July 2008 Archives

When I was up in Cleveland conducting a workshop at John Carroll University I heard a word running throughout the city that I did not expect -- entrepreneurship. 

Cleveland and other rust belt cities are looking to bolster their entrepreneurial economies.

More and more are looking to non-profit incubators to help.  From Philanthropy News Digest:

One such nonprofit is five-year-old Jumpstart, Inc., which provides seed money to entrepreneurs with promising businesses in the Cleveland area. Like a venture capital firm, Jumpstart identifies companies to invest in and advises them on their next steps. But in a departure from the traditional venture capital model, Jumpstart relies on charitable donations, many of them from the private sector, for its financing and does not return a share of profits to those who provide the investment dollars. Instead, returns come in the form of satisfaction derived from boosting the region's economic standing and future.

This is a much more prudent strategy than throwing money at corporate relocations that rarely offer the economic return they promise.

(Thanks to Jose Gonzalez for passing this along).

The ADP National Employment Report and ADP Small Business Report released today show that small businesses are continuing to be the only reliable engine for new jobs in our economy.  During the month of July small businesses - defined as businesses with fewer than 50 workers - added 50,000.  During the same month, medium businesses (50-499 employees) lost 9,000 jobs and large businesses (500 employees and larger) lost 32,000 jobs.

As I said yesterday, we need to understand the changing nature of this economy and take steps to help support the real engine of job creation.  For the past twenty years small business has created about 78% of all new jobs every year.  And yet we still have not changed our approach to public policy to reflect the new economic reality.

While the Internet is full of useful information that can help in doing basic research about the market feasibility of a new business idea, it is still important to gather information the old fashioned way -- observing and talking.

Get out and observe the market.  Experience those businesses that will be your direct competitors the way customers do.  Don't just look for what they do poorly, but also learn what they do well. 

Observe similar businesses that may not be a direct competitor -- typically a business in a different, but similar market.  Bob Bernstein, founder of Bongo Java Coffee, told our grad students that his prospective investors made him go sit out in front of a coffee shop and do a physical count of customers going into the shop to help validate his revenue forecasts.  Although it may have been boring, it was very good advice!

Talk to potential customers.  Learn how they think, how they make decisions, what they like about competitors, and what needs are not being met by those already in the market.  Don't seek information to rationalize your desire to start the new business.  Use their insights to help understand the challenges you will face and the keys to attracting them to you rather than to those they already are doing business with right now.

Talk to people already in the market.  Talk to suppliers.  Talk to people who work in the industry. Talk to people who operate the same business in different markets.  In many cases, even competitors in your market will be willing to talk.  Seek their advice and opinion; never shift into the sales mode.  You have nothing to sell yet, and they will not be as open and honest if they sense you are just trying to "sell" them.

Google and other search engines are great tools to get started in your research, but nothing beats getting out and getting first hand data from your potential marketplace.

A key to getting this economy moving forward is to turn small business loose.  Since small companies generate over half the economy in the US, we need an approach to public policy that addresses this new reality.

Mark Cuban has offered a modest proposal -- ban taxes on small business.  From his blog:

If you want to see an immediate re invigoration of the economy, open the door back up for individual entrepreneurs to enter the real world without fear and without an immediate financial burden that pre empts their ability to be successful.

If we really want to stimulate job creation in this country, take the same approach to small business with 25 or fewer employees that we take to Internet taxes. Outlaw them.

No taxes of any kind on small businesses with 25 or fewer employees. No employer payroll tax. No state or local taxes. No taxes on earnings. Nada. The business owners will pay income taxes on their personal income they pay themselves, but not corporate earnings.

This is an interesting proposal.  The pass through entity, be it an S-corp or an LLC, passes through all profits to the entrepreneurs.  It does not matter if these profits are put into the entrepreneur's pockets, used to improve working capital, invested in assets such as equipment, or used to pay down debt.  This creates a disincentive for the entrepreneur to invest in the business, especially during economic times like these.

Cuban's proposal would give us a chance to test out the impact of the Fair Tax.  He advocates that small businesses only pay sales taxes.  What a great way to prove the power of a simple, non-income based tax system.

(Thanks to John Wark for passing the Cuban blog post along).

Welcome to the new home of the Entrepreneurial Mind.  Nothing has changed other than our address.  After almost five years of blogging we had started to outfgrow our old digs.  So we decided it was time to make a move.  It is the same blog -- just a new location.  Thanks to all the folks at Belmont University for their continued support.  Please bookmark our new address. 

