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Even the SBA likes to spread the rumor: Most startup businesses "fail" within the first five years . You've heard that, right? From the web, from your well-meaning friends, from your family. This oft-repeated platitude has no doubt discouraged 1,000's of hopeful entreprenuers from making the leap towards self-employment and for this reason I consider it a bit evil. The nay-sayers tell you that it is a lack of experience, money or sales that shut down 50% off all start-ups in the first five years. Umm. Yeah. That's kind of like advising a new bike-rider to stay in their seat and keep their feet on the pedals. We all kind of know that, don't we? No experience, no money, no sales = poor likelihood of success. I haven't seen a lot of failures in my 15 years of entrepreneurship. What I have seen is my competitiors and business asssociates closing shop (not "failing"), and mostly due to personal reasons. Typically health (a sudden illness in the famil...

I'm not going to say our "Big Pour" event was particularly easy to host -- it was a huge distraction from our usual daily routine and I've got lots of catching up to do. I'm also not going to boast that it was a lucrative & smart business move -- prices were pretty low and in some cases flat out loss leaders. Next time around I'll need to shop smarter. What I am going to say is that after 12 years of standing toe-to-toe 50 hours a week pulling, packing, and generally running an online business with no public face, Van and I got to see 100 folks walk into our warehouse with smiles on their faces and stories to tell. It was a juicy, most welcome buzz. We're doing it again, for sure. First Saturday in November. I'll blog more on what we learned from this event. I've got lots of thoughts about how we can continue to connect with local people in a way which energizes all of us to be more successful and creative. For now, I get an afternoon of relax...