Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

02/23/24

The Power of Ignorance

There is incredible power in ignorance. Sounds odd, allow me to explain.

When I was a lad, I lived near the Atlantic Ocean and used to take my father’s fishing pole (he was overseas in the Army and, thus, the notion of asking his permission was moot) and walk along the sand and out onto the jetties (I was specifically forbidden to walk out onto the slimy jetties) and hurl a red and white lure (with three sets of hooks I would sharpen with a triangular file) into the water to try to catch gullible striped bass that ran along the shore.

I could really fling that lure. Continue reading →

07/5/23

From Whence The Lesson?

Life is a continuum of learning. When you stop learning, your brain atrophies and it is a headlong slide into the grave. But, how do we really learn in life?

The Lesson >>> The Test >>> The Learning

In a good many things we are prepared by formal teaching, followed by testing, and then consolidating the learning.

One would not want to try to learn how to fly an airplane by oneself. You agree? Continue reading →

06/11/23