CHAPTER 1

Anyone Can Do It

A belief common among would-be entrepreneurs is that only a chosen few are cutout for this kind of work, and everyone else is destined for a life in thecorporate grind. Some people think entrepreneurs have some genetic trait thatmakes them capable of taking big risks, skirting colossal failure, and achievinggreat success while all others are addicted to the security of a monthlypaycheck and health insurance. But in helping thousands of people start theirown businesses, we have discovered over and over again that this myth is simplynot true.

We believe that anyone, yes anyone, can be a successful entrepreneur.People love to argue this with us, and they always lose. Exactly what skill isrequired for starting a business? Do you have to be smart? No. Most businessowners are far from geniuses. Do you have to have earned some prestigiousgraduate degree? No. Education in the form of a degree is irrelevant if you havethe proper tools for success in place. We challenge you to find any criteriathat a person must have in order to become a successful entrepreneur. The onlycharacteristic that comes close to being necessary is raw desire and drive, andanyone who has picked up this book has demonstrated the requisite desire.Successful businesses can be launched quickly and profitably out of yourbasement, in your garage, or even, as shown in the following example, in acollege classroom.

How Timeless Chair Was Born

The world was in turmoil in the months after the September 11, 2001, terroristattacks. It was a tense period, marked by a swooning stock market. Todayuncertainty and fear are with us again, this time due to the recession thatstarted with the bursting of the subprime-lending bubble in 2008. In the fall of2001, Jim Beach was teaching entrepreneurship to graduate students at GeorgiaState University in Atlanta. The enthusiasm of the students was palpable, butthe university, as large institutions so often do, had him teaching the coursewith a textbook of fifteen-year-old case studies. The students, already upsetabout paying $129 for an old textbook, could not relate to stories about LarryEllison, Bill Gates, or Oprah Winfrey. They realized that replicating thesecareers was about as likely as winning the lottery, maybe even less likely.Instead, they were anxious to start their own small businesses after college, sothey could avoid entering the draconian corporate world.

Jim had a different idea. Why not use the classroom as an entrepreneuriallaboratory? Why not start a company in the classroom? He was so confident ofsuccess that he let students choose the product and the country. Jim wouldprovide the startup capital. If the company did not make a profit by the end ofthe four-month semester, he would give every student an automatic A. Earlier inthe class, Jim had told the students how hard the furniture business was, howlow the profit margins were. So the students joked about potentially starting afurniture company. In what country? Pakistan, of course, which was right in thecenter of the post-9/11 conflict and therefore not exactly the optimum locationfor starting a new business venture. Jim accepted the challenge, and the clockstarted ticking.

As students researched the furniture industry in Pakistan, they discovered thatthe country also had a very large rug industry, mostly producing handmade rugs.Jim and the class came up with the idea of combining the rug industry and thefurniture trade. They would buy antique Persian rugs (sometimes called kilim)direct from the markets of Pakistan, cut them up, and use the pieces asupholstery for chairs. By the fourth week of class, they had only just gottenthe idea off the ground, so time was running short to turn a profit.

Jim contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) office in Pakistan. The DoCruns a program called the Gold Key Service, which introduces American companiesto possible partners overseas. One of the federal government's best-keptsecrets, this service helps American businesses flourish globally. Thedepartment asked several questions about the price range and qualityexpectations, so it could get a better focus on what types of furniture makersthe class was looking for. Jim responded with the requested information, and twohours before class the next day, he received a two-page faxed response listingabout twenty companies that might be able to satisfy the requirements. One ofthe students in the class was from Pakistan, and he was able to provideadditional names based on information from his family.

During the fifth week of the class, the students gave their new enterprise aname, based in large part on the availability of the Web domain name (the nameof a website). They called their business Timeless Chair—and registered thedomain name timelesschair.com—because these were new chairs covered with oldcarpets, giving them a timeless look. (A quick point about naming your low-risk,high-speed entrepreneurship venture: You can spend months of your time andthousands of dollars hiring a marketing firm to come up with a name for yourcompany, but if the Web domain name is already taken, you'll need a differentWeb address. It's better to check first for domain name availability and shapethe name of the company around those that are available. A domain name can bepurchased for a very small amount of money, often for as little as $10 a year,from domain name registration sites such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com.)

After they decided on a name, Jim's students set out to obtain books on chairdesign so they could refine their product. Soon they chose two high-back chairs,a classic dining room chair, two overstuffed chairs, and a library reading chairto emulate. These designs were then faxed to the list of possible suppliers inPakistan. Three companies quickly responded. Within twenty-four hours, onecompany had a sample chair constructed and agreed to ship it UPS air express.Meanwhile, the students started working on creating a company website—nothingfancy, using just a $59 standard template design.

The first sample chair that arrived was a disappointment. The kilim fabric wasboring and rough, hard to sit on. The polyurethane coating looked dusty. Afterthe class complained, the manufacturer agreed to find...