Category Archives: Business

A Simple Answer To Starting A Business At Age 25 Or Not

Posted on by
Reply

Ironically, the two articles of my young entrepreneurial beat were published on the same day and are equally counter-argumentative. The first article, “Don’t Start A Company Before You’re 25” by Robbie Abed was posted on Technori, where people go to celebrate entrepreneurship. The second article, “Start A Company When You’re 25 – Not When You’re 52,” was submitted on Forbes by Liz Kammel. Just from viewing the titles you can bet they will be butting heads like two entrepreneurial rams during mating season. Mating, of course, with their destiny of either starting a company before the age of 25, or not.

Robbie Abed, the author advocating you not to start a company before you’re 25, understands that every reader of his article is aware of how controversial it is. In fact, within the first line of the article he says, “Yup, this article is controversial.” His writing, from the beginning, taunts you personally. His language and word choice is nearly mirrored to what his reader would be thinking after glancing over the title. However, after his humorous introduction, he begins to attack the point of his article, giving support to those in favor of starting a business before the age of 25. Then, suddenly, his entire voice shifts over to something which should be held with the utmost respect, a voice that radiates wisdom and complete confidence. He boldly notes that “Success does not equal happiness” but “happiness is the new success.”

Instead of defining happiness, which you can rightly agree does not have a definition, Abed talks about his friends. Friends who are not involved in technology or startups at all. Friends that hang out every weekend and have fun. He considers them to be “happy” people. In contrast, he uses himself as an example; that he works too many hours, tries, but can’t take weekends off and is addicted to his kind of success. Quite plainly, he says that being happy and having fun while young is far more important than starting a business and losing the youthful and exciting era of life to the task of building a business. After adding contextual support for the statement, “it’s never too late, but it can be too early,” he offers his closing statement that “when you start your company at 26, you won’t be behind. I promise.”

All that Abed has said is clearly tried and true, however, one specific portion of his take on starting a business at an early age is used as leverage in the other article, “Start A Company When You’re 25 – Not When You’re 52,” by Liz Kammel. Kammel explains how the youthfulness which Abed described is – to Abed’s disappointment – the largest reason to start a business when you’re 25. “At age 25, the sky is the limit,” Kammel says. As you can readily agree with, when you’re young, you can stay up late every night, work as many weekends as you want, and as Kammel most importantly notes, “you have no fear of challenging ‘market standards.’”

As a 20 year old, I can offer even greater support than Kammel offers. When you’re young, you have an extremely low number of responsibilities: one pet, if any, a couple of bills, no kids. When you’re young, you can settle for less: a small place, maybe even just living at home, a part-time job, and of course, ramen noodles.

This free, flexible, full play lifestyle that Abed states is important to happiness is as important in starting a successful business.

The second argument Kammel makes is that a company should be started early and with the support of an older mentor. What she hints at is the inclination for older mentors to help the youth. Naturally, you wouldn’t think a 52-year-old would be working with another 52-year-old on starting a business. The mentor would, as expected, be puzzled as to why another 52-year-old man is asking for advice rather than giving his own to others. It’s a simplistic structure of society – the old help the young.

Kammel makes a strong point that as a young entrepreneur, there are plenty of experienced people you can hand the business off to. While they are taking care of “business,” you’re off starting another one!

Comparing and contrasting the two articles, it seems the better choice – to start a business early or not – comes down to what you have more fun doing on the weekends? Working on a business startup or hanging out at a coffee shop?

Stay Positive & Live On

Garth E. Beyer

Motivated Teenagers, This Is For You. (Because My Parents Never Showed Me)

Posted on by
Reply

We’re emotional human beings, we feel disappointment, sorrow, sympathy, false hope, regret, and a bit of anger.

However, for the sake of what I am about to share with you, let’s be on the same page. Sure, we as teenagers are emotional, but in an extremely different way from the average person. We teenagers are emotional in the sense that we are meant for more than what we are currently doing. We aren’t feeling challenged and it sucks. It hits us emotionally. School is easy and homework is even easier. Making friends is easy and connecting with strangers is even easier. Chores are easy and making money is even easier … the list goes on. Things just come easy to us, likely because we work for it, but that is only part of the point. Being blatant, we are gifted individuals.

I’m turning 20 in November and I’ve recently come across an opportunity so-very-close to perfect for teenagers who have fire in their belly, a passion for improvement, and a motivation to be successful. You have probably not heard of the Thiel Fellowship and like I said, I had just found out about it the the other day. Greatly interested, I submitted my email address to be notified when the next application process for the Fellowship would begin (sometime this fall).

The Fellowship: When you apply for the Thiel Fellowship, you are applying to be part of a handpicked group of teenagers who will be given $100,000 NOT TO GO TO SCHOOL for two years and to work on turning their ideas (business’s, inventions, software, etc.,) into reality.