When first entering into the world of VC funding entrepreneurs often overlook in the importance of understand the local "flavor" of VCs.

VCs tend to be more geographic in their investing -- they tend to favor deals closer to home.  It reduces their risk, as they know more of the players in their area and it is easier to keep an eye on things.

And VCs in each region or even each city will often focus on just a few industries or even a couple of segments within those industries that they know well.  Again, it is a way of reducing risk, since they can understand, evaluate, value and forecast a deal better if they have experience and knowledge in a specific industry segment.

A case in point can be seen here in Nashville.  Much of the wealth in this area came out of health care -- and specifically health care services and management.  the health care giant HCA created a lot of wealth here in Nashville and spawned many deals formed and/or funded by its former executives.  Wander too far from health care services or management and the money gets harder to come by.  Even medical devices are harder to fund here because the money does not have experience in that segment.

And move too far away from health care and it even gets tougher.  There is a great example seen in an article from Business Tennessee magazine:

Four months ago, Tim Estes stood at a podium and lamented how much further up his company--Brentwood-based Digital Reasoning Systems -- would have been on the high-tech food chain had it just been located on either of the country's coasts. The 28-year-old entrepreneur declared that the 15 or so Midstate venture capital firms are too timid or unimaginative to risk anything beyond recycling the same old health care services model over and over again. "Why not link evidence-based medicine and informatics?" he asked. "[Health care] data is essentially the crude oil. Refining data is seven times more profitable than pushing it around. This is inexcusable. We should be leading this."

So this entrepreneur is planning to pick up and move where the money is for his Web 3.0 business deal.

(Thanks to Jim Stefansic for passing this along).

The Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN), just launched a competition to develop new indicators and models for investment in emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises.  The competition is open to everyone, and is offering $50,000 in funds awarded for the best ideas.  Entrepreneurs in developing markets often cite a lack of financial capital as the biggest barrier to growing their business.  This competition, and its results, are one concrete step in demonstrating the power of entrepreneurship, and business, as a sustainable solution to world poverty. 

To participate, contributors may submit their ideas until November 15. Here is a link to the submission site.  The second phase of wiki-based collaboration takes place between November 16 and December 15. The online VINE community will select finalists and a jury of experts will award the grand prize.

This competition was funded through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Here is a link to get additional information about the S.E.VEN Fund.

For many years I have been the optimist.  The enthusiasm that I experienced in my daily interactions with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs was contagious.  The data that was showing a shift to an entrepreneurial economy gave me so much hope for the future.

However, I have gotten a lot of questions lately about what caused the change from my formerly rosy outlook to what more than a few of you have termed my new personality of "Professor Doom."

I believe that things have gotten seriously off track.  Why?  My immediate concern is that the inflation genie is out of the bottle.  As a result, I believe that we will have at least a few years of difficult times ahead of us.  Once inflation takes root, as I believe it now has, there are no quick and easy solutions. 

On top of these short-term worries, I have several growing concerns rooted in more macro, fundamental changes
occurring in our society, culture and economy.

First, we never seized the opportunity to create a true shift in our tax policy in this country.  We know that lower taxes and a simple tax system help entrepreneurial economies grow.  Our tax policy in the US is rooted in the mid-1900s.  The role of taxes are to raise the funding needed to provide for the basic constitutional functions of government.  But over the past 60 to 70 years taxes have become a major tool used to shape culture and implement social policies.  More recently taxes have become a mechanism to direct economic behavior in directions decided upon by politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government.  We now see this at work in the entrepreneurial economy. 

Second, for several decades entrepreneurship was growing below the radar in our economy.  But as entrepreneurship became more dominant in our economy, politicians and their minions just could not keep their hands off.  It grew and prospered so well when they left it alone.  But now they are convinced that entrepreneurs cannot possibly do their work without support from governmental agencies bloated with career bureaucrats who have never had to make a payroll.  We are quickly headed toward a policy of socialized entrepreneurship. 

Third, there are efforts around the globe that seek to change the current economic order.  Some of these are economic forces that want to replace the US role as economic leader.  If they could achieve this through the power of free markets I would say congratulations and job well done.  But many are using noble issues such as environmentalism and social justice as smoke screens to hide their true intentions, which include gaining economic advantage or even crippling capitalism.  Those countries that control much of our supply of oil manipulate us like a dealer controls a junkie.  They use the power of supply and demand as a means of keeping us dependent.

