succeeding at a life-style business of your own! Such businesses can be viewed as lacking lan vital, giving you less of an edge to brag about them at cocktail parties and relatives events, but they do offer interesting prospects in cash flow, profitability, growth, and long-term success.
In its May 6 issue The Week magazine showcased recent successes of mid-career professionals, who decided to pursue going into life-style businesses of their own and cites many successes outside the ambit of the Silicon Valley of those who used a combination of the current business climate, available catalysts, and their entrepreneurship to go after what they were dreaming all their lives to combat the uncertainty of a paycheck and the looming threat of impending lay-offs. These stories are based more on what is available in the US, but I am sure other geographies offer similar resources and opportunities for entrepreneurship.
In one such success This Week cites a story of two friends, who went to the historic St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club in St. Petersburg, Fla. in 2011. The first shuffleboard-only club in the world was holding a party that night, complete with food trucks and punk bands, for a 20- and 30-something clientele. This inspired them to bring the game to Brooklyn, NY.
Now two years old, the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club hums and clicks with the sounds of a few thousand shuffleboard players every week. But during its two years of gestation, Royal Palms future looked uncertain. The two owners courted many potential investors with a request for a minimum investment of $25K with many nos. As they neared their one million dollar goal, they launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, a platform that helps companies and organizations raise money, usually through small donations made online. They aimed to raise $20,200 more, the amount it would take to build the courts; by the end, $41,700 in donations had rolled in. Most who pitched in were local community members, so they not only got their investments from them, but also a great way to bring their friends to the club.
Royal Palms is just one of tens of thousands of small-business success stories from the past few years cited in that article. Favorable economic conditions, advances in technology, and trends such as crowdfunding are giving entrepreneurs more options for realizing their dreams. Despite an overall decades-long decline in entrepreneurship from the 70sthe number of startup firms per 100,000 residents in the US dropped from more than 250 in 1977 to 130 in 2015small-business creation has begun flourishing again, both on Main Street and online, claims the article.
The Kauffman foundation notes a big uptick in the U.S.the biggest year-over-year increase in new-business formation or startup activity in 2015 since 1997, the first-year data for this type of tracking became available. New entrepreneurship had mostly been on the decline since 2009 after the 2008 downturn, but now this reversed the five-year trend.
An improved economy could be part of the reason for the shift. A study by the Kauffman Foundation also found that one of the most promising aspects of the turnaround is the proportion of new opportunity entrepreneurs to necessity entrepreneurs. This latter group consists mostly of unemployed people who start a business because they need an income. During and immediately after the recession, this type of entrepreneur played a bigger part in new businesses than is typical, accounting for more than a quarter of new-business formation from 2009 through 2011. By 2014, necessity-driven startups had fallen back to their pre-recession standard of about 20 percent.
Opportunity entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are people leaving jobs or other labor markets to start new businesses. For those who fear impending lay-offs this is their way out by asking for a severance package preemptively and getting a jump on their venture. Many in the labor force also feel that they are not appreciated at work and hate their bosses. In fact, a good part of my career coaching practice stems from this need; this avenue is a great antidote for that problem.
According the article in The Week the age of these entrepreneurs is also skewing more towards older participants. In 1997, the 20-to-34-year-old set accounted for the largest segment of new entrepreneurs, at 34.3 percent, and workers ages 55 to 64 made up the smallest portion, at 14.8 percent. In 2014, the older cohort edged out the younger one, with those ages 55 to 64 making up 25.8 percent of new entrepreneurs, and those ages 20 to 34 only 24.7 percent. This is mostly due to the younger generation coming out of colleges with heavy debts and the older generation prudently saving their hard-earned money for retirement.
Then theres the phenomenon of plummeting startup costs. More than 35 percent of business owners say they needed no money, or almost none, to start their businessdouble the percentage in the 1980s. For example, an entrepreneur could use online accounting or business software instead of hiring a pro, or they could launch the business entirely online using resources like what Stripe provides (see the resource listing at the end).
Entrepreneurial culture has also changed. Theres a lot of the shared workspaces, the incubators, the accelerator programs, where people invite entrepreneurs who they think are promising into common working spaces and give them coaching and mentoring. These resources were previously offered mostly to high-tech start-ups, but are now available to any small business.
Starting and running a small business is as challenging as its ever been. But many aspects of the day-to-day operations have become easier for entrepreneurs to manage, thanks to new technology providing such services as web hosting, cloud storage, and online credit card processing.
The cited article in The Week also offers a list of most of the resources listed below to enable small businesses get started:
Asana, a free task-management system, gives everyone on your team a birds-eye view of current projects. Gone are the days of emailing your co-worker for a file or instant-messaging to find out whether a particular task has been completed.
Dropbox, a cloud-storage service, makes it easy to share files among team members, access them on any device, and send links to individual files to anyone.
Fundbox solves a problem small businesses everywhere understand: Once you do the work, you invoice but then may wait 30, 60, 90 days or longer to get paid. For a fee, Fundbox advances you the money immediately. Just connect the software directly to your accounting app, choose from the eligible outstanding invoices, and then receive the funds in your bank account. You repay it, without interest, when the customer comes through.
Google Apps for Work offers a one-stop shop for business basics: email, calendars, cloud storage, videoconferencing, screen sharing, and more.
MailChimp is an email marketing tool that helps you manage customer mailing lists, run targeted email campaigns, and create newsletters to send to subscribers. Integrate your e-commerce shop and find out what your customers are buying to send emails that are sure to grab their attention.
QuickBooks is a popular choice in accounting software. It connects to your bank and credit card accounts, as well as to apps like PayPal and Square, to keep you prepared for tax time throughout the yearno spreadsheets required.
SCORE This is a volunteer group of some 11,000 executives that helps small business owners during their needs for getting their business off the ground. It is closely affiliated with the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Shopify has a website builder to help you create your customized online store. It also sets you up with payment mechanisms, produces reports to help you understand your business sales trends, and lets you reach potential customers directly on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Square, which is used mostly for in-person payments, became known for the small, square-shaped credit card reader that merchants could attach to their phones and tablets. Versatility is one of its benefits: It handles chip and magnetic-stripe cards as well as near field communication NFC (contactless) payments.
Squarespace helps you create your own website using templates and an easy click-and-drag interface. This web-based service proves theres no need to learn HTML or graphic design to hang out your shingle online.
Stripe is another credit card payment processor, albeit one thats used primarily by online merchants. It allows them to create a payment flow for their website, accept coupons, enable recurring payments such as subscriptions, and take payment from countries around the world.
Armed with these details if you are itching to launch your own entrepreneurship career, go for it and
Good luck!
| About Author | |
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Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. |
Website: http://dilipsaraf.com/?p=2723
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