Fearless Money

I drove all day today, listening to several episodes of the Startup Nation Podcast, learning a lot and getting inspired. It was a business trip for me to pick up some equipment I bought from eBay for the business I am preparing to launch, so it just felt right to load up my iPod with a bunch of business listening.

If you have been asleep for the last year, you may not have heard about podcasts. In a nutshell, they are radio programs packaged up as portable files you can play on your iPod or other lesser music player. There is a lot more to the idea which makes it so successful, like micro-niches, and the way you can subscribe to the ‘casts, but that really is a whole can of worms that I’m not going to get into now. Basically, I was listening to a business call-in radio show, hosted by two brothers.

The hosts, the Sloan brothers, are successful entrepreneurs, and they believe most everyone should have their own business. The show format is simple, with three main parts: callers, an interview, and usually an “elevator pitch”. That last is where a caller gets a one-minute “elevator ride”, pretending that the hosts are venture capitalists. They then give honest and helpful feedback to the person giving the pitch.

For me, the best parts are the interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Some of the ones I’ve listened to so far are: Craig from Craigslist, Sara Blakely from Spanx, and Gayle of Gayle’s Chocolates. These people have a lot to say and a lot of variability. For example, Gayle didn’t even have a business plan, while Sara was a cold-calling master. I also really enjoy the elevator pitches. I don’t want to raise venture capital, preferring to grow my businesses organically, via bootstrapped funds, but I still think being able to talk accurately and communicate your passion about your company is incredibly important.

The call-in parts of the shows get a little tiresome at points. Many, if not most, of the answers are “you need to make a business plan, and do some research.” Not that the advice is wrong, I just wonder why people don’t know that. Some of these people have been supposedly trying to start the company for years, yet have never actually opened the doors, much less even started with the basics of the business plan.

Still, I found myself getting pumped up, listening to all this practical problem solving and advice while I was literally on the road taking the first physical step to open my startup.

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