Lastly, our drift toward socialism over the past several decades has changed our culture from one based on self-reliance to one based on entitlement and dependence.  Given the momentum created by the policies of the past few Presidents, and given the platforms of the current two candidates, the growth of government's role in our lives will continue expand.  Sustaining our entrepreneurial culture will become increasingly difficult if this trend is not reversed.

I am optimistic that we can turn things around.  I just hope we have the wisdom and collective resolve to do so.

I have been writing my advice to entrepreneurs on what they need to do to weather the current and near future economic storms.  But just what are they all actually doing?  A new poll from NFIB offers some insight.

Here are a few of the findings:

• 20 percent of small employers have reduced, postponed or cancelled a planned investment or reinvestment in the last six months; the slowing economy is the primary reason in more than half of these cases.  They are becoming much more prudent in their resource commitments for expansion.
• Increased marketing and sales activity is a common strategy to combat an economic downturn. However, this is one of the least frequent approaches a small business owner uses.  This is a big concern to me.  Now is not the time to reduce marketing efforts!
• 44 percent of small business owners are spending more time at their businesses today than six months ago. 
• Over the past six months, small business owners are highly likely to have become more attentive to their cash flow and inventory status.  This is key, and should also include cutting overhead and debt.

One of the best barometers of the economy is the behavior of venture capitalists and angel investors. 

The stage of investment is one key to follow.  When they shift to later stage deals as they have the past few years, it generally means they are taking a more conservative approach to investing, as later stage deals tend to have less risk.  During robust times, or during speculative frenzies, they tend to move to earlier stage deals.

A report by the National Venture Capital Association casts a rather dark shadow over the economy to come.  From the NVCA report:

"While the exit market remains challenged, the venture industry is operating under the same long-term philosophy it has adhered to historically. Venture firms are prepared to invest for 5 to 10 years and will stick with their companies through difficult times. That said, for the remainder of the year we will be watching first-time funding levels, which declined this quarter. This dynamic could very well be the result of the closed IPO window and will become concerning if the situation is prolonged."

Rather than going to new deals, more VC money is going into already funded deals to keep them afloat until an exit strategy can be executed.

While the IPO option has dried up, that is really not news.  That change goes back to Sarbanes-Oxley.  What the report does not say, but I believe is now a compounding factor, is that the main exit strategy of selling to a large publicly held corporation is declining. 

Keep your eye on this.  If corporate America continues to get conservative due to inflation, or worse yet stagflation, it will get even tougher to find early stage funding for high growth deals.

My column in this week's Tennessean:

When people use the term "lifestyle business," they usually are referring to something small and even part time. I would argue that every business should be viewed as a lifestyle business.

If you choose a business deliberately based on your aspirations and values, you can create a business that is an intentional reflection of the lifestyle you would like to live.

Many of you know about the Four P's that make up a marketing strategy  -- product, price, promotion, and place. 

Those of you who read this blog regularly or have had me in class also know about the Three M's used in assessing opportunities in entrepreneurship -- market, margin, and me (or mission for social and corporate ventures).

In our new book, Bringing Your Business to Life, Mike Naughton and I introduce the Two V's that together help make a "good entrepreneur" -- vocation and virtue.

Entrepreneurs who understand their work as vocation seek to not only serve themselves through their venture, but to also serve a greater purpose.

The entrepreneur has to define the success of his business beyond financial, technical and market achievements to moral and spiritual principles that reveal the business as a gift to others.  This may initially sound a bit too moralistic and idealistic.  We have found, however, that when entrepreneurs describe their success and satisfaction of their company with a broader criteria than merely financial gain, they are on the way to setting a foundation to building a company that is faithful to their deeper commitments.  Some of the criteria include

-  creating jobs in which employees can find security;
-  generating and distributing wealth for their investors and their employees;
-  developing a highly positive culture that attracts workers who see the business as a good place to work;
-  maintaining low rates of employee turnover and high employee satisfaction;
-  providing needed services and products with great quality, and so forth.

No matter what path leads us to become entrepreneurs, the only way we can be fully human in our work is if we see our work as an opportunity to give our talents to others in service to the good of society and to God.   

Virtue includes those good habits that define how we approach our work as entrepreneurs.

When a person works, he affects the inner landscape of his character. The issue is not whether he changes himself, but how he changes himself. And the key to understanding the significant revealing of his personhood is not found in the amount of revenues he has generated, or levels of promotions, or the percentage of market share he has captured. Rather, the moral and spiritual character of an entrepreneur or businessperson will be captured in the responsible relationships he has forged with others in the actions of running his business. More specifically, this can be shaped by the opportunities he pursues, who he chooses to do business with, who he hires, decisions he makes about products and markets, decisions about whether and how fast to grow, the corporate culture he builds, and his engagement with the community as a leader and/or citizen.

