Update/Context: Since this article was first published in August 2020, the need to confront and conquer fear has only grown more urgent. Fear can be a major barrier to personal and professional growth, but through initiatives like the Life Skills Academy (LSA), www.ibrcenter.org/Life-Skills-Academy, launched by the Innovative Business Resource Center (www.ibrcenter.org/About-Us), we are creating a space where people of all ages can face their fears head-on. LSA’s maker space environment and project-based learning approach empower individuals to explore new challenges, build confidence, and overcome the fears that hold them back—paving the way for future success.

There is plenty about which to be fearful in 2020 and the pandemic doesn’t seem to be over yet. For many, the fear and uncertainty caused by the pandemic is piled on top of the fear and uncertainty in their personal and professional lives even before the pandemic. Yet, some people seem to cope better than others. How does that work? Have some people conquered all their fears? Not likely. 

No One Conquers All Fears 

Even the most successful people in all facets of society, in candid moments, will tell you they still have fears. A more accurate headline might be “Managing Fear.” The ability to manage fear is like the ability to run a marathon. One doesn’t just wake up one day ready to run the distance. Nor does one wake up one day and all the fear is gone. In both cases, it takes time and training, making gradual progress toward the goal. In the case of fear, it is never gone completely but can be managed in a way that can sometimes lead people to do extraordinary things. 

Living With Fear and Ambiguity 

Gary Schoeniger, founder of the Ice House Entrepreneurship program that I use, often mentions the fact that entrepreneurs—and small business owners—have to learn to live with the ambiguity and fear of not knowing for sure what happens next. Nothing ever turns out as planned so the key to planning is learning to build flexibility into the plan. 

In “Ice House” we also talk about world renowned psychiatrist Albert Bandura. He could help people overcome great fears, such as a fear of snakes, in just a few hours. He helped people whose fears were severe enough to affect all aspects of their lives. Through a process he termed “guided mastery” a client would be told that there was a snake in the adjoining room and that before the session was over, the client would touch the snake. Most clients reacted hysterically to such thought. In the first step, a window curtain was opened so the client could see the snake in the next room. After the terror subsided, the door to the snake room was opened and the client coaxed into standing in the doorway then gradually, one small step at a time, inching closer to the snake. The new terror and anxiety of each step became less and less drastic. The client eventually touched the snake via the protection of a thick welding glove and finally with bare hand. For most people, a life-long fear of snakes vanished at that moment never to be a problem again. 

Bandura discovered something else about his clients who had overcome life-long, unhealthy fears of such things as snakes and spiders. The clients had less fear about other aspects of their lives. He calls this self-efficacy, a special kind of self-confidence, allowing people to better manage the fears in their lives by taking on their challenges one step at a time. Self-efficacy spills over into all aspects of life, personal, professional and academic. 

Making Builds Self-Efficacy 

We see increases in people’s self-efficacy as they learn to do new things in a maker environment. So, the best way is “to increase self-efficacy by people learning to do things they never thought they could do.” For our young people, this sets them up to be life-long learners in all areas from their continued education through their careers as either entrepreneurs or employees. It even translates into the courage and self-confidence to tackle home projects. Think about how much money over a lifetime one might save by being able to self-accomplish 85% of home projects and repairs instead of hiring elusive and expensive contractors for the job.  

Fear will never completely go away for most people but increasing self-efficacy will lead to a more confident approach to facing the fears in our lives, even during a pandemic. 

I would not want anyone to think I frequented pool halls as I was going to high school so I’ll relate this story through a friend that did. The game of snooker is a cue game played on a table larger than a pool table and with smaller pockets, making shots more difficult. In snooker, points are made by sinking the correct balls into the pockets. Besides the larger table and smaller pockets, in snooker you can actually have points deducted if you hit the wrong ball first or if your cue-ball doesn’t hit any other balls at all. When you manage to leave the balls in position where your opponent finds it difficult or impossible to hit the correct ball first, he or she is “snookered” and at a high risk of losing points. Thus, part of the strategy in snooker is to try to “snooker” the other player, forcing the loss of points. We, I mean my friend, had a class-mate named Brad that was a pretty good shot, but would get so involved in trying to snooker the opponent that he often lost the game, not making many points for himself. It’s hard to make your own points when your main focus is causing the opponent to lose points. 

Competition in the marketplace is a good thing and can be responsible for many innovations and improvements in products and services. Like Brad, however, some businesses, are so busy trying to beat their competition and make them lose that they don’t do much good at bringing added value to their customers. 

