Afraid to get dirty? Entrepreneurship might not be for you

OK, so you started your own business because you heard on MTV it leads you to more bling and bigger rims.  And your crib(s) get decked out in fur and hot tubs.  Oh yeah, you will magically get people to do all the mundane boring work for you.  Please allow me to shatter the rosy illusions.

You have to do things you might not want to

It was our first year in operation for The Network Hub and I was cleaning the washroom when a fellow entrepreneur walked by and balked, “Minna you are the boss. Why are you cleaning the toilet?” and all I could say was, “It had to be done.”  There are a lot of people who would rather spend time on doing things they like and have some one else deal with the things they do not want to do – things that they deem to be beneath them.

You have to execute, you can’t hide behind the computer

“But I’m an idea person” is the usual excuse. I want to say there are a lot of idea people but a lack of people who can execute the idea.  This might mean – for a lot of people – getting out of the office and finding customers. Or in my case, making sure the office is beautiful and clean so people want to be here.  I am not talking about impossible specialized tasks which you should leave to the experts, I’m talking about doing things that are necessary for your business.

You work really long hours for little pay

The hours you have to put in are grueling but you have to bear it out and that’s why, if you are in it for the money, sorry to tell you, there isn’t that much – if any – at the beginning.  This also means you have to spend most of your hours dealing with things you might not like such as accounting, bookkeeping, operations, management but you have to do what you hate in order to succeed in the startup world.

When you feel so tired after long hours of work that you want to throw up, you have to shake it off and get back to it.  There is no jacuzzi or hot tub to sit back in. In fact there isn’t anyone or anything but you and your partners to do whatever it takes to see the business through.  Once your ideas have materialized, it is a beautiful thing.

Today we have multiple companies in our space; entrepreneurs all around us who are going through the same struggle and every one supports each other.  We built our own peer-to-peer support entrepreneur/freelancers/mobile professional community that allows each of us to take our companies to the next level.

Sitting back, I am in awe of what my partners and I have built with our sweat and tears but it was all worth it.  Believe me, the struggle is not over.  We are going through growth and that in itself presents different challenges but with the persistence and lessons we learned starting our business, we will make it through the next phase of business.

How we incorporated our business

Must be something in the air but at least a dozen young entrepreneurs have asked me, “How can I go about incorporating my business?”

It is a wonderful thing for the economy when someone decides to venture into the world of entrepreneurship but it can also be very overwhelming.  Sole proprietorship or corporation?  What name should I use for my business?  What logo? Should I trademark my logo?  Incorporating federally or provincially?   It all becomes very overwhelming but thankfully there are FREE resources available to help answer those questions.

When The Network Hub was conceived, my two partners and I were students, so, there was no way we could afford lawyers to take care of everything. Although, depending on your business, you should DEFINITELY be talking to a startup/business/incorporation lawyer.

Jay, John and I have had experience working together and we previously incorporated for our other company so we were familiar with the process.  To register your business name, you have the option of going in person to Small Business BC or submitting your business name online with BC Registry Services.  Now here is the odd thing, you would think submitting would be a 24/7 service – nope, not with BC Registry Online.  BC Registry Services operates from 6 am to 10 pm Monday-Saturday and from 1 pm to 10 pm on Sundays.

We opted to go in-person because we wanted to incorporate our business name. Now, when your company is incorporated, the name is checked against a list of registered corporations in BC to ensure there are no duplicates.  We wanted to consider all possibilities of our company name submission, so that it would not rejected because that means $49 gone to waste and we would have to resubmit.  With proprietorship or partnership, business names are not protected so you can have multiple companies with the same names. (Note: if you feel overwhelmed already, get yourself a good lawyer to incorporate for you)

Once we got the approval letter mailed back from the BC Registry Services, we went ahead and started the incorporating process.  You have 56 days from when your business name is approved to decide on a business structure, otherwise, you have to submit AGAIN for approval – another $49 dollars.   If you have no idea which business structure is right for you – go to Small Business BC, Google it.,or consult a lawyer.

Here is the excerpt from Small Business BC:

1. Sole proprietorship. If you plan to operate the business on your own, either under a business name or your own name
2. Partnership. If you plan to operate the business with one or more partners
3. Corporation. If you plan to operate the business as a separate legal entity, separate from yourself and your personal assets
4. Society. If you plan to operate a not-for-profit organization, in which any funds or profits will be used only for the society’s purposes
5. Co-operative. If you plan to operate a business that is owned and democratically controlled by the people who use and benefit from your services

A major difference between a corporation and a sole proprietorship or partnership is that, in a corporation, no individual person is responsible or liable for debt (unless specifically outlined in a contract or legal document for your business). Also, if any members of your business leave or are replaced, it won’t affect the business as a whole and operations can continue, uninterrupted.