Over the years I have become more comfortable using my missteps and failures as lessons and examples for my students.  Of course, they seem to love to hear the success stories.  But they need to learn that hardship, challenge and failure all teach us important lessons about our business, our customers, and ourselves.

Bill Hobbs sent along a good post from The Executive Update that speaks to learning from failure.

[W]e tend to live in an avoidance society, where failure is often overlooked or ignored and we only focus on successes. That's a mistake. Leadership comes from learning lessons taught by failure. People rebound from failure because they choose to learn from their mistakes.

Well said.

The inflation news released today is not good news.  We had a 1.1% increase in the CPI in just the past month, according to a report released today by the US Department of Labor.  This is the kind of double digit annual inflation that many of us have been worried about.  Mind you it was only for a month, but inflation can be infectious in an economy.  The ripple effects of energy will soon make their way through the rest of the economy if this persists.

And if you think I am the agent of doom (and I know at least a few of you do feel that way) read what Nouriel Roubini, Chairman of  RGE Monitor and Professor of Economics at the NYU Stern School of Business, has to say.  (Thanks to Andy Tabar for passing this along).

Ben Cunningham sent along a link to a great blog called Church of the Customer that focuses on building customer relationships.  Nothing could be more important in these uncertain economic times.  The blog authors offer a variety of helpful inform on turning your customers into your sales force, using social media, and on how to build strong word of mouth.  Here is a sample from a recent post:

Barking as a customer acquisition strategy is a relative affair, whether spamming bloggers with press releases, peppering a neighborhood with door hangers , dressing up a mascot to stand on a street corner, or pimping a new website on Twitter. Real marketing is designing elements into a business that will get the attention of customers so you don't have to yell.

Good advice for bootstrappers.  This is a site worth bookmarking!

Once again Walmart has its finger on the pulse of American consumers.  Just when inflation is kicking in and the economy softens they are seeing strong growth.  How?  They are listening to the customer.

They are marketing aggressively and focusing on prices and values.  This is just what the consumer wants to here right now.

From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Sales in entertainment were strong at Wal-Mart, with flat-panel televisions continuing to run in the high double-digit same store sales increases. Some retail observers see Wal-Mart's aggressive marketing of inexpensive electronics as a threat to Richfield [MN]-based Best Buy.

The Pioneer Press article also reports on flat sales at Walmart challenger Target, which has not changed their strategy of shifting up in brand quality and to a more upscale approach to merchandising

We are seeing the same thing in the restaurant market.  Value sells.  McDonald's is showing strong performance with increases in same store sales.  At the same time, upscale restaurants are closing left and right.

Also, many entrepreneurs I know in the service sector are experiencing pressure from their customers to trim back pricing or risk losing customers to low cost competitors.

The advantage that entrepreneurs are supposed to have is our ability to be nimble.  Now is a time to be very nimble. 

Listen to your customers.  Think like your customers.  Your reality in should be built on their perceptions.   Inflation is scaring them.  Rational or not, it doesn't matter.  It is time to focus on pricing and value.

When we were in the process of selling our business our attorney did a wonderful job of preparing us for much of what was ahead of us.  One of the things he mentioned more than once was that we should be prepared for seller's remorse. 

There are two types of seller's remorse.  One kind is the emotional feelings that you are doing the wrong thing.  It is not really rational, it is just that fear, insecurity, and/or uncertainty play tricks on your mind.  Think Brett Favre.  I would bet that rationally he knows it is time to move on from the Green Bay Packers (this is an American football metaphor for those of you outside the US).  But, all he knows is football and he probably had not spent much time planning for what comes after his career in the NFL.  I can empathize with him.  I had a lot of the same kind of pangs of doubt when we sold our company.

The other find of remorse is one that happens because the sale puts you into a situation that is no longer fun.  You are still in the company you created, but you no longer own it and now work for a boss.  From the NY Times:

"The person who became my boss was the man I was negotiating with when I was selling my company," said Mr. Asterino, 46. "You're trying to maximize the value of your company when you're selling it -- and then when the transaction closes, that individual is your boss. It was very difficult."

I knew I could not be happy with this type of exit, so planned carefully to craft an exit in which I not only monetarily exited, but physically exited, as well.  Not all entrepreneurs have this option, but if you do I would strongly suggest you take it.