The phone companies are a good example of this. Their marketing messages are so busy telling us to dislike what the competition is doing; they don’t do such a good job of telling us what benefits we’ll receive by using their own products. 

Some auto dealerships speak of “crushing their competition” and even the auto manufacturers join in the counterproductive message of putting down their competition instead of proclaiming their own benefits. 

Health care institutions, relatively new to the concept of competition, also sometimes get caught up in this game too. They usually don’t overtly call out the other ones’ services or doctors as bad, but there are subtle messages between the lines that put down the competition instead of sticking strictly to a message that “we’re here to take care of you in the best way possible.” 

Besides the fact that many consumers are turned off and tune out the noise of these marketing messages that merely put down the competition, there’s another cost. Within a given market, there often are not many break-through innovations when all the players are down in the weeds slugging each other in their marketing messages. 

Henry Ford could have gone around talking about how poorly the horse-drawn wagons and carriages of the day were, but instead, he developed a break-through innovation and came up with a way to make cars affordable to the average family of the time. 

Competition is the backbone of free enterprise and those with an entrepreneurial mindset are always looking for ways to improve current offerings of products and services. When done right, competition can lead to break-through innovation and better use of our resources. When the players in the market merely engage in trying to “snooker” the completion, no one really gains. 

In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, there was a news story recently about a family that had been kicked off a United Airlines airplane because their two-year old child refused to keep its mask on. This violated United Airlines’ policy requiring that all passengers wear masks even though I don’t believe you’ll find any studies suggesting that two-year-old toddlers are among the super-spreaders of the virus. The news commentator opined that the supervisor that did the kicking, who also banned the family from United for life, should have used some “common sense.” The incident has become high profile and will likely cause a few headaches for United’s PR people. This is not the first time United has caused a high-profile PR disaster by their lack of sound judgment. Anyone remember the You Tube music video called “United Breaks Guitars” from 2009 Musician David Carroll wrote and posted the song after the airline arrogantly refused to pay him for damages after his Taylor guitar was broken during a United flight. The music video, performed by Carroll, is currently at nearly twenty and one-half million views, depicts United handlers playfully throwing guitars and other luggage back and forth to each other while flight attendants ignore the complaints. The lyrics also speak of how employees told him the claim was going nowhere. If I remember correctly, I think United made good on the claim after the first few million views. 

Defining Common Sense 

One definition of common sense I found is “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.” United Airlines did not show sound judgment in either matter; eleven years ago, or just the other day. The lack of “good sense” in today’s society is so pervasive, perhaps we should start a movement to change the phrase to “uncommon” instead of common sense. I believe this has come about after about a hundred years of taking the play out of childhood and the schools not really challenging youth to figure out how the world really works; i.e. practical matters. We wait until college to encourage (related to uncommon sense) critical thinking—the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment—when learning critical thinking at an early age would serve people in a much better way. We now have large numbers of adults in our society that lack uncommon sense and critical thinking skills. This include many of our politicians and policy makers. 

To Mask of Not To Mask 

I am not a no masker. I did not make my decision to wear a mask because of politicians telling me I should. The decision was not because the experts told us all to wear a mask, even though in the beginning they told us all not to wear one. My decision was made as a result of my own uncommon sense and critical thinking. I believe that as we talk, laugh, sing and yell, tiny droplets of liquid come out of our mouths. I can see it in certain kinds of light. I also believe in the idea that coronavirus can spread when saliva from one person contacts another. It makes sense to me that wearing a mask will stop most of the saliva coming from the wearer’s mouth. Therefore, I believe if two people within six feet of each wear a mask, there is little chance the virus will be passed from one to the other. We require masks in the Fab Lab, not only because it is school policy, but also because it seems logical. 

Politicians have told us from the start of the pandemic to “follow the science.” Yet, they come up with policies and rules not really supported by science, but they want us to follow them anyway. The California governor bans outdoor dining when it is illogical that outdoor dining is a big spreader of the virus. Across the street from a closed outdoor restaurant, a massive outdoor, tent-covered dining area provided the NBC network a place to feed the cast and crew of a network show. That was perfectly okay. In New York, politicians arbitrarily draw two amebae-shaped zones on Staten Island. In one zone, bars must close, but in the other zone, one and one-half blocks away, open bars are just fine. This illogical thinking will cause many businesses to go out of business even when they are not big “spreaders.” 

