The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

One of the most important characteristics a person can have when starting a business is passion. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, then success will come that much easier. The problem with passion is that even if you have it, you can lose it.

I recently read two blog posts about passion in business—one about losing it and one about maintaining it. The post about losing your passion pointed to “trying to do it all” as one of the ways entrepreneurs quickly lose their enthusiasm for the job. It’s hard for them to relinquish any amount of control—even if it’s tasks they hate—because they rarely believe that others are capable of doing things up to their standards.

What the other post (the one about maintaining your passion) points out is that entrepreneurs must take it upon themselves to fight the urge to be a do-it-all entrepreneur. Obviously when entrepreneurs are in startup mode they have no choice but to do it all. When business starts to pick up, however, the onus is on them to maintain their passion by continuing to do the things that they enjoy and then outsourcing those tasks that are sure to cause burn out.

As a business owner your job is to strategize and manage, not code a website, write a press release or create sales collateral. The bottom line is that you need to make sure you’re focusing your efforts on those tasks that will continue to give you that zest for business, not those that you just don’t trust others to do.

I used to assume that all street beggars were down-on-their-luck homeless people stuck in unfortunate situations and forced to panhandle for survival. That, however, is not always the case. In fact, the truly needy are starting to become overshadowed by “imposters” at an alarming rate.

For this new wave of street beggars in disguise, panhandling is an up-and-coming industry, a form of entrepreneurship if you will, according to an article in urban-centric magazine City Journal. Author Steven Malanga refers to this “diverse and swelling community of street people who have made panhandling their calling” as “spangers” (spare-change artists).

“Spangers” aren’t necessarily homeless or in desperate need; instead they consider begging for money to be their career, and a fairly lucrative career at that. In Oregon local panhandlers were said to be taking in as much as $300 a day from a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot, according to City Journal. I’m not going to do the math, but with that kind of money I’m thinking about getting into the business myself (kidding!).

I don’t know about you, but I think that pretending to be homeless, preying on the sympathetic feelings of generous passers-by and altogether abusing the tacit system of panhandling is NOT entrepreneurship. It’s fraud. On top of that, as people become more aware of these fake street beggars, they’ll start to doubt the intentions of all panhandlers and be more reluctant to give, hurting the chances of truly needy people from receiving the hand-outs they need to survive.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m curious what you all think. Are these “spangers” participating in a legitimate form of entrepreneurship, just trying to achieve the American dream? Or are they scam artists swindling money from the charitable people of this world?

Have a great weekend!

Through its new BizSpark program, Microsoft is enticing startups to build their businesses with Microsoft’s full-featured development tools—for free. Basically the BizSpark program goes like this:

To be eligible a startup must meet three requirements. It must be a private company, make less than $1 million in annual revenue and be less than three years old.

If your startup meets these requirements, then you’re eligible to be a BizSpark member. As such you’ll get a free three-year package that includes a license to Microsoft software and servers and access to professional support from “Network Partners” from around the world. (Network Partners are units like investors or university incubators that are vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship. Startups must go through these Network Partners to get involved in the BizSpark program.)

Once the three years is up, BizSpark members can either begin paying for these Microsoft resources and continue business as usual, or pay an offering fee of $100 dollars and exit the program, no strings attached.

BizSpark really is a great way for startups to catapult themselves into successful businesses. It gives entrepreneurs more resources and opportunities than most could ever harvest on their own. If you want to read more commentary, I suggest you check out TechCrunch, GigaOM or VentureBeat. They each had great write-ups on the program.

As a note of disclosure, Microsoft is a sponsor of PartnerUp.

I read a paper recently by Chad Moutray of the Small Business Administration. In the paper he explores the relationship between self-employment and college education. Some of the findings are pretty interesting

The self-employed tend to:

• major in the social sciences rather than business, management, education, engineering, math or science
• have lower grade point averages than wage earners
• have shorter job tenures than others

The paper also found that traditional measures of academic involvement (internships, scholarships, etc.) or quality (tuition or classification of institution) had nothing to do with the decision to become self-employed.

