A friend of mine asked about starting his own business. All he really wanted to know was how to register a business name, which I thought as odd. Our approach to starting a business was:

1. Sell the product
2. Make the product
3. Deliver the product, fixing it as you try to get it running.
4. Make up an invoice in Word and hope you get paid.

This seemed to work fine. Wayzata School District got the world’s first web centric digital signage and media retrieval system using this approach! None of this seemed strange when I was 21 years old and JJ was 19. Of course, 5 years after that incarnation of Tightrope was dissolved, we were still dealing with latent tax issues. Once I was even served by American Express because someone of a similar company name (TMS Holdings) owed them money.

Maybe there is more to the admin side than I thought…

Anyway, this got me thinking and writing. What have we learned so far about starting a business? What advice would I give to someone who was fool-hearty enough to attempt what we have done?

So let’s begin with the first in a four part series on starting your own business.

Step 1: Get Fired

The first step is to be unemployable. This means that you are unable to suffer someone else’s suboptimal solutions, you suck at keeping your mouth shut and you become so disenfranchised at your current job that you stop playing the game. You show up late and leave early, do your job and nothing more and are constantly amazed that in a free market economy, your employer isn’t filing for bankruptcy. In any other country your boss would starve to death, but here, he orders you around.

Tom Ringdal inspired most of us at Tightrope. He's on the right and my boy, Thomas is in the middle. He is, in fact, named after Tom.

There are no successful business people that I know that are not also arrogant and unemployable. Why else would you subject yourself to the risk, pain and poverty that starting your own business will bestow upon you?

These people not only want to work for themselves, they cannot work for anyone else.

Step 2: Be an Unreasonable Person and Change the World

You need to have an idea that you cannot believe someone hasn’t thought of first and then when you find out that someone has, because there will be someone else who has because nothing is ever new under the sun, you cannot get discouraged. In fact, you must get mad. You must focus your energy on destroying them.

Sidebar: Often the best ideas come from a motivation of vengeance. When you’re vengeful, you have that extra motivation to not embarrass yourself. It’s also a lot of fun and you need to have fun, because you’re going to be poor for a really long time.

JJ and Daniel from PSG/Telvue at a trade show. Daniel is ready to throw down, tired of all of our vengeful antics.

I’ve heard more than once the words, “I want to start my own business!”

“Doing what?”, I ask.

A contemplative look and then, “I think I’ll make iPhone applications. Everyone seems to be making money at that.”

At this point my soul dies a little bit.

You cannot start a business without a burning desire to change the world! Getting into business to make money is a sucker’s bet.

Here’s a hint: Want to make money? Become a great sales person. Want to be poor, suffer huge amounts of risk and maybe if everything goes right make a profit 10 years later? Start your own business.

The only good reason to start a business is to change the world.

Next week is Part II: Getting To Know Failure and Avoiding Venture Capital…