Look, Ma, I'm Proactive

Last night I attended the class in starting a business that was canceled in December.

For those just tuning in, The Center for Women & Enterprise runs a class on steps to starting a business as part of their program for aspiring future entrepeneurs. It was a two-hour overview of things to keep in mind - how to figure out what kind of a business you want to run, financial things you're going to have to look at, a brief look at putting together a business plan, networking, things like that.

One thing I took from the class, which was kind of a nice realization, is that I'm probably further along in the process than I had given myself credit for. Not that I've come even close to being financially ready to do it, or that I have the best sense of what needs to be done, but that I do know what I want to do, and have a fairly realistic outlook on how to get there.

There were probably eight of us in the class, and only three of us seemed to have a solid idea of what kind of business we were interested in starting. The others had kind of nebulous goals - wanting to work for themselves, maybe an idea of what industry they wanted to go into. One woman seemed reluctant to actually state what it was she wanted to do. I couldn't tell if it was because there was a man in the room (all she would say was her idea had something to do with women), or whether she was afraid someone might steal her idea.

The instructor gave us a few things to consider "homework" - questions to ask ourselves before taking the leap. I know the first set of them is probably geared towards helping people figure out what they would like to do if they haven't yet decided, but it could also help me figure out things specific to running a bookstore. She suggested that after we answer them for ourselves, we ask other people to answer them about us, too. Friends might spot things that we weren't aware of, or discounted as not-terribly-relevant, but maybe those things might be worth looking at. That will go up in the next few days.

A couple of things I hadn't really considered, but are good suggestions:

--Having business cards made. It doesn't need anything more than my name and my contact info, but I'm going to get some made up. You never do know when you're going to meet someone that might be a good contact. (I realize one of my answers for the "What are your weaknesses" questions on the homework is my shyness. It's something I need to overcome, because as much as "networking" sounds so... jargony, it is a fact of life.)

--Reading the Wall Street Journal and business sections of local papers. I'm loathe to sign up for the physical paper. We used to have the Sunday Boston Globe delivered, and I never read it. Such a waste. But I'm afraid with the online versions of the newspapers, I'll be inclined to get distracted and click away. For now, I'm going to try bookmarking them and get into the habit of checking them out.

All in all, a good overview class. I'm not going to take the second class in the series, Visioning, because from the description it really is for people who are still figuring out what they want to do. So, the next step is the financial planning class that begins in March. Until then, though...homework.

If You're Not Part of the Solution...

In an interview with the New York Times this week, Steve Jobs offers this gloomy little tidbit:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Now, really. Yes, I read that report, too. And from a business perspective, I can see why he'd decline to develop Sony Reader or Kindle-like applications for the iPhone or iPod.

But "people don't read anymore"? Bullshit. Yes, they do. Bookstores did okay this past holiday season. Holiday post-mortems from all over the retail world showed that buyers were watching their wallets this year. It's not a big surprise, really. However, a slump in the economy shouldn't have people - especially smart people like Mr. Jobs - ringing the deathknell for reading in America.

Mr. Jobs earned a healthy dose of my respect last year when he published an open letter to the record companies, asking them to get rid of DRM encoding.

Some of the cool points he'd earned for that have been taken away by this recent statement. Am I saying he should get out there and dedicate himself to getting people to read more? No, that's not where his business' interests lead him. (Although, if he's so inclined, and got involved in sponsoring some literacy programs, he could earn some cool points back. They can be exchanged for beer or coffee if I ever meet him. Who doesn't like one or the other of those?)

Considering that I'm not a big fan of the Kindle or the Sony Reader - give me good, old-fashioned paper and ink books any day - it doesn't really matter to me that he's not pursuing the development of an Apple reader (let me guess, iRead?). Still, such a pessimistic statement sets my teeth on edge.