(Thanks to Jennie Bowman for passing along the NY Times article).

I am winding up a short trip to Baton Rouge, LA.  Yesterday I conducted a workshop on how entrepreneurial practices and principles can be applied to educational organizations to a group of aspiring school principals.  It is a pilot program to help use entrepreneurship to transform education in the state of Louisiana.  It was a day that gave me hope for educational  in the US. 

There is a growing interest in how business principles -- such as competition and entrepreneurial innovation -- can help fix what is ailing the educational system.  There is huge resistance from teachers' unions and school of education in universities.  But, parents, business owners, and civic leaders are beginning to say "enough is enough." 

You can see more on this program and its goals here at the website of the sponsoring organization, Advance Baton Rouge.

My post yesterday got a comment questioning why business owners are so worried about inflation and its affect on debt. 

During periods of high inflation, many small business cannot keep pace with higher costs.  Their profit margins will shrink as costs go up more quickly than they can increase prices.  We are already seeing evidence of this.

When margins shrink, businesses may no longer be good credit risks for banks.  Their cost of borrowing money goes up.  Or in some cases, they may become out of compliance with the profit margins required in the restrictive covenants in their loans.  The banks may force them to move their loans to another bank.  That will mean the transaction costs for the new loan and typically higher interest rates.

The Fed will soon begin to use higher interest rates to cool off inflation.  The cost of debt goes up.  During our last period of inflation in the late 1970s mortgage rates hit 16-18%.  Higher rates hung around late into the 1980s, when we still were paying 9% for a prime plus a quarter business loan.

Inflation of 2-3% we can handle.  We have had a long period of solid economic growth with modest inflation.  Younger entrepreneurs have never known anything else.  What many of us think is coming is double digit inflation.  That changes everything.  Profits will be harder to maintain.  Debt will cost more and can become much more difficult to secure. 

Those who get out ahead of this will have a better chance to be OK.  Those who do not will have a higher risk of failure.  See this recent post I wrote on steps entrepreneurs should be taking to shore up their income statements and balance sheets to prepare for a period of much higher inflation.

It should come as no surprise that inflation is the top concern in the most recent poll of small business owners conducted by the NFIB.  What surprises me is that it has taken so long for people to pay attention.

Since 1983, the average percent of owners in the monthly NFIB poll citing inflation as a top problem has been 3 percent.  As recently as February 2008, only 8 percent cited inflation as their top problem. By May, 17 percent said inflation was their top concern, and in June it shot up to 20 percent.  To be honest, I worry that it is not even higher right now.  The beast of inflation is on the loose and will likely be with us for quite a while.

Small business owners are planning to keep on spending -- a sign that any recession will be short and not very deep.  I have argued all along that Washington is paying attention to the wrong economic issue.  Plans for hiring and capital spending, as well as job openings, inventory investment plans and expected credit conditions, are all stronger than in past recessions.

Among those surveyed, expectations for real sales gains and improvements in business conditions are as bad as in 1980-82, the worst economic period in recent years.  But this time is is will be inflation induced, and not a true deep downturn in economic activity.  I see an economy that will be going nowhere faster and faster and faster.  That is what long term inflation can do an economy.  We will be busy, but will make little real progress due to the beast of inflation eating up any progress through a higher cost of doing business.

When people use the term lifestyle business they usually are referring to something small and even part-time.  Academics and policy folks will often say the term lifestyle business with a hint of indifference, boredom, or even condescension.  This is not a business that interests them very much.  If is not designed to scale up and grow.

I would argue that every business is a lifestyle business. 

Why?  Because the business we create will dictate our lifestyle.

We can choose the lifestyle our business creates deliberately, basing it on our goals, aspirations and values.

Our lifestyle may be one of integrating our business with our passion to change the world.  We call this a social venture.  Our lifestyle in this venture would be one of sacrificing our own income and wealth potential in exchange for making the world a better place.

Our lifestyle may be one that has the flexibility to spend the time we want to with our family, our church, our community, our hobbies, travel, or what ever.

Our lifestyle may be one that keeps things simple.  We are willing to trade off the growth potential in a venture for the peace of mind of having no employees to worry about or to provide for.

Our lifestyle may be one of fame and fortune -- of work ahead of everything else.  So we look for opportunities that provide wide open markets with significant growth potential. 

Be deliberate in planning a business that reflects the lifestyle you want.  And understand the trade-offs that come with the choices you make -- there are always trade-offs.

