Small Business Management's focus is to teach students how to research and write a business plan for their own new business start-up.

This is preparation for Entrepreneurialist Culture, taught by Dr. Firestone. In that course, students are taught how to start-up their own businesses.

This adjunct site designed to help the student in three ways:

1. help the student understand more about the life of an entrepreneur, how they get their businesses off the ground and how they actually sell products and services;

2. get the student thinking about how to create value that grows beyond the hourly efforts of the entrepreneur;

3. how to choose the right idea for your next startup.

In regards to the latter, we will look at:

a. what is a Business Model and why you should have one; more about how to build scalable businesses (even service businesses can be scalable with the advent of Web 2.0);

b. getting the business model right (GTBR) so the Harder You Work, the More Money you Make and How to Demonstrate Your Value Proposition from a Single Client or Customer's Point of View using a simple Spreadsheet (Address to UOttawa Alumni, October 2006);

c. no money down start-ups and sources of bootstrap capital;

d. creating new value: the role of creativity* and 'pixie' dust;

e. making sure that the new enterprise is scaleable using the power of the Internet and other approaches to produce, for example, custom outputs from standard inputs. For the first time, even mundane, service businesses like TV repair, running a spa, computer repai, etc. can become scaleable when the business model embraces the Internet. For a spa, for example, suppliers might be the hair stylists, manicurists, pedicurists, masseurs, etc. The real business is then matching suppliers with customers and this can be done in a scaleable way using Internet technology to match clients and suppliers; some of the work is reversed out to clients and it is up to supliers to log on to the match making system to satisfy demand.

f. learning which business models lend themselves to guerrilla marketing-- the replacement of marketing cash with marketing brains. Afterall, there is no point in having the greatest business model ever invented if the cost to market your products and services is very large. What's the point of a 'bootstrap' business model that also requires ten Super Bowl Ads at $1.5 million USD each just to get on consumers' radar screens? The business model has to make sense from every angle.

g. See if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Take the ECQ Test,

h. Study the life of an Entrepreneur- Quiz

i. Revisit the quiz- A Description

j. Here is a piece on the positives and negatives of becoming an entrepreneur. Read a story on how High School graduate, Chris Mulligan, overcame many hurdles to become self employed. Learn about the ups and downs of becoming an entrepreneur. Also, note how Chris has self taught to use the power of the Internet and create a business that is scaleable: he recycles wood and sells it on the Internet plus he dries out specialty woods and sells them by the pound on EBay for smoking meats and for b.b.q.'ing. A mass product sold by the cord becomes a specialty product sold by the pound! The story is told straight from the heart.

k. At a minimum, it is our contention that perhaps every man, women and child should have a Personal Business for life*, a PB4L. It can provide them with real security, something to fall back on when everything else fails. It was only when India and China unlocked the power of their entrepreneur class, that their economies really took off. A PB4L must have the following characteristics: i. it is not a hobby, ii. it must be low risk, iii. it must be started with less than $15,000 in capital, iv. it must make a profit, v. it must be scaleable, vi. it must be able to survive the Founder, vii. it must not be hourly based, per se, i.e., hourly consulting will not do or cutting lawns is not a PB4L. Examples started from the entrepreneurship program include: qwantz.com, gradeAtechs.com (now much bigger than a PB4L), Mr Everything, StreetPaddleTennis.com, selling gold plated connectors on EBay.

If you would like to know a bit more about starting a Personal Business for Life (PB4L), I suggest you read a few things I wrote about the subject. These are essays written for the student entrepreneur and are easy to access and understand, I hope. A PB4L must have the following characteristics: i. it is not a hobby, ii. it must be low risk, iii. it must be started with less than $15,000 in capital, iv. it must make a profit, v. it must be scaleable, vi. it must be able to survive the Founder, vii. it must not be hourly based, per se, i.e., hourly consulting will not do or cutting lawns is not a PB4L. Examples started from the entrepreneurship program include: qwantz.com, gradeAtechs.com (now much bigger than a PB4L), Mr. Everything, StreetPaddleTennis.com, selling gold plated connectors on EBay. You should try our 6 minute online ECQ Test that will give you some idea of your entrepreneurship quotient: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/ECQTest/ECQ(ns)TestAuto.htm. To understand more about what a Bootstrap Entrepreneur is, read: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BootstrapEntrepreneur.pdf, Then read the following: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/PersonalBusinessesThoughtExperiment.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/DifferentiatedValueAndBootstrapping.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/DifferentiatedValueAnotherLook.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BootstrapCapitalSources.html http://www.dramatispersonae.org/SelectingYourNextStartup.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/PerfectBusinessModel.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModelDefinition.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/CustomeOutputsFromStandardInputs.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/PixieDustDefinition.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/PixieDustResults.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GTBR/GettingTheBusinessModelRight.htm http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GuerrillaMarketingAndFinance/GuerrillaMarketing.htm After you do this, verbalize your ideas past a trusted confidante or mentor. Then you should run the best idea through our online BMG, Business Model Generator at: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/bmg/. Best of luck, Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, B.Eng.(Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., PhD.

l. Teamwork in the 10th Millennium B.C. and the Importance of stick-to-it'ness.

m. Help you understand how to pitch your business to VCs, Angel Investors, Launch Clients, Business Coaches/Mentors and employees, media and others. See: How to Do a Two Minute 'Elevator' Pitch, for example.

n. Run your idea through the online Business Model Generator.

Dr. Bruce M. Firestone

Check out the on line brochure for Entrepreneurialist Culture.

Entrepreneurialist Culture- How to Bootstrap Yourself to Success in the 21st Century, Inaugural Address by Dr. Bruce M. Firestone

Magic From a Hat 2001 and 2002

Synopsis of Remarks: The Way Ahead, to the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, First Anniversary Dinner, March 2000 by Dr. Bruce M. Firestone

See also, Professor John Callahan's course at: Small Business Management Main Site

DramatisPersonae.org Coaching

Dramatis Personae