Many of rules and guidelines of this pandemic have been inconsistent, ambiguous and unfairly applied. Few of the experts, scientists and politicians have admitted their mistakes, rather just changing their stories without much explanation, admonishing us to just follow the rules. All has made a case that common sense—good sense and sound judgment in practical matters—is not common. 

How To Make Common Sense Common Again 

It’s probably too late for many politicians and policy makers. Today’s toxic political environment is not conducive to developing “common” sense and critical thinking.  Starting with youth, once we get them back to school after the pandemic, we need to continue to offer more experiential learning that we’re seeing in some schools. In her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” Dr. Carol Dweck presents an understanding of growth vs fixed mindset. People with a growth mindset will tend to have what we would call common sense and an ability to do critical thinking. 

A couple of times in the past, I’ve talked about the churn that happens with businesses, even in healthy economic times. Markets change, wanting new and innovative solutions to problems; some problems we’ve had for generations and some problems caused by solutions to other problems. Churn occurs as some go out of business, failing to recognize this need for constant and new solutions while new entrepreneurs come along looking for new ways to provide solutions. I talked about the unrealistic expectations by some who long for businesses in downtown and main street districts that never change, none ever going out of business. It would just never be that way, I said, with ever-changing technologies and people always being on the lookout for better solutions. I even said we should celebrate the churn. 

Unnatural Pandemic Churn 

Now, as we come through a year of unprecedented churn, not only up and down main street in rural America, but in all areas, rural and urban and not just in the United States but around the globe. It’s nothing to celebrate as thousands upon thousands of businesses will not survive the shutdowns and general disruption caused by this dreadful pandemic. Business would have been slow enough just because of the pandemic, but in some states, there were ill-conceived and arbitrary forced business shutdowns while the science is not even clear that the shutdowns have done that much good in preventing the spread of the virus. In a strange twist, some businesses have done extremely well during the pandemic. Few of them will say anything because they don’t want to be insensitive to their business neighbors who have suffered so much. 

Shutdowns Continue 

The shutdowns in some states will continue for a while, but no one can predict how long even as some states figure out how to open their economies. The narrative by the experts keeps changing on that. At first, they said there’s no way a vaccine could be ready before spring or summer of 2021 but that once everyone was vaccinated, we could get back to “normal.” Then, the vaccine came out before the end of 2020. Now, they are saying “Whoa, wait a minute. Just because you get vaccinated, you still need to wear the masks and social distance. We may not be back to “normal” until well into 2022.” In the shutdown states, it’s not clear how long the governors will drag them out. The longer the closures, the greater the churn. 

What’s In Store for Entrepreneurship? 

So, where do we go from here regarding business churn, especially those of us in the business of helping with business start-ups and small business growth? With a sad realization that this whole situation is tragic, we’re going to realize that when the dust, or pandemic as it were, settles, there will be people and there will be a marketplace and there will be room for new and innovative solutions in the marketplace and as long as we have a free, market-based economy, there will be opportunities for entrepreneurs and small business owners. 

Update/Context: Published in March 2019, this article discusses the development of soft skills in youth, emphasizing that these skills are often difficult, if not impossible, to "teach" in a traditional sense. Instead, soft skills are best cultivated from within through practical experiences, such as starting a business. As I assert in the final paragraph, "Encouraging all young people to start and run a business before they finish high school would yield significant dividends, equipping them for life, whether as future business owners or as valued employees in competitive organizations."

Critical thinking, problem-solving and leadership skills, are all a sub-set of the elusive “soft skills” our businesses say they want in their employees. In the marketplace of customers these skills are mandatory for competitive business owners to survive. Yet, traditional academia can’t produce a lecture class that yields critical thinkers, problem-solvers or leaders. 

Those traits and qualities can be developed and grown in individuals but have to come from within. Successful entrepreneurs have these qualities. By successful, I don’t necessarily mean the flamboyant entrepreneurs we see in the media nor the entrepreneurs that judge “Shark Tank.” I mean the ones in our own communities, quietly running their businesses from day to day, working to be exceptional to attract customers in a market where customers are constantly being lured away by the Internet and the dreaded box stores. Most of these people started their businesses from nothing without much money, building them up from scratch using each customer encounter to learn how to make their business better at solving the problems of the marketplace. 

