Is the sky falling?

Posted on January 30th, 2008 in Inspiration, Start Up by Tim

With all of the talk of an impending recession, are you second guessing your dream of starting a business? Has the decline in your stock portfolio made you want to reconsider your goals and just find a safe employer? You cannot pick up a newspaper or listen to the news without encountering a discussion of the credit crunch, the housing crisis or the inevitability of a recession.

Many economists liken our current situation with that of 1973. The United States was in an oil crisis. The stock market started a two-year downturn that saw the DJIA drop by 45%. Moreover, credit products were still evolving and generally less available than they are today. (Credit cards were barely twenty years old at that time.) As if that were not enough, the Watergate investigations were underway and the last U.S. soldiers were leaving Vietnam. Surely it must have seemed in 1973 as if it were not the best time to start a new business.

Why not start a transportation company?

Can you think of a better time to start an overnight delivery company than during an oil crisis? Fortunately Fred Smith did not let it hold him back, because FedEx began operations on April 17, 1973. To be fair, the oil crisis had not yet begun when FedEx started operating, but by October the oil embargo had begun. Fred had done his homework, literally as the business case for FedEx came from a 1965 class paper, and despite everything, FedEx moved forward. It took two years before FedEx made a profit, but just look at them now with a market capitalization of nearly $28.5B.

Of the companies founded in 1973, at least another 104 have gone public. Maybe you have heard of the Men’s Warehouse with it’s $1.25B market cap?

What to do?

Now more than ever, you should rigorously analyze the potential of your idea. Do a SWOT analysis, build your business case, etc. Maybe now is not the perfect time to finance your start-up with credit cards, but then again money is cheap if you qualify. As the saying goes: when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

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Quick Link: No Degree, No Excuse

Posted on December 15th, 2007 in Inspiration by Tim

I came across a very motivating article over at Cultivate GREATNESS. The posting lists many successful entrepreneurs who do not have a college degree.

Education has many benefits beyond the technical competence to start a business, but not having a degree should not be an excuse to put your dreams on hold. On the other hand, if you already have a degree or two, you have one less excuse for not pursing your dreams. What’s holding you back?

How many times were you told to make sure you worked hard in high school so you could go to college and get a good career job? Okay, maybe not all of you got nagged about it, but probably a good portion of today’s generation of adults did.

It’s natural to wonder whether college is really necessary. A college degree, as many have found, is no guarantee of a good career. On the flipside, there are many successful entrepreneurs who didn’t need their college education and become millionaires anyway. Here are fifteen of them, both contemporary and from the past, in alphabetical order.

15 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Didnt Need College