brad garland

This blog title sounded like the beginning of a joke (Three guys walk into a bar…) but what I really wanted to talk about was the definition of the entrepreneur. The word ‘entrepreneur’ is defined as: 

one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise

I can appreciate that but my definition is beginning to bend slightly.  I believe a entrepreneur is someone that isn’t just geared towards business or enterprise but instead assumes the risks of going against their norm, the traditional, or someone that is moving towards their passions. Better defined as a rebel perhaps? Maybe “Passionpreneur”?

For example, I’ve really try to promote entrepreneurial thinking in my business.  Internally to creatively solve problem that we have but also in the hopes that someday my staff will move towards their own passions and become more than just an employee. I originally thought that meant in the ‘traditional business’ definition of entrepreneurs but I’m starting to see something else happen. Here’s just three examples: 

1) Court - One of my oldest friends chooses to quit his good paying job with us to focus his time in seminary to become a biblical counselor.

2) Dave - Has redefined his view of the American dream, sold his home, and is running for State House of Representative in Minnesota.

3) Drew - Has started an outsourced server management company, RoundHouse, to make the system administration a breeze no matter your host.

Three incredible stories, right? Three guys that are doing what they love and even though it doesn’t fit in the normal definition of entrepreneur I believe it’s just as valid a way to define it. I say this not to pat myself or our company on the back but to open a discussion of perhaps a new definition of entrepreneur. What do you think? Is the definition of entrepreneur changing in your eyes, too?

I had lunch yesterday with a business partner (we’ll call him Scott) and we got to discussing our businesses and how they are doing and all that ‘entrepreneurial type’ discussion. He owns a small 6-person audit firm and works mainly in the Texas region. So, in our discussion, I asked him how much he is looking into growing his business this year and he said he’s not. “Huh?!”, I said. He said actually over the past two years he’s been letting clients go. At one point, he had close to 50 clients his firm worked with but realized a couple of things:

1. He wasn’t happy that he was never home.


2. He was not seeing his 3 girls enough.

So, very simply, he decided to just stop growing and get back to a number (around 35 clients) where he could satisfy both those criteria. In the circles I’m in, you often hear and become excited to hear stories of meteoric rises, VC funded companies, and entrepreneurs building a company from nothing to IPO but, to me, this guy is just as much a superstar. It’s the lifestyle entrepreneurs that don’t get enough credit for building businesses just perfectly sized for them. I really respect that mentality. I’m still working on my business plan for my next business but I don’t know, maybe something small and big enough just for me is a good fit.

Recently, I joined an organization called EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) to be able to connect and relate with entrepreneurs with similar business and personal issues. It’s a great group and they pride themselves, especially the Dallas chapter, on providing the best experience and value for all their events and last night was no exception. The event was held at the Dallas Museum of Arts and the speaker was Ben Zander, who is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. I wished I could have taken pictures but my battery died before I thought about it. His message was so great and I took a lot of way from it. He spoke about ridding ourselves of the ‘downward spiral’ or negativity and staying within the ‘the art of possibility’. I wanted you all to at least experience some of Ben Zander’s greatness and so I’m embedding a video from a recent TED conference. Enjoy!

I just started a book on my Kindle recently about learning better ways of finance for entrepreneurs. (Book details here.) One of the things the authors address right at the beginning is the differences between a lifestyle entrepreneur and a high growth entrepreneur.  Let me break those definitions down for those not familiar:

Posted from brad garland’s stream

This weekend I was watching some of the Techcrunch50 video coverage and came across some interesting discussion between Peter Thiel and Mike Arrington. They batted around some different topics but one I found particularly interesting was the discussion of a startup Theil is invested in that is tracking startups metrics for VCs (follow that?) and one measurement they’ve found thus far is depending upon a CEO’s pay can sometimes show the success of the company and I could see this being the case for small business as well potentially. Here’s that segment of video:



The first point is strictly investment driven and CEO aligning with the equity investors but it’s the second and third points that I see better translated into the small or startup business.

CEO’s salary puts a cap on the level everyone else gets paid

This is pretty easy yet interesting assessment but isn’t always apparent to the small business. If we fall into the traditional business mindset of the ‘CEO should make the most money’ than everyone else’s salary is directly proportional to that. I translate that this into thinking the CEO compensation as more of a sales role by which its looked at as ‘commission’ based or more realistically ‘stock’ based instead of hierarchically based. Examples of this are Google founders Sergei Brynn and Larry Page’s $1 dollar salaries. I can appreciate this model as the focus turns more on what is best for the company rather than the person at the top of the organization.

Building something people believe in

Like Thiel mentioned, this is the more important point. I am going through a recurring process for me of questioning the vision, the shared values of the team, and goals for our company. I do this about once a year (assuming no major shifts to strategy) to ensure we are heading in the right direction. I think it’s an important process to go through as I break it down at the company level, business level, and product levels. I want, as I think many small business owners, to ensure our people have an understand of where we’re going and that the entire organization is marching to the same drum. Does your company do this? Is there something that is missing?