GoFaxer Blog

There’s a huge draw for many young business people to start their own startup. We live in a digital age where email, email fax, and the Internet make starting a business as easy as buying a computer.

But with that easiness, comes a temptation to use your parents as mentors during the process. This can be a tempting proposition if your father or mother has a lot of successful experience in the business world. Having their knowledge in your organization can be a huge asset.

There’s a fascinating article at BusinessWeek.com by Eileen P. Gunn about this issue. She suggests:

“Today’s young adults are comfortable having their parents as mentors, coaches, and advocates throughout their lives. As for their parents, Lloyd Shefsky, co-director of the Center for Family Enterprises at the Kellogg School of Management, points to all the folks reinventing themselves in their 50s and 60s.”

The disadvantages are the same as working in a business with any family member. It’s so hard to extricate yourself from what can be a complicated relationship. if there’s any dysfunction in your family, it’s going to seep into your business.  And sometimes a perfectly good relationship can become strained when the pressures of day-to-day business hit.

Ultimately it depends on the individuals involved. If this is the right path for you, go for it. Your parent’s experience can be a boon.

I have a friend who’s a real entrepreneur and he actually had a girl tell him she wouldn’t date him because of this fact. I guess she wanted to marry a doctor. More power to her.

But I think that this situation is a rarity. Entrepreneurs are the bad boys and girls of the industry. The typical MBA grad working for corporate America would be like the day hiker—safe, easy, and comfortable wearing American Eagle in public. But the entrepreneurs are like the rock climbers, with the cool long hair, calloused hands, Oakleys, and the vintage rock band shirt.

You tell me which you prefer. If you really would rather play it safe, go for it, but let’s face it.  Being dangerous is cool.

I think that perhaps what makes entrepreneurs so exciting and interesting is the fact that they look cool without trying to look cool. They don’t use a Mac simply because the Apple logo is hip. They use a Mac because it’s the best. They don’t just use Email fax because it’s cutting edge. They use it because it makes smart economic sense. And they don’t eat organic food because it’s all the rage. They eat it because they know it will give them the energy to scale those mountains with their bare hands.

Perhaps we could use a little more cool in our world.

It used to be that environmentalism was an idealistic battle of a few extremists. Now the environmentalist has changed to a more pragmatic model. Now it seems to be associated with a number of very cool concepts. It’s clean. It’s stylish. It’s gourmet. It’s organic. It’s upscale. It’s cool. And more than anything, it’s economically mandatory.

Internet fax is a perfect example of this. Something that would have been touted as a moral choice 20 years ago is now seen from a cold logic as a new standard business practice and more than that—it’s conversationally cool.

On top of a newfound mojo, there’s the added fact that Congress will be passing a bill in the coming months to put a cap on green house emissions, decreasing them dramatically over the coming years. Even if the current president doesn’t sign it into law, all three of the major presidential nominees will in a year.

It’s for this reason that one of the hottest markets for young entrepreneurs is green technology. Because with those caps, all businesses and consumers will be looking for ways to meet those standards, methods that will be in their best financial interests.

I’m not sure if the old-school environmentalist will like the more practical approach to the issues of global warming and conservation, but they can’t argue with results. Mark my words. This new paradigm will see results like never before. Meaning, it’s a good time to start a business that caters to the movement.

As I’ve said before, I’ve read many business plans in my day and they all usually stink. They’ll say something like, “This location brings a lot of tourists that we can market to.” And that will be it. They don’t bother to mention exactly how they plan on marketing to those tourists. I read an interesting article at BusinessWeek.com that confirmed my belief in good planning.

This article tells the story of two brothers, John and Tony Calamunci, who dreamt of owning their own chain of hot dog restaurants. But they waited over 25 years before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. Why? Because they wanted to do it just right, planning every detail.

When I say they planned every detail, I’m not kidding. They hired a Mapinfo, a location research consulting firm that did vast and detailed location analysis. The firm identified their target customer as college students and lower-to middle-income families with children. With this knowledge they then identified 4,500 possible locations nationally that would be right for their business.

I know that a lot of small company owners like to get down to business. They like to open their doors and work out the details afterwards. But judging by the quick growth of Johnny’s Lunch Franchise, I think that all that planning might be the right way to go. Planning everything from the type of fax machine (I recommend email fax) to who you want as your neighbors makes all of the difference in hitting your growth projections.

Beyond explaining the benefits of Internet fax for small businesses, I’ve started this new series of posts about new industries that are ripe with opportunity.

Today I wanted to recommend the organic food industry. We all want to sell products that are rare enough to demand a high price point. Organic food is a great example of this. Organic food is produced without pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, bioengineering, and radiation.

It seems hard to believe that all of those things are regularly inserted into our common foods that we buy at the supermarket, but it’s true. Those who know this, and that’s becoming a very large portion of the population, are seeking out organically grown food options.

I suspect that in about 20 years organic food will be the new standard for all food production. I say this because I noticed at Target in their little fast food section that they were offering organic sandwiches and yogurt for kids. I think the writing is on the wall.

