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~ Goethe, Writer
HALL-OF-FAMERS FAIL 70 PERCENT OF THE TIME
I
started my first business as a kid. However, it wasn’t the typical lemonade stand
but a paid event—a magic show for the neighborhood kids. Magic was my
passion as a child, so passion was the impetus for my business. In the weeks
preceding the show, I told all my friends about the event. I posted advertising
flyers throughout the neighborhood: mailboxes, telephone poles, the bus stop.
For preparation, I read a stack of magic books from the library. I spent my saved
allowances on prop tricks found in a mail-order catalog.
On the day of the show, I was excited to unleash my showmanship to the
world.
And then reality hit: As the time trickled past the event’s starting time, it was
clear that my audience would be just five kids, of which three were my next-door
neighbors. Even my brother and sister were no-shows. Lacking an audience, let’s
just say that my garage-magician venture didn’t make the local papers.
Afterward, I licked my wounds. The ticket sales didn’t cover my costs, let
alone the time I spent preparing for the show. It was my first failure, and in my
eyes, a very public one.
In college, I put on another failed event.
Again, passion and interests led the way.
This time, because I was deeply involved in hip-hop culture, my fraternity
brother and I thought it would be a great idea to sponsor a dance party at the
basketball gymnasium. We paid a respected DJ from Chicago to spin the rave. In
preparation, we posted flyers all over campus, hyped the event within our
fraternity, and even placed a small ad in the student newspaper. On the day of
the dance, the sting of my failed magic show repeated.
I opened the gym doors. Optimistically, I envisioned an anxious crowd lined
up. Instead, I opened the doors to an empty plastic bag fluttering by. Vehicle
traffic was light, pedestrians absent. While the thumping bass pounded the gym,
I waited. And waited.
A few of my fraternity brothers showed up, not because they wanted to, but
because our frat’s social chairman obligated them to. Once they met their duty of
a few moments, most of them quickly left, embarrassed at the travesty. Others
sprinkled in only to leave once they learned the rave was an empty, cavernous
basketball court speckled with the dumbfounded. Some asked for refunds.
Then our paid DJ arrived. We met in the locker room where he cheeked an
anticipative grin as thunderous bass rattled the steel lockers. My heart sunk as I
pointed out the tunnel onto the basketball court. As he lugged his record crate
ahead of me and cleared the bleachers, he suddenly stopped short, like a
pantomimed face-plant into an invisible wall. His smile instantly melted into a
stinkface, as if he just smelled the most rancid flatulence, post bean burrito. He
swiveled his head at me, eyes wide as limes. WTF is this?
I didn’t know what to say. I muttered, “More people should be coming soon,
don’t worry.” He nodded and ambled over to the DJ booth and mixed some
records. After thirty minutes, it was clear: no one was coming.
My friend and I, hoping to cover up our colossal failure, told the DJ he could
leave. Hurriedly, we locked the gym doors and refunded the few paying victims
that remained. My friend posted a sign with “Dance Canceled” and quickly hung
it on the gym doors. Within moments, we packed everything up and GotTFO. I
never moved so quickly.
Another money-losing failure. And a laughable one that’s retold anytime
alcohol is involved.
Still, my failures continued after college. Several more, in fact. A supplement
business, a jewelry business, a direct-marketing gig, a mortgage consultancy,
several others—I could detail them here, but I think you get the picture: I’ve
failed a bunch.
Every year, thousands of people start businesses and take stabs at “being the
boss.” From cutesy corner coffee shops to cheesy eBooks on how to get fit in two
weeks, there’s no shortage of people who roll the entrepreneurial dice. And every
year, thousands of businesses like these crap out as disastrous failures. They say
(not sure who “they” are) that 90 percent of new businesses fail within the first
five years. Whatever the percentage, it doesn’t matter.
You will contribute to the
statistic at some point.
The question is, will your updated resume be the death certificate of your
entrepreneurial dreams? Or will you continue swinging?
You see, entrepreneurship is a lot like baseball. You take a lot of ugly swings:
foul balls and strikeouts. A hall-of-fame baseball player bats .300, which means
he only hits 30 percent of the time. You can fail 70 percent of the time and still be
considered a legend. Heck, hit one home run at the right time and you can live
legendary for life, even if you’re a career 100 hitter.
The failure statistic simply means that entrepreneurs, in general, bat 100, or
fail 90 percent of the time. Failure is a part of the game, just as whiffing is at
baseball.
Think about it.
What if Steve Jobs quit pursuing his visionary ideas for computing after his
Macintosh fluke? Or what if Walt Disney quit after Laugh-o-Gram, one of his
many early failures?
So how can you improve your odds at connecting hits? Well, you take
steroids. Except the entrepreneur’s equivalent of steroids isn’t illegal or cheating.
Entrepreneurship’s unfair advantage—the “FE” in the
UNSCRIPTED
framework
—is
Fastlane Entrepreneurship
.
ENTREPRENEURIAL STEROIDS: FASTLANE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Not to contradict myself with respect to the shortcut scam, but
entrepreneurship has a secret sauce. However, this secret sauce is not a shortcut
or a frankenphrase but a general foundation for starting a business and grabbing
an unfair advantage. As pictured, the next phase within the
UNSCRIPTED
Model
is “FE” or
Fastlane
Entrepreneurship, represented below.
Represented by the left circle and unionized with a strong meaning and
purpose coupled with rewritten beliefs,
Fastlane
Entrepreneurship is
encompassed within one governing principle—
a productocracy
—followed by five
core Commandments, frequently referred to as CENTS.
Overall, the structure has six ingredients. Include them in your
entrepreneurial process and that dismal 90 percent failure statistic improves. In
baseball terms, instead of hitting .100, you could start hitting .300. From the
perspective of our gumball machine and luck, the
Fastlane
concept changes the
consistency of the machine, swapping out some of its orange and red gumballs
with golds.
Let’s change your odds.
CHAPTER 32
THE PRODUCTOCRACY: HOW TO
PRINT MONEY (AND SLEEP WELL)
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your
door.
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