ShoeString Startup

WIKI: An entrepreneur (a loanword from french introduced and first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon) is a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks. A female entrepreneur is sometimes referred to as an entrepreneuse.

The newly and modern view on entrepreneurial talent is a person who takes the risks involved to undertake a business venture.

The E Gene
Were you born with it?

The Entrepreneurial gene that is.

I think I was.

My parents and grandparents have all owned businesses and I saw the pitfalls and the benefits of working for yourself early on.
My grandparents were the founders and publishers of a well-known newspaper in New England and when I was five I remember being with my grandmother in her car. She was taking me to the lake, where we’d have a fun day of swimming and playing.

Suddenly fire trucks zoomed by in the opposite direction and we did a u-turn on the country lane. We followed the fire trucks at high speed to get whatever story there may have been.

My father owned a successful hotel and restaurant, and when I was little I’d sit under the bar and hand my bartender dad the bottled beer and soft drinks. This was the early sixties. I got to stay up late, hang with the grown ups and watch my parents work their tails off.

I’ve also hung out with successful business owners who never saw how the inside of a company worked before they started their own. The desire was always the same though. To work for yourself, to build something. The good old American Dream. It is also alive and well in many other countries.

Maybe you were born with an entrepreneurial gene too, or maybe yours developed over time. But you’ve found this blog and are either already working for yourself, or thinking about it, or…..?

So, how did you come to be an entrepreneur? Was it with the E gene? Or were you downsized one too many times? Did you wake up one day and decide. Let me know. This is how it happened for me.

Business #1 - The Entrepreneurial Kindergartener
When I was about five or six I set up a library in my room. All my Dr. Seuss books, ABC’ s and the Dick and Jane series, had little envelopes taped into the front cover with handwritten check-out cards inside them. My friends would come to visit and I’d lend them my books. If I remember correctly I also hit up my friend’s parents and the hotel staff to please borrow my books. Then I charged a penny for any book that came back late. I don’t remember if the book was late after an hour or a day, but I do remember my mother telling me not to be so stingy.

Business #2 - The Pre-Teen Years
My next business was selling hand made jewelry out of a playhouse in my back yard. My friend and I would spend hours talking the phone repair guys out of giving us the plastic cord in red, yellow, blue and green. We twisted the wire into rings, bracelets and necklaces and put price tags on them. They were proudly displayed on hooks we crafted on the playhouse wall.

The playhouse was visible from the street, so there was lots of potential traffic. My name is Michelle and my friends name was Mimi and so we named our store the Mimichelle.

I was about ten years old.

No Business - What? The Wasted Teenage Years?
At twelve my family to England and I found myself working a the corner store selling newspapers, candy and stocking shelves. When the store owner opened a Laundromat next store I was transfixed. You could make money opening a Laundromat?

During my teenage years I always had jobs, and if I could work on commission I was happier. I knew early on that I didn’t want to leave my earning potential to anyone else. I needed to be in charge of my income. I learned to sell door to door, (it was perfectly safe back then), and business to business. Back then I had no problem selling anything to anyone.

I sold Mary Kay, Wall Decor, Hamburgers and Pastries. I didn’t always get to set my own income, but I did learn about customer service, sales and the value of giving more than you promise to build a loyal customer base. I didn’t own a business during those years but I learned valuable lessons. (and partied a bit too much as well - I was, after all, a teenager)…..

Next in the Series: My life in my twenties, and my first real business!

This post is part I of a series on my life as a Serial Entrepreneur.