With that said, there’s still a very limited supply of organic farms in the world. Meaning that you can demand a much higher price and customers will pay it. The entire industry is growing at a rate of about 10% a year, a much higher than average growth rate. That combined with the demand makes a recipe for success.

Let’s be honest. When you’re starting a small business, you’re going to be working a lot! There’s just no way around it. Of course, you probably wouldn’t even be trying to start your own startup if you didn’t love what you were doing.

But then again, you might have a life too. We’ve all got family responsibilities, friends, and the need to grocery shop every once in a while. Life does not totally exist in the office.

This is why email fax is so perfect for the 21st century entrepreneur. It gives you total freedom to do business, even if you’re not in the office. In fact, these services allow you to not even have an office. Whether you’re running your operation out of your basement, a small rented office, your bedroom, or your laptop in the library, email fax works. You won’t have to miss your son’s birthday party if you’re waiting for that important fax.

With Internet based fax technologies, all you need is a web browser and access to the web and you’re good to go. No need to worry about downloading software and whatnot.

If you’re working weekends, traveling, or working from a corner office, Internet based office services are absolutely indispensable. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that it’s cheaper than old school fax machines. You can’t argue with that.

A lot of new startups can make a lot of mistakes. This is why so many fail. They might rent out office space before they have the cash flow to support it. They might buy a fax machine instead of using simpler and less expensive options like fax to email. They might pick an industry that they’re familiar with, but where there’s less marketability.

Another big mistake that a lot of small businesses fail to do is focus their efforts on one product, service, or market. I think this comes from the desire to mitigate the financial risks. You want to diversify. But there’s so much effort required getting a small business up and running to a profitable level, it’s going to take all of your teams heart, mind, and effort to get it working.

So don’t sell yourself to thin. I’ve known entrepreneurs who have ten balls in the air, and they’re unlikely to be as successful as they could be if they would just focus on the business with the most promise and make it work.

I think it’s easy to do this because small business leaders are generalists instead of specialists, meaning they lose interest easily. They like having lots of things on their plate to keep them interested. If you’re one of these types of people, don’t fall prey to your personality by over generalizing your business. Stay focused and you’ll have the great opportunity for success.

It’s easy when you’re starting a new business concept to want immediate sales, quickly. One of the easiest variables in the equation is your price. You know that if you lower your price, you’ll be able to ensure a higher number of sales.

But this strategy might not be the best option for your little startup. The bigger you are, the more margin you have to play with. But when you’re small and trying to grow, you have to generate enough cash to grow your infrastructure. Even choosing smart cost cutting solutions like fax to email are not going to be enough to compete financially.

This is why business analysts, who study the factors of successful new businesses agree: Compete on service or quality, not price.

As a small business, you might have less wiggle room on price, but because you’re small you can control the quality of your product much easier. You can always provide better service than your competitors. But don’t think you can go up against the big players and compete on price.

Unless you have a small business that is almost instantly profitable, like a recent piece I wrote about Snap Fitness, you’re really best off keeping your prices slightly higher and guaranteeing a superior product to your consumers.

You’ve decided to start your own small retail store. It’s a great franchise. You’ve done the build out. You’ve set up your phone line and your credit card machines. You’ve got your fax to email service set up. Everything is in place.

You open your doors. No one comes in. Oh yeah. You forgot to do one thing—tell potential customers that you’re actually in business. Marketing is one of the most talked about things in business, and one of the least done effectively.

Small business owners often find themselves in trouble in this area for a couple of reasons. The first is that it costs money, something they might not have much of anymore after they’ve hired someone to put in the beautiful new tiling on the floor. The second reason is they might not know that much about marketing.

These are two tough challenges to overcome. On the first problem, make sure that you’ve planned ahead for your marketing expenses in your business plan. Know how it’s going to affect your P&L.

The second challenge may require some extra work on your part. If you know a really great marketing consultant, one that you trust, hire them. If you don’t, I highly recommend doing some serious reading. The best marketing book out there is Jon Spoelstra’s “Marketing Outrageously.” It’s brilliant and will help your small business immensely.

There are many key factors that can play into the success of the new small business. The best businesses use new technologies like fax to email to their advantage. They have a solid idea. They have a great team. There’s one other key feature: They write a business plan.

It is tempting, in the bustle and excitement of creating your new business, to see the writing of a plan as a superfluous formality. But studies show that startups that don’t go through this process are quite bit less likely to succeed.

The simple fact is the planning should be a fundamental element of your business. It should permeate your entire process of operation. Great companies think strategically. Planning facilitates this line of thinking.

Once your business plan is written and put in place, it should be followed. It should be adjusted if your strategic objectives shift. It should also be a guide for all tactical decisions. Short-term actions should be a reflection of the long-term plan. When this happens, you have a business moving forward toward its goals.

When writing your plan, making it as specific as possible. Plans that are simply going through the motions tend to be way too vague. Whereas a good business plan demonstrates that all of the major business issues have been thought through in very specific terms. These kinds of plans are the one which will be really relevant as the day to day operations are faced.