Now here is the kicker. Only people age 19 and under can enter the Fellowship. I would just be turning 20 when the application process opens so I am SOL. Why is this so important for you? If you haven’t already Googled it, let me tell you in the shortest version.

This is your chance to live your dreams of “If only I had the money.” The Thiel Fellowship says, “here, let me give you all the resources you need: money, mentors, like-minded people, tools, resources, everything.” They take away the excuses that prevent you from doing the emotional labor of creating something you believe in. This is your opportunity to quit being emotionally frustrated with your life and be emotionally passionate about it instead… all before the age of 20.

So you may be wondering if you should apply or not. I have a simple solution for you. Answer this question: Do you have a passionate drive to make the world a better place? If yes, then apply.

 

I don’t blame my parents for not showing me an opportunity like this while I was still able to apply, but I would blame myself if I didn’t compensate for it by not showing you.

For information and the application, visit the Thiel Fellowship.

If you decide to apply, send me an email, let me know your thoughts. I would be more than happy to dedicate time, resources, and an extra bit of passion to your work.

 

Stay Positive & Go After It

Garth E. Beyer ( thegarthbox@gmail.com )

Figuring It Out On Your Own

Posted on by
Reply

Sorry Tim Ferriss. Sorry Michael Ellsberg. Sorry to countless of thousands of other people who made a map to success. Sorry to everyone who made a strategy, a game-plan, a step by step process to reach any goal.

Flipping through a folder of all my projects, I came across a printed out version of Tim Ferriss’s/Michael Ellsberg’s blog post 8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials. Basically Ellsberg covers the present circumstances of degree required positions and how to get them without a degree; basically referrals. Knowing people who know people.

He communicates that employers require skills, not degrees and it’s up to you to show you have the skills by “creating your own damn credentials”. After giving all the background information and the reality of becoming successful without a degree, he challenges you to follow his 8 step process. Here they are. (View the full post here)

Step 1: Choose Your New Field of Learning

Step 2: Showcase Your Learning

Step 3: Learn the Basics of Good Networking

Step 4: Within Your Budding Social Economy, Start Working for Free

Step 5: Develop Case Studies of Your Work

Step 6: Develop Relationships With Mentors

Step 7: Learn Sales

Step 8: Sell and Deliver your Services Within Your Social Economy

Reading through all of his steps, they will definitely work. I’ve experienced each one of his steps, in my own way of course, and the results are tried and true. The thing is I read this blog post over a year ago. I read it a few times actually, and never implemented it directly. I didn’t sit down and take it step by step to get where I am today. Maybe if I had then I would be much more successful. I’m not. I’m happy though and I have a lot more real experience and attachment to the journey I’ve taken to get where I am.

See, these 8 steps are just one game-plan in a billion. Think of all the different phrases you can search in Google to find step-by-step procedures on how to become successful, how to get noticed, how to monetize something, how to reach a goal, how to become a real artist in your trade. There are billions of proven plans.

Yet, we don’t take them.
Some part of me thinks that Ellsberg even knows this but still puts out a book of how to become successful without a formal education. We desire to know and that makes him and countless others a profit. However, and what I find most fascinating, is that we desire to figure it out on our own much more. We simply learn and practice certain segments of all these game-plans until we create one ourselves and it’s successful. Then we write a book about it, preach it, and sell it to others. In turn, they do the same thing.

Following the plan doesn’t make progress, creating an entirely new one does.

 

Stay Positive & Do What Works … For You

Garth E. Beyer

Choose, Don’t Cheez-It

Posted on by
1

Vote for Cheez-It? No. I vote for something entirely new!

If you’re going to create something – as everyone must during some point of their lives – don’t create a new variety of something that already exists. Create something which you can create a variety from.

Creating a new flavor of Cheez-Its won’t get you far. I’m not even sure it will get you anything except a snack to munch on while you contemplate your next “genius” idea.

Maybe after a few new flavors of Cheez-Its you will decide to create an entirely original cracker snack instead. In which case, you can showcase all your new flavors with your cracker snack.

If that’s the case, or rather, if that’s the box, then I’m in. Just because something has 20 different flavors doesn’t mean I’ll choose it.

You know what people (you included) love? New. They love change, mishmash, and variety – after all, it’s the spice of life! The illusion is that they love a variety of originality. They don’t.

I’ll cut to the point and stick with the Cheez-It theme:

If you were given the choice between a new flavored Cheez-It or an entirely new cracker snack, which would you choose?

There is always more of a craving for something original than a new flavor, new type, new color of something already invented.

 

Stay Positive & I Call It The Flavor Of Originality

Garth E. Beyer

Set For Life

Posted on by
Reply

A of couple months ago I was freewriting and an odd thought popped in my mind. True to the nature of the writing I was doing, I wrote it down.