We use exposure to these entrepreneurs as a way to instill these entrepreneurial qualities in the youth, and adults, we host at Fab Lab ICC. In the Entrepreneurial Mindset class, we bring in these local entrepreneurs to tell their stories of how they got started. Many don’t realize their stories have value. Some I have had to coax and beg for up to two years to get to agree to come and talk to class. Their stories have immense value. 

This is all part of developing an Entrepreneurial Community. The Entrepreneurial Community has no traditional boundaries such as city limits or county lines. Entrepreneurial thinking transcends all of that. Among entrepreneurial thinkers sharing ideas no one cares about geography, age or gender. 

We are fortunate to be a part of a Network Kansas E-Community initiative locally known as Montgomery County E-Community. Regardless of the name, we are not limited in any way by our county line. 

Within E-Community, there is an activity called the Youth Entrepreneur Challenge, a business contest (note, not business plan contest, but business contest) for individuals or teams to develop business concepts and enter a contest with substantial cash prizes. (i.e $1,000 for first place.) The 2019 Montgomery County Youth Entrepreneur Challenge competition was recently completed on the third attempt after being snowed and iced out twice. Although all the rescheduling took its toll, we had seven young people, ranging from seventh through twelfth grade competing with six business concepts. 

These young people and their business concepts were amazing. Four of the six have already launched and had sales. The other two could be launched within the next few months. All six could likely be viable with one possibly causing disruption in its industry. Nick Slavin, Coffeyville; Morgan Hugo, Cherryvale; Ryan Piper, Independence; Leann and Renee Trout, Independence; Grace Pinkerton, Caney and Alex Rodriquez, Independence made up this group of young entrepreneurs. A team from Fredonia was not able to reschedule but also had a good business idea. 

On one hand, I’m not a big fan of individuals, whether it be judges, coaches or teachers determining that one business idea is better than another. Only the marketplace can do that. But, in America, we like a contest and we like to name winners. In this Challenge, we named a first, second and third place but they were all winners each taking away some form of prize money or scholarship. It wasn’t just because they competed, it was because each was a solid idea and each represented a lot of work to prepare for the trade show display and 4-minute presentation to a panel of judges. 

The very work they each did in preparing for their businesses and this contest is the work that instills critical thinking, problem-solving and leadership skills, the skills that all customers and employers want.  

Inspiring all youth to start and run a business before they finish high school would pay big dividends in preparing them for life whether as a business owner or a valued employee in a competitive business or organization. We will conduct this Youth Entrepreneur Challenge each year, working to attract more and more youth entrepreneurs from our area. 

Update/Context: Business succession remains a significant challenge for communities across the nation. The process of transitioning a business’s ownership—whether due to retirement or an owner stepping away—can be complicated and often leaves communities at risk of losing vital services or businesses if a smooth transfer isn’t achieved.

While many programs focus on the technical details of transferring ownership, little attention has been given to the critical task of finding suitable buyers. In past discussions, I’ve emphasized how current owners should prepare their business for sale before involving professionals like accountants and lawyers. However, it recently occurred to me that communities themselves have an essential role in supporting successful business transitions, and much of this ties back to fostering an entrepreneurial mindset.

The Community’s Role

Here are some top tips that we as a community can do to help create an environment more conducive to business succession.

• Quit telling our youth to leave. If you pay attention, you’ll note that our messaging to our youth continues to be, as it has been for 60 years, that life’s opportunities lie somewhere else. We promote the idea of going off to college and that the great careers are always somewhere else besides home. There are opportunities everywhere and we need to teach our youth how to find them. Besides, as we’ve seen the last couple of years, living in the big cities is not all it’s cracked up to be.

• Quit telling youth to get a job… without also telling them they can be business owners, calling the shots in how to satisfy customers and having total control of their schedules. This messaging continues to be, as it has been for 60 years, that the ultimate goal of college education and even technical schools is to get a job working for someone else. The message almost never suggests the idea of business ownership.

• Learn to observe the marketplace.  When we speak to or counsel our youth on careers, we always look at a list of 50 or 60 careers; all are jobs, by the way, when there’s a whole iceberg of careers, including business ownership under the surface.(See “Tip of the Iceberg” at www.correllcoaching.com/Correll-Articles-Table-of-Contents/) We need to show youth how to observe the marketplace and the world around them and recognize the problems they see as opportunities.

• Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Anyone can learn almost anything they need to know to run just about any kind of business. Want to own a plumbing, electrical or heating/air business? You can enroll in a technical program, learn the trade, and then start your own business instead of going to work for someone else. Many business owners nearing retirement would gladly hire someone and train them to take over the business. Alicia Yates, a serial entrepreneur, bought Twigs Floral even though she didn’t know about flowers. Admittedly, Alicia already knew how to run a business, but she knew she could learn the flower business. Twigs flourishes today.

• Don’t like your job? Save up some money and go out on your own. Include the possibility of taking over an existing business. Admittedly, this is tough, depending on your debt and personal situation. I know people who worked hard at a job and missed the first part of their kids growing up. They quit or were laid off, took over an existing business, and now have full control of their schedules. They still work hard and sometimes long hours, but they’ve figured out how to attend school and athletic functions so they can participate in the remainder of their kids growing up.

• Realize that many of today’s youth want something different. Many of today’s youth don’t want a 9 to 5 job doing what some boss asks them to do. They want to make a difference and they want to do it in their own way. Therefore the “gig” economy of individual contractors is growing. This is especially true of the students who don’t do well in the traditional academic environment. There are many potentially great entrepreneurs and small business owners among the student populations that don’t quite fit in with the crowd of traditional college bound students.

As community members, if we want to increase the chances of our good small businesses transferring to new ownership, we need to change our thinking and our messaging and realize that there are people, young and old, among us who have the potential to take over these businesses as they become available. We must learn to recognize both the opportunities and people that can make this happen.

The Business Owner’s Role

This is an excerpt of my previous article about business secession planning. (See “Business Succession Planning” at www.correllcoaching.com/Correll-Articles-Table-of-Contents/ to see the entire article and Top 10 list referenced below.)

The topic of business succession always comes up in discussions about helping rural American small towns prosper. It came up recently in an entrepreneur’s lunch where one attendee mentioned two well established businesses in our county with aging owners. “What’s going to happen to these businesses when the owners can no longer operate them?” No one likes to see established businesses simply close instead of transitioning to new owners. Here’s a top 10 list of things business owners should do to set up a smooth transition to a new owner. Notice the expensive consultants come at the end. You should work out your strategy to accomplish the first seven before initiating the last three.

Update/Context: Since published previously in May of 2021, business succession remains a challenge. The concepts of this article remain valid today.

The topic of business succession planning, or a general lack thereof, always comes up in discussions about helping rural American small towns prosper.  No one likes to see established businesses simply close down instead of transitioning to new owners.  There has only been limited success in promoting and facilitating business succession planning.  I think we’ve made the concept too complicated, thinking it’s all about what the accounts, lawyers and consultants need to do.  Those people are necessary, but there are several things that need to be done before getting the heavy-hitter professionals involved.  After several years of observation and my involvement in a few transition efforts, here’s my top 10 list of things business owners should do to set up a smooth transition to a new owner. 

• Give yourself some time.  Businesses generally don’t transition within a few months.  Allow a year or two to find the right prospect and situation.  Don’t wait until you’re 3 months from total burn-out. 

• Keep up appearances.  Keep the store nice and updated.  Repaint, remodel and rearrange over the years.  This not only makes the business worth more at transition time, but your current customers will come more often if they know you’re always making changes and improvements. 

• Keep up with the changing times and markets.  Markets are changing and changing fast.  You’ll have a much better chance at transition success if you’re products and services have been updated to be in demand now, not what was in demand five or ten years ago. 

• Create your “cook book”—how you do things.  Well documented procedures of how you do things will open up the transition market to people that aren’t necessarily experts in your trade if you can point to a book and say “Here’s how we do things here.” 

• Separate real estate.  We counsel entrepreneurs and potential small business owners not to buy the building that goes along with a store, unless they want to be in the real estate business.  Be prepared to keep the building and lease it to your new business owner. 

• Be prepared to finance.  As a rule, it’s very difficult for the buyer to obtain full financing to buy a business for any more than the assets are worth.  Most of the time, current owners have to be willing to finance a part of the purchase. 

• Consider your income tax strategy.  Serious prospects, eventually, will want to see your tax returns to verify the business is performing as you say.  Be aware that a tax strategy to minimize profits will also minimize the profits the prospect sees in reviewing your returns. 

• Where will the money go?  Assuming you’ll have a successful transition, be thinking about where you want to proceeds from the transition to go.  This would be a good thing to discuss with your financial planner. 

• Contact your accountant and attorney.  Finally, after all the above have been considered and done, consult your accountant and attorney.  Consider making up a transition team of your financial planner, accountant and attorney. 

