Visionary Interview

I had the chance to talk to serial entrepreneur Bob Young (of Red Hat and Lulu) for a Bloomberg Entrepreneurs profile. 

What a fascinating guy. He has a way of looking at the world - and at himself - that is both refreshing and charming, and all too rare among very successful people.

We talked about the future of print media, and he was pragmatic. "The people who started making car parts are not the same people who made carriages and buggy whips," he told me. "The people who started monetizing the auto industry are the ones who grew up immersed in it."

In other words, it's not traditional media that will succeed on the Internet. It's people who can bring innovation like my kids, who grew up online and don't know any different. It's a sobering view, but I think it makes a lot of sense.

He has great admiration for print and gave me half a dozen reasons why physical books are superior to e-books, though he said that overall electronics are far superior to print. Young believes that half the jobs in print media will disappear over the next decade or two.

He ended on this sobering thought: 'If you can't move your job in publishing from paper to electrons in the next 10  or 20 years, you have a 50 percent chance of being out of work." Check out the whole article - and Bob's trademark red socks, they're a hoot.

Fighting Age Discrimination

I know more than a couple people of a certain age who are discouraged about finding new or better jobs.


"There are so many 20-somethings out there looking for work!" they exclaim, with the implication being that not only are the youngsters better-versed in technology, they're also willing to work on the cheap.


"But you bring so much experience and authority to your field," I reply, knowing deep down that some employers don't want either quality in their employees. (Makes them too difficult to boss around and exploit, I'm afraid.)


Anyway, the difficulty is out there, so I thought I would share some tips for avoiding age discrimination, from career coach and author Ford R. Myers. Take a look after the jump. 

What's Your Story?

Got a great story to tell about your business?

Put together a short video or essay and submit it to the My Startup Story Contest sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance.

You could win $10,000. And even if you don't win, it's a great exercise and a way to practice your "elevator pitch." And you can check out the startup stories of some terrific entrepreneurs on the company's Facebook page.

New Resource

You may or may not be familiar with the SBDC (Small Business Development Centers). As a long-time source, entrepreneur and author Bob Reiss says, they've "never won any marketing awards."


Nevertheless, the SBDC network has more than 1,000 U.S. offices and their sole purpose is to help entrepreneurs start and grow small businesses. Their services are free or low-cost and I have no doubt they are also underused.


Now, they have a revamped website that you should visit sometime. A link to Bob's blog is there under "inspiration."

Happy Holidays

A new survey of micro-retailers has found nearly half more optimistic about holiday sales this year than last. And with consumer spending up 0.6% last month, they may be right.

The poll of 1,000 retailers by Manta.com, a online small business community, also showed that 75% of respondents will use social media to promote their holiday specials. Some said they feel that the message about the benefits of shopping locally are getting through to their customers.


Unfortunately, says the survey, "... retailers’ optimism for the holidays isn’t translating into jobs. An overwhelming majority (86 percent) doesn’t plan to hire additional holiday staff; half say it’s because they don’t need the help and one-third because they can’t afford it."

Planning, American Style

My story on immigrant financial planners and the clients they serve hit the Interwebs today.

Check it out. I love the headline they gave it.

What's Luck Got To Do?

Readers frequently ask me about the role of luck in starting a business. And I've always been curious about it, too.

Certainly persistence, planning, education and a positive attitude are crucial to small business success. But there are also a host of factors that can't be controlled: timing, big picture economics, competitors, trends and plain old luck.

So how big a role does good (or bad) fortune really play in success? The New York Times business section had an author who has written a book on this very topic opine on it in Sunday's paper.

He analyzed extremely successful businesses to try and isolate the role luck played and came up with a ROL (return on luck) factor that takes some of the uncertainty out of it. Fascinating stuff - give it a read.