The research was taken from the U.S. Department of Education’s Baccalaureate & Beyond data series, which tracks college students from the class of 1993.

I’m curious if you all think that this is a fair representation of entrepreneurs in their college years. In particular, do entrepreneurs really major heavily in the social sciences? That was the one I found the most interesting. Leave a comment and let me know.

Turning your hobby into a business can be a great idea. One of the most important characteristics an entrepreneur can have, and the one that most often results in success, is passion. So if there’s something out there that you love to do anyway, why not make a living out of it?

Unfortunately there are issues with transforming your hobby into a business. For starters, many hobbies are difficult to monetize. One of my hobbies is collecting shot glasses. I doubt anyone could come up with a way for me to make money off of it though. Another issue, and probably the biggest one, is viability. So many people engage in hobbies that have the potential to bring in some cash. The problem is that either most of these people aren’t talented enough at their hobbies or their work isn’t distinct enough to result in a profitable business venture. You have to be realistic about your abilities. You may love to take photographs, but do you take good photographs? And if you do, then what about your photographs makes them distinct and will cause them to stand out in the marketplace?

If you can monetize your hobby and have the ability to turn it into a viable business, then go for it. But here’s one last little warning. Running a business takes a lot of work and commitment, so be careful that you don’t turn something you love into something you hate.

I’ve heard/read each of these at one time or another. These are just some of my favorites. So here it goes. You might be an entrepreneur if…

…you’ll work 80-100 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else.

…you’ve earned more than $1 million but don’t actually have anything to show for it.

…you pay all your bills on the last possible day and know all those dates by heart.

…You know exactly which restaurants are open past midnight (and have their late-night menus memorized).

…You’re the lowest paid employee at your company.

Have a great weekend!

Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, launched two multi-million dollar companies before the age of 30 and now fosters the startup businesses of young entrepreneurs with his newest multi-million dollar venture, Obsidian Launch. A graduate of MIT’s “Birthing of Giants” Entrepreneurial Program, Mike is a recurring guest on CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR), in the New York Times and in Smart CEO Magazine. He is also a regular blogger for YoungMoney.com and YoungEntrepreneur.com, and has his own blog. Mike recently took some time to answer a few questions for us about The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

Q:    Where does the name “Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” come from?

A:    The name serves multiple purposes, but here is the primary.  At some point in time, everyone has been stuck in the bathroom with a mere three sheets dangling.  And it is in this situation that the entrepreneurial mind kicks in.  Perhaps you hook the garbage can with your foot and root through for scraps, or maybe your tear up the roll and get things done.  The point is, this is the definition of entrepreneurialism.  Just like the bathroom, it is rarely discussed, but your ability to survive and ultimately thrive as an entrepreneur is based upon your ability to use ingenuity and out of the box resources instead of a full roll (of cash).

The other meaning behind Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (TPE) is that we are all equal.  I don’t care if it’s Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, me or you… we all use the bathroom, and we all have been there and done that.   For an entrepreneur to be successful they first and foremost know that their success is contingent upon their beliefs.  And if they believe that someone is more successful than they ever can be, they may give up before they try.  We all have an equal shot.  The guy who believes it more, gets the prize.

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This is the time of year when business owners should start planning for the year ahead. That means establishing a budget. Whether they’re in the early phases of starting their businesses or just hate taking the time to make accurate financial projections, many small business owners have never tackled the budgeting process. But budgeting should be a priority, a high priority in fact. It is a part of your financial road map and guides your saving and spending habits.

Budgets are important for many reasons. They serve as a reference point to guide your business management strategies. They lend a sense of reality to your conceptual business ideas. They also help you set realistic goals for the future. One reason why budgets are especially important, however, is their appeal to potential investors and lenders. Budgets tell them three things:

1. How you plan to carry out your business plan.
2. How the loan will be repaid.
3. What type of return can be expected on the investment.

Well-planned budgets greatly improve your chances of getting funding because they also show credibility. In this financial climate businesses should be doing everything they can to increase their chances of receiving financing.