Early Moves

Head Start

The entrepreneurial lifestyle resists definition.

Business owners paint with strokes of curiosity, determination, and innovation. When people build with creative ambition, experience is valuable, but the symphony of desire and attitude plays an equally important role. It takes heart to start and resilience to keep building. Executing early moves, managing focus, collecting feedback, building a team, and maintaining sales is such an art form.

The best part about an entrepreneurial lifestyle is that it’s accessible to everyone. This can be seen as students explore projects that look like work to others, but feel like play to them. It’s intrapreneurs fueling positive change in existing companies. It’s startup founders achieving product-market fit with new ideas and others who build on existing momentum by acquiring an established business.

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This caffeinated contribution was written by Sheldon Ohringer. Sheldon has led large sales teams, is an active investor, a board member, and is now building Cocoon Growth to help others buy their first business.

Starting a business is one way to explore the entrepreneurial lifestyle, but buying an existing business is also an interesting way to write your own story. While there may be a cost for the head start, acquiring an existing business presents an interesting side door to the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

As you consider a business to buy, avoid future headaches by understanding industry requirements such as licenses, permits, zoning, and environmental requirements. As you work with existing ownership to determine a purchase price, a valuation based on capitalized earnings, excess earnings, cash flow, and tangible assets are all methods to guide fair negotiations. In the end, the right price is one that delights the seller and has the buyer excited.

As details come together, partner with legal and accounting experts who focus on mergers and acquisitions to document the transaction. A letter of intent, confidentiality agreement, contracts, leasing documents, financial statements, tax returns, and sales agreements are all important documents to talk with your M&A team about. Many transactions include a vesting schedule as well, so stay in-tune with these details to avoid unwanted surprises.

There are a variety of strategic ways to acquire a business, but once the transition takes place, new owners are given keys to a kingdom that hails an established team, customer base, and operating procedures. As we see in the Exit section of the Results chapter in YDNTB, there will be challenges during these transitory times, but in the end, virtuous leaders listen to keep the culture balanced. All the good that comes with a business is important to maintain, but an honest audit of negative aspects are important too. Intentional candor with areas to improve allows new owners to build on past success, while charting a renewed vision for lasting prosperity.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Triangulation

Cross-checking helps to determine distance, maneuver around obstacles, and identify rogue objects. Alongside the math, a triangulated team increases dependability.

Diversity of thought, talent, and real skills add synergy to accelerate progress and increase a team’s confidence when a problem is attacked from multiple angles. This nimbleness is leveraged as co-founders create a culture that makes each person feel significant.

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Building alone is easy.

Team up to make it fun.

On the prowl for co-founders? Consider triangulating a hipster (customer experience), hacker (technology), and hustler (business development). When these complimenting archetypes also blend hints of founder-market-fit, a timely curation gives any team exponential capacity.

To find missing links, connectors become connected. So show up and be quick to make interesting introductions. When the first degree of contact lacks obvious opportunity, remember it’s the second and third degree of connectivity that delivers precision. Over time, generosity in an entrepreneurial ecosystem expands and tightens engaged networks. Instead of forcefully recruiting co-founders, the open-ended activity of a serendipitist will have us colliding with friends we simply haven’t met yet.As teamwork begins, bonds that have formed naturally will support lasting collaboration with people you respect. That said, established trust is not an excuse to get complacent.

To nurture the power of triangulation be honest and transparent from start to finish. Every story ends, so don’t avoid difficult discussions. When structuring a business, agree on the terms, leave space for change over time, and maintain an operating agreement to ensure clarity with less tension. A commitment to abundant communication helps each team member remain attentive to details.

Professionals will take it further—inviting responsibility, then keeping the promise. For any idea maze, we take the blame, willingly give credit, and celebrate in style.

Lone wolves move fast but the expanded capacity of a team helps an odyssey go far. When a fun, long-term cast plays long-term games together, the chemical reaction can be an affinity toward work that feels like play. Cheers!

By Ben McDougal, ago

Decisions

The right decision is often the one you make.

