"Entrepreneurism, for Fun and Profit."

I'd like you to think about something today you likely don't think about every day.

Or any day, for that matter.

That "thing" is "entrepreneurism."  A fancy French word for, "self-employed."  It means starting and trying to run one's own business.  All alone or in concert with others, those who engage in, these folks are all around you.  They are everywhere!  

There are 31,000,000 Americans who work for themselves.  That's 9.79% of our entire population.  18.6% of our entire workforce!  They're the ones operating that hot dog cart on the side of the road.  Or running that car detailing business.  Or offering you a nice steaming bowl of tasty chili at their restaurant.  Or perhaps selling you a new rug.  Or a new tractor.  Or fixing that tractor when it breaks.  These are the people in business of helping others.  

In one way or another, those who work for themselves, our Entrepreneurs, must give others more than they get, in absolute value, or they will fail in their efforts.  

And they do.  Often.

Let's go there.  Let's talk the restaurant business, as an example.  And we mere diners who visit such establishments don't often think of them as such, but they must make a profit to survive.  We know from available data that labor can consume as much as 38% of all income.  An average of 30% goes to rent and electricity and utilities and maintenance and repairs.  Around 20 - 25% will go to food and disposables.  Around 5% or so will go to phone and utilities and legal. Leaving no more than 3% or 4% for gross profit.  Before taxes and depreciation!

Consider that the average restaurant starts out on the morning of the first day of every month $50,000 or $100,000 or $200,000 upside down.  In desperate need of that 1st customer to open the door.  

Praying for that turnstyle to turn...  

And that presumes you actually can attract customers.  Owners must find the money to market their businesses or they'll fail.  In an inflationary economy dining out is becoming a luxury.  Because of the Internet, prospective diners are letting online info direct their culinary choices.  Forcing restaurants to now employ marketing professionals to wave their banners digitally.  In short, every restaurant is now in competition with each other for our dwindling discretionary dining $dollar.  

All while restaurants are failing right and left.  We diners might not think about it much, but opening a restaurant is quite like Russian Roulette.  You're going to go down in flames, the only question is, when?

Those statistics are alarming!  Here they are:

     -  Restaurant failure in first year:  40%

     -  Restaurant failure in second year:  60%

     -  Restaurant failure by the fifth year:  80%*

Why in the Hell would anyone open a restaurant when they cost so much and the profit opportunity is so low, and the odds against success are so enormous?  It's like playing blackjack where you only get one card!  Yet, people do.  Hundreds of thousands of them every year, in fact, do.  Why?  They believe they can do it better.  

There's always somebody who thinks he can do it better.  Thank God.

And that's the motivation for every entrepreneur.  I used to teach a class for Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Business.  I entitled it, "Entrepreneurism, for Fun and Profit."  I stood in front of a class of MBA candidates explaining to them that they're taught numbers and theories and examples upon which to base future decisions.  I taught them what it's like in the real world.  Where decisions must be made like a field general in the midst of a war.  Fast, on the fly, or go out of business.  

Entrepreneurs think differently.  They're driven.  They will not be deterred.

When I finally got out of college I went to work for a $Billion Dollar corporation.  Within a couple of years I turned that in for a job in a $Hundred Million Dollar corporation.  Within a couple of years more I gave it the boot for a management position in a $Few Million Dollar corporation.  And within a few years after that I quit them all and started my own $Hundred Dollar corporation.

As the owner.

I was going to sink or swim on my own abilities.  I thought I was smarter than anyone I'd ever worked for.  And I worked for a lot of smart leaders.  But I always, ALWAYS thought I was smarter.  And better.  And so, after finding a willing and trusting and supremely talented wife to go along with me on my quest, I (we) started my/our own business.

And never looked back.

We were self-employed Entrepreneurs for nearly 40 years.  And that was despite a daily fight to keep village, township, city, county, state and Federal hands out of our pockets.  To fight off every rule and regulation and policy and law other bureaucrats dreamed up to participate in our success.  For what we didn't know when we started our venture was that there were vultures everywhere.  Ready to separate me from any profit dollar I might possibly eke out.  To look at us as their "partners" who somehow owe them a slice of our success for "letting" us do business in their realm.  Sort of like Sheriff John in the Hamlet of Nottingham.   

We looked at them as leaches, embarked on a never-ending quest to drink our blood.  As any entrepreneur.  They'll tell you... 

More than 55% of our entire population punches a time clock.  You'd have to be a Captain or higher at your local police station to earn an actual salary.**  Another 24% of our population earns that weekly or bi-weekly paycheck.  Every two weeks that check arrives in their mailbox.  But whether by-the-hour or bi-weekly, Entrepreneurs know that paycheck is a drug used to keep you in line and coming back for more.  Just enough to keep you toiling away, but not enough to make you rich or to make you love them.  If it were, nobody would ever quit and start their own businesses.

Sorry, a bit harsh, I know.  But reality can often suck.

But the obverse is challenging as well.  All in all, I'd say that choosing to become an Entrepreneur is fraught with peril on every front.  You're far better off to take a job at the post office, or become a cop or firefighter, or run for office as a Democrat (a lifetime appointment), or become a teacher.  It would take a hand grenade to blow any of the aforementioned folks out of their jobs.  But along with job security, will they have job enjoyment and fulfillment with those careers?  

That's another question...

I'll close with some uplifting statistics.  Data from all sources indicate that fully 56% of the American People have started their own business at one time or another.  Another 30% have started two or more businesses.  Think about that!  That tells me more than 85% of the American People know that working for others sucks, and trying to break out of that mold is nearly everyone's goal.  Like trying to break out of a mental prison.  And they'll keep trying until they get it right! 

What does it tell you?  

*     National Association of Restaurants, 2022

**   I started and managed four businesses.  In none of them did I have any hourly employees.  Everybody was paid to accomplish an objective.  To do a task, as it presented itself.  Whether it took 5 hours a week, or 55 hours a week.  I didn't care.  And if they didn't wish to work under those conditions, they were free to leave.  I can't recall anyone ever leaving...