The entrepreneurial spirit was strong in me, even at an early age. I always had some gig going. I sold Christmas cards door-to-door. I raked leaves and cut grass. I watched kids and dogs. I did anything I could to make a buck.
But my first entrepreneurial venture was also my shortest one and it occurred when I was five years old. That’s right. I started my first business before I entered the first grade!
My family home at that time was at the intersection of two busy streets. When people stopped at this corner from any direction, they would throw their cigarette butts out the window. I noticed that most of these butts still had a lot of tobacco in them. So my idea was to unwrap the used cigarettes, recover the unused tobacco and sell it.
Now, in hindsight, that is a pretty gross business. But for a five-year-old kid, this was a vision of money falling from heaven.
Of course when my mother found out what I was doing she made me stop right away (and take a bath). My first start-up literally went down the drain at that moment.
Which brings me to today’s topic. If you have an idea you love, and you’re driving a new business as hard as you can, how do you know when it’s time to finally call it quits? Probably one of the hardest moments in your life, right?
My Marketing Companion co-host Tom Webster and I have both had to give up on start-up businesses and decided to devote some time to discuss … when is it time to call it quits?
- Is the biggest problem quitting early or quitting too late?
- A discussion of the number one reason for new business failures
- Following your heart versus your head – the chronic entrepreneurial failure
- The pervasive and mythological legend of entrepreneurship in America
- Why “intrapreneurial” efforts are so difficult
- The rise of the entrepreneurial unicorn
And as an added bonus, Tom and I review the worst mobile apps of 2015. You won’t want to miss this episode!
If you can’t access the podcast above, click on this link to listen to Episode 56
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Resources mentioned in this podcast
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
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