When questions linger, they get heavier over time. When I talk about writing a book with aspiring authors, I share how a sense of paralysis occurs. Whether it’s from the writing or publishing process, this mental jam is not from a lack of options, but instead, so many. While it’s important to understand options, the key to momentum is to simply make each decision.

This is not as easy as it sounds. No matter how big or small the decision might be, the fear of getting it wrong stands in the way. Fortunately, while life or death decisions do occur, most of the time, a wrong decision only requires extra resources to make it right. Bad decisions add up, but if it’s just one decision that’s part of a longer sequence, even slight missteps can still move us closer to where we want to be.

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What decision is holding you back?

The decision I’m wrestling with, is if I should continue with my weekly writings. I’m so thankful for the reading room that is Roasted Reflections. It’s been a privilege and a blessing, but I’ve made sacrifices to ship this art every week for almost three years. I hinted at this in Recursion, but with the end of 2023 in sight, it’s time to decide if/how I should continue with this ambitious cadence.

Perhaps I’ve written what needs to be said, at least for now? Would these jolts of energy be missed if they were gone? Writing helps us understand our thoughts, so it’s nice to know if I do turn down the volume, the Roasted Reflections library isn’t going anywhere. I could still occasionally add fresh writings and we’ll stay connected with new episodes of You Don’t Need This Podcast brewing every week. What could I do with the extra bandwidth? Hmm…

I think it’s time. I’ll make this decision here and now.

The next four months (17 weeks) will be sequenced to say farewell to my weekly writings at the end of 2023. I’m so thankful for this remarkable ride we’ve shared together. Every writing will continue to be pure human, thoughtfully crafted, and brewed to keep us building. This will be an emotional process, but we are one my friends. People like us, do things like this, so cheers to all that is next.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Fructifying Fortitude

Watching toddlers learn to walk is adorable. This right of passage also reminds us how fresh motivation may be needed when progress seems to stall.

At first, early moves felt natural and crawling has done the job. As children see what’s possible, expectations are raised. With parental guidance, promising signs are filled with excitement and success feels within reach. Time passes though, and sometimes that loving motivation can lose its luster. Progress stalls and concern can start to brew, but what if the breakthrough is just waiting for a fresh source of encouragement? Even when it’s on accident, as new motivation is introduced, almost all at once, progress proceeds. We scramble for the camcorder and those precious first steps are enjoyed by all. Six more weeks of practice is needed, but this achievement renews momentum that keeps our little ones moving forward.

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For parents smiling as they read this, know that Pure Wonder, #1 DAD, Winding Whys, Training Wheels, Playforce, Santa is Real, and many of the emerging episodes from You Don’t Need This Podcast are just as fun!

For students, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs building around new ideas, the dance with innovation may also require shifting gears once in awhile. Next time an engine stalls, step back to consider that alternate angle, talk to peers with different perspectives, take a little time away, or show up unannounced to adapt and get back in business.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Tinker

This is your invitation to tinker.

The Headline Trap is real, life can feel busy, and we all have existing responsibilities, but take a moment to hold your arm as high as you can. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

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Need fresh ideas?
Try this daily exercise.

…ok, now…hold your arm higher! I bet you found room to push further, eh? This is a fun reminder that we all have more to give. Tinkering requires initiative, but we all have extra gears to help us avoid feeling like we left something on the table. Yes, comfortable feels safe and easy is easy, but why not turn a few knobs to see your idea twinkle?

When we accept an invitation to tinker, financial capital can speed things up, but time is usually the primary capital required. It’s amazing how much happens by showing up and activating a few early moves. While more of everything will be needed to commercialize an idea, thinking about this exploration through an adaptive lens of seasonality also reduces the weight of side hustles.

If you’re having a hard time finding inspiration, force yourself into environments were others are tinkering too. Community events within an entrepreneurial ecosystem can provide energizing human, intellectual, and network capital, but classrooms, makerspaces, hackathons, and coworking spaces are where people are tinkering together.

Whether it’s at home or in the community, tinkering celebrates pure wonder and will nourish your innovative spirit. Even if the answer is “no”, at least you’ll know.

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Things you dedicate time to will grow.

By Ben McDougal, ago