A lot of people dont’ care about you, they just feel if they get enough people to just like them, that they are set for life.

I think I may have been upset that so many girls in high school led guys on, or that you can spend one wonderful day with someone, but never catch up again. The instances in life where you feel a connection with someone, but nothing happens after it are endless.

It’s a trick, whether conscious of it or not, and a very successful trick at that.

Its success is based solely on the precept that if they ever talked to you again, ever ran into you on the subway, or bus, or bike path, that you two could pick up conversation like you were long-time friends and can play catch-up.

I am no psychologist, although at times I like to think I am, but there is some psychological barrier that prevents you from despising the person that left you hanging, prevents you from completely ignoring that person when you see them again, and prevents you from acting like they screwed you over.

Want to be successful? Get a billion people to like you. It’s not hard; meeting someone once will do. While you may not “benefit” as much from leaving (not cutting) a connection you made than if you were to do the upkeep on the friendship, the connection is still there.

The way it ends up benefiting you is when you do run into that person who you shared a great experience with (get your mind out of the gutter), when you play catch-up and you find out that they had started a similar business to yours, or write on your beat in the features section of a well-known magazine, or are part of some influential group, you can pick up the connection you left as if it were just waiting for you.

So No. The majority of people, when they meet you, don’t care about you, no matter how great of a time you share or how connected you may feel to them. When they leave that connection, they don’t mean to insult you, they don’t even mean to use you (that comes later). Their focus is making connections and as many as possible.

As should your goal be. After all, the thing about these people is that they are set for life. They have all the connections they will ever need, whether they utilize them or not, they are there. Where are yours?

 

Stay Positive & Make, Leave, Then Leverage Your Connections

Garth E. Beyer         hey, it works

Make ________ Not War

Posted on by
Reply

Our Last Night. (I’m in between the two band members on the left)

Just the other week I took a nice four-hour drive down to Joliet, IL to see the band Our Last Night. Once my friends and I got there, we had to wait another five hours while other bands played. Bands we either didn’t know or they dragged on stage last-minute because the originally scheduled bands didn’t show up. After plenty of headshaking, not headbanging, Our Last Night was up to play.

As the saying goes in the hood, the music was “an orgasm in my ears”. However, this post isn’t about to promote Our Last Night, it’s what I discovered from constantly checking their Facebook page, waiting for them to upload this photo that I shared above. While I waited I saw other photos of the lead singer wearing the same shirt that he wore to the concert I saw. Even in the pictures that were taken at locations they played at after Joliet, he was still wearing the same shirt.

Finally, curiosity kicked in and I once again went on their Facebook page only to see a professional photo-shoot of Trevor (lead singer) and his brother sporting Johnny Cupcake t-shirts. Trevor was, of course, wearing the same shirt that you see in the photo above. The link was provided, I was sucked in.

Meet Johnny!

The creator of Johnny Cupcakes was, you guessed it, Johnny! Look above! There he is showing off his “Make Cupcakes Not War” t-shirt. Johnny is a multi-millionaire and he has his story. He doesn’t have a specific motto, he doesn’t have a thousand testimonials (although it would be all too easy to get them), and he doesn’t have a college degree. Most rags-to-riches stories you hear have some special opportunity in them: a person runs into an investor, an idea gets picked up by the newspaper, an anonymous person donates a hundred thousands dollars to a persons blog post of an idea, they use Kickstarter, or they know someone who knows someone. Very rarely are the stories… simple.

Johnny has a very simple story, a story that represents so many noteworthy themes and lessons.

  • Never giving up
  • Waking up early or pulling all nighters
  • Avoiding drugs and alcohol
  • Start selling whatever you can, buy in bulk and sell
  • Even having a smashed up car won’t stop you from making sales out of the trunk of it
  • Everyone loves surprises
  • Take risks
    • “These trade shows cost an arm and a leg…but you gotta spend an arm and a leg to make more arms and legs.”
  • Sometimes you have to leave what you like to do what you love
  • Add value to you and your product, no matter how crazy people think you are for the choices you have to make
  • Confusion sells
  • Upset customers sell even more.
    • In response to the question “why don’t you sell cupcakes too?”, Johnny says, “Well, if I did that then people wouldn’t be upset. And, if you think about it, those upset people advertise for me!”
  • Turn your customers into friends and truly connect with them. You can become a millionaire due to the help of 10,000 people. You don’t need 100,000.

Mac Miller representin’

Just an FYI: You’re going to see Johnny Cupcakes everywhere now. Congratulations, you’re part of the tribe!

“Do More Of What Makes You Happy” – Johnny Cupcakes

You can visit Johnny Cupcakes website by clicking on the picture above.

 

Stay Positive &Vote Cupcakes For President

Garth E. Beyer