High growth ventures offer high rewards of income and wealth. But, they also come with the risks associated by pursing such ventures.  Your income is more at risk, certainly in the short-run.  Your family will likely see you less.  Your hobbies and interests will take a back seat.

The decision to keep your business small can offer the ability to control your time and make it more flexible for other parts of your life.  But, your income potential will be more limited and you will have to be content with passing on opportunities to add on more products, move into other geographic locations, or maximize our share of the market.

The key thing is to recognize that every business has an affect on your lifestyle.  Be honest with yourself.  Know what lifestyle you truly want and then engineer that lifestyle into the business you build.

My column in this week's Tennessean is on what it takes to make word of mouth effective:

A recent poll found that 82 percent of small businesses use word of mouth to grow their business, and that 15 percent rely almost exclusively on word of mouth.

However, what many entrepreneurs fail to recognize is that word of mouth rarely just happens.

They fall victim to the myth of "if we build it, they will come." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Americans celebrated Tax Freedom Day on April 23rd.  It is the mythical day when Americans stop working for the government and start working for themselves. 

The Spanish think tank Institución Futuro wrote me to let me know that they have started an initiative to celebrate Tax Freedom Day in Spain, which occurred on May 21st this year.

Since taxes have become so hidden to most citizens, it is important to get the word out about the real cost of taxation and government.  I hope more groups take on this initiative.

Most often entrepreneurs measure their work in terms of time.  I have been as guilty as anyone.

When I was lead my seminar for entrepreneurs owning high growth companies I always start with a discussion of why they are all in my class.  The answers seem to involve the number of work hours that each entrepreneur is putting in his or her business.  "Sixty hours."  "Seventy hours." "Eighty hours."  They each drift into this familiar litany.

One time one of the entrepreneurs in class looked perplexed through this discussion.  When it came to his turn, he said, "I must be doing something wrong.  I never put in more than 40 hours.  My business has been growing every year and we have good profitability.  I always seem to have time every evening for my family."  You could have heard a pin drop.  It was like he had broken the worst taboo of entrepreneurs.

Over the next several weeks we learned his secret.  He was an engineer by training, and looked at his work as an entrepreneur with the same process/outcome precision that learned in his professional training.  He measured his success in terms of outcomes and results, not in terms of hours worked or sacrifices made.

Many in the class began to admit that they often put in time that had no purpose and no direction.  They said it made them feel like they were doing something to deal with all of the uncertainty that comes with growing a business. 

Ben Cunningham sent me a link to an article in Behance Magazine that reflects on the issue of results and effort:

We often assume that the number of hours spent at work are an indication of one's effort, interest, and accomplishment. However, in reality, the greatest ideas and the execution of these ideas happen in spurts. The best ideas often do not require a lengthy conception, and the most productive days are seldom the longest.

Good advice!

Imagine moving to a foreign country where the people speak a different language from your own.  While you may be able to get by for a while without learning the language of this country, you will be severely hampered.  Asking for and receiving simple information will be a tedious and frustrating task.  For example, assume you want to go to a movie.  How do you get to the movie theater?  How do you order a medium box of popcorn? What are the actors in the movie saying?  More complex tasks are even a bigger challenge.  Imagine trying to rent an apartment.  What does the landlord expect from you as a tenant?  The contract she is requiring you to sign is completely unintelligible to you.  Even an interpreter will only help so much.  Your interpreter can translate, but the process is slow.  And it would be impossible to rely on your interpreter all of the time. 

Accounting is called the "language of business."  Much of what is communicated about a business is done in this financial language.  And yet to many entrepreneurs this is a language as foreign to them as the language was to the traveler in this story. 

This summer I am learning this "cultural experience" from the opposite perspective.  I am teaching our required graduate Entrepreneurship course.  But instead of teaching it to our MBA students, I am teaching to a section that has only graduate students in our Master of Accountancy program.  As I teach them about entrepreneurship, I now appreciate that many of them experience my world of entrepreneurship as a strange and confusing place.

Their world is order and precision.  Mine is change and chaos.  Their world is historic measurement of what has happened.  Mine is the hope and dreams of what might be.  Neither is better or worse, and neither is right or wrong.  And in today's entrepreneurial economy we need each other more than ever.

We teachers always like to say that we learn as much from our classes as do our students.  This summer I know I am learning much more than my students.  Given the importance of entrepreneurs really knowing and understanding their numbers, I know that what I learn from my accounting students will help me to better prepare my entrepreneurship students for the for their frequent and critical trips into the Land of Accounting.