• Contact a business broker—maybe.  There are plenty of people that will be eager to confidentially help you find a buyer, without charging you a commission.  These include representatives of Network Kansas and the Kansas Small Business Development Centers.  We know who to contact in both of these organizations.  Don’t forget your banker. 

Selling a business is somewhat like selling a house.  Keeping it updated and in good repair over the years is not only more beneficial to you, but makes it worth much more when it’s time to transition to someone else. 

Since I started working with entrepreneurs and small business owners in 2006, the idea of business incubation has seen ebb and flow popularity. When I first heard of it, the idea was to set up small spaces where start-ups could start and grow to a point they’d be ready to move out of the incubator to their own space. Some incubators have time limits. If you’re a new business, you may only have a year or two before you have to move out. Once, in those early days, I toured an incubator at a university that was essentially a room partitioned off into maybe a dozen cubicles. Although there was a certain electricity in the air, once seated in your cubicle, you were pretty much isolated from the others working to grow their businesses. 

Reduced Cost in Launching a Business 

The idea of the incubator was—and is—to make it easier and less expensive to launch and grow a business. A sliding rent scale over the first year or two, sometimes starting at no rent for a few months, ramping up to full rent after the first year or two, was supposed to be the incentive to inspire people to start businesses. There are a lot of expenses and other considerations to starting a business and reduced rent, while being a nice incentive, did not make people run out and start new businesses. 

More than Just Low-price Rent 

For retail businesses, the incubator is only good if the location is good for the business. We were involved in a good partnership with the city of Independence to use the iMall at 325 N. Penn as a business incubator a few years ago. The city rehabilitated the building and we offered the sliding rent scale to new businesses. While I’m not sure we attracted many people to start businesses, the arrangement was very helpful for several tenants that had already just started their businesses. A couple of years ago, some of the tenants went together and purchased the building. Today, although no longer an incubator, all spaces are rented and there is likely more foot traffic into the iMall than just about any other building in downtown Independence. 

A More Holistic Approach to Starting a Business 

Our newest effort at business incubation will be in the expansion building at Fab Lab ICC. (We hope to be ready for move-in during October 2018.) This time, we’ll be using a class, Entrepreneurial Mindset, to help aspiring business owners develop and validate their market solutions and use Fab Lab ICC for prototyping and promotional materials. Individual business coaching will continue to be offered and for those that need space or a place to come and work on their businesses. On becoming a Fab Lab member, business owners can elect to become part of our Growth Accelerator, a collection of tools and coaching to help grow their businesses. Growth Accelerator members will have come and go access to the Bull Pen free of charge.  

Bull Pen Allows for Prep to Enter the Game of the Marketplace 

Those needing a more permanent work space, cubicle or even office can rent space to keep their stuff on a sliding scale. The analogy comes from the fact that in baseball, pitchers prepare and warm up for the game in the bull pen. In our Bull Pen, entrepreneurs will prepare and warm up for their entry into the marketplace. 

The physical Bull Pen will feature an open collaboration design. We believe there are big advantages in the ways various members can network and collaborate with each other while working on their own businesses.  

Inspiring people to start new businesses comes down to inspiring a change in mindset and self-empowerment. That’s what we’re doing with the Entrepreneurial Mindset class and the Fab Lab experience. The new Entrepreneurs Bullpen, coming in October of 2018, will extend that mindset change to a physical collaborative space for those that are ready to move their new business into this special location thus reclaiming their dining room tables, spare bedrooms and/or garages.  

Building a winning team was not part of a strategic plan of building Fab Lab ICC. Indeed, there was no strategic plan, however there has been and still are "planning-on-the-go."  

Yet, we've ended up with a great team; growing in number and learning to work together more effectively every week. As I look back over the last three and one-half years, I believe I can see some things that happened that have led to this winning team we have at Fab Lab ICC right now. Some of it was done intentionally, much just happened and some is being learned as we move forward. This method has not involved looking at a single resume, yet I would put our results up against the most regimented hiring best practices. 

Started With the Why 

First, we always try to convey our "why," inspired by Simon Sinek's TED Talk (You Tube: Simon Sinek, Why). In the beginning, our "why" was to help people learn to make something. After the first few months, we started to see the increase in people's self-efficacy (a psychological term for a special kind of self-confidence.) Today, our "why" is simply to increase the self-efficacy of everyone involved in Fab Lab ICC. This includes people of all ages, from all walks of life and in all stages of life. The Fab Lab experience seems to affect nearly everyone in a positive way. Our team members share this "why" and I believe it is an important factor in making our team work well together. 