For us, we chose to incorporate because of liability protection and tax-benefits.   You have two choices when it comes to incorporating:  self-incorporation online at Corporate Online or consult a lawyer.   While we would have loved to have a lawyer to take care of this process for us, it wasn’t possible with all the expenses of starting up a business. So, we decided to register the business ourselves.

With the help of the Incorporation Guide for British Columbia by Self-Counsel Press for $19.95 and about $350 to incorporate online, we were officially incorporated.  Check out Self-Counsel Press for other forms such as Legal Forms for Incorporated Business.

Please note:  This is NOT legal advice. If you require advice, please consult a lawyer!!

The Power of Emotion

As entrepreneurs, we invest so much time in the product that we forget sometimes successful products make an impact on the heart more so than the mind of consumers.

A feature can always be matched. A claim can always be mimicked. But an emotional sweet spot is something your brand can occupy all by itself.

Read more here: Brands: The Power of Emotion

Ron Conway on the Genetics of an Entrepreneur

On the genetics of being an entrepreneur, why entrepreneurs are all a little edgy, and why Mark Zuckerberg was destined to be an entrepreneur…

An entrepreneurial lesson from a street artist

A lot of time, entrepreneurs have a hard time accepting criticisms about their ideas. I plead guilty to this; I remember during the first year of our business when we just started, people thought I was extremely stubborn. But for me it was my life, I live, eat and breathe the business. My partners and I took the time to groom it, to nurture it and to grow it. So we get a little defensive when someone criticizes our ideas. While it is important to verify the source of where the criticism is coming from before you take their advice or defend your ideas, it is more important to be quiet for a second and just listen. It is very important to be able to detach yourself for a second from the business to listen to criticisms that could potentially allow your business to go to the next level.

Take a step back and look at the bigger picture, listen to the person who disagrees with you and see if they have validity in their points. Be open to ideas from anywhere.

Emotional intricacies of being an entrepreneur

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, once wrote:

“First and foremost, a start-up puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced. You flip rapidly from day-to-day – one where you are euphorically convinced you are going to own the world, to a day in which doom seems only weeks away and you feel completely ruined, and back again. Over and over and over. And I’m talking about what happens to stable entrepreneurs. There is so much uncertainty and so much risk around practically everything you are doing. The level of stress that you’re under generally will magnify things incredible highs and unbelievable lows at whiplash speed and huge magnitude. Sound like fun?”

Vancouver’s Asian Women Fear Bad Journalism

Top 10 Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs

Part of 2010 Conference on Entrepreneurship.
What things typically trip up an entrepreneur in starting and running a company? Is it getting the right business partner? Is it having the killer technology? How does one recover from major setbacks? A panel of seasoned entrepreneurs, angels, venture capitalists, and board members discuss the common pitfalls most new entrepreneurs encounter when building their businesses.

The faces of entrepreneurship

Preparing your small business for your vacation

Want to skip town so you can go home and visit with some family? Maybe you’re feeling a little burned out and need to get away from it all? Whatever the case, burgeoning entrepreneurs are just as entitled to vacation times as their counterparts who receive biweekly paycheques. However, small business owners have to make some more complex preparations ahead of time.

I’m speaking from my perspective as a freelance writer, though the same concepts should apply to other entrepreneurial professionals as well. This also goes with the assumption that you are largely a one-person operation, but adjustments can be made for slightly bigger companies too.

First, it is important to plan ahead if you are going to take more than a couple of days off. Keep project deadlines in mind so that you leave little, if anything, “on the table” while you are away. You don’t want to have that looming deadline in the back of your head as you try to relax with an umbrella drink on the beach. It’s fine to line up more work for when you return, but try to minimize any work that straddles on both sides of your holiday time.

Second, ensure that proper preparations are in place for the receipt of any letters or parcels that you may be expecting in the mail. See to it that there is someone there to receive them on your behalf. Better still, make use of a mail service, like the one offered by the Network Hub, to handle your shipping and receiving needs in your absence.

Third, you may want to inform your existing clients of your intentions. It would leave a bad impression if a client assumed that you were in the office, sending you an urgent email or giving you a call, only to feel that he or she is being ignored. A simple and straightforward “out of office” auto-reply message may be in order.

Coming back from your vacation, you can feel re-energized and more motivated than ever to get back on the job. You deserve some relaxation time.

About the author: Michael Kwan is a professional freelance writer based out of Vancouver, Canada. He can be found blogging at Beyond the Rhetoric.