The Team Grew Organically Along With Our Needs 

One day in July of 2014, in the ICC library, I spoke with Tim Haynes, who I didn't know very well. He was excited to show me an Internet story about some people that were building bicycles out of bamboo. I knew right then and there that he was the one I wanted to come on board as the Lab manger.  

Activity and opportunities exploded over the first couple of years of operation until we worked hard to get another staff position approved; one we would call "Program Developer." I had worked near the ICC instruction office early-on in my time at ICC and had seen how Laura Schaid worked in that office. When I found out she might be available to transition to the Lab, I knew she would be a good fit.  

Melissa Ashford, officially a faculty, not Lab staff member, knows of the magic of experiential learning, a key benefit of a maker environment and part of our "why." She believes in the "why" so strongly that she has moved into our domain and will conduct most all of her computer and technology classes in our buildings and will incorporate making and doing in all of them. As a side benefit, she's also turned her love of sewing into the beginnings of "Sew Fab", a fabric division of Fab Lab ICC. 

The Team Now Includes Contract Vendors and Volunteers 

In addition, we've incorporated contract vendors such as Joanne Smith and Miranda Eastwood, dba Fab Creative services. Fab Creative is helping us administer and manage two grant programs that we would not be able to take on without help. 

We've cultivated a growing network of volunteers who help us keep the lab open with extended hours for our members. Some are working full-time in their careers, some are retired. They all share our "why" and are willing to give of their time to help. 

As we build the team, we struggle to put structure and documentation into place, including written and video operating procedures to minimize the learning curve when new staff, volunteers, members and students want to learn to accomplish tasks of make things. The team is constantly evolving and changing in response to new conditions and opportunities. We trust each other and we cover for each other as we work to build programs and experiences for our members, students and community members.  

 We've been conditioned over the years to believe that starting new businesses always requires a formal business education (MBA, etc.) and a lot of start-up capital.  Media outlets have supported this idea by honing in on a select few entrepreneurs that are flamboyant and appear to be high-rollers will to place big bets on their business ideas causing devastating losses when some of those ideas inevitably fail. 

What I've learned over the last 4 or 5 years, through studying interviews with entrepreneurs from around the world and listening to our local and area entrepreneurs as they visit my classes is very different than what we've been led to believe.  Research from the Kauffman Foundation (a global leader in supporting entrepreneurship) shows that less than 3% of all new businesses receive equity investment from non-family investors.  And less than 1% receive venture capital at inception. 

So, how do the other 97% of businesses manage to get off the ground without so-called "adequate" financing?  "Bootstrapping".  Google "bootstrapping" and you'll see many definitions.  The one I like is "get (oneself or something) into or out of a situation using existing resources".  For us, bootstrapping a new business means starting out small enough that existing personal and family finance can get the business started in order to make sure that customers will buy what the entrepreneur has to offer.  Many times, no matter how much planning and research we do, we don't get the product or service offering quite right in the very beginning.  Starting small allows for course corrections and tweaks as we learn what customers really want.  Even if the new venture doesn't fly at all, starting small is much less devastating to personal and family finances.  

The time to consider conventional or venture capital financing to support the growth of the new business is after the tweaks are made and the sales start coming in.  Many venture capitalists (VC's) realize now that most businesses are better off starting small, then finding venture capital after customers start buying and the business starts to grow.  VC's Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom have written a book about this, "Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation". 

We have many examples of this type of entrepreneurship in Southeast Kansas.  One is Bret Chilcott of AgEagle in Neodesha.  A few years ago, he bootstrapped his way into the agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—now almost all of us use the military vernacular "drone"—market.  Bret went from concept to production in just under two years.  AgEagle is now the global leader in the agricultural drone market.  Although he says he may have waited a little longer than he should have to seek additional capital to support the growing business, he would say that the bootstrapping, with its inherent constrained resources, made him a better innovator and is a primary reason he was able to enter the market in such a short time. 

Occasionally, someone will call me and say something to the effect of "I have this great idea and all I need is funding to launch.  Can you help me find $100,000 in capital?"  That is the time to share the bootstrapping concept and the stories of the many entrepreneurs in our network that have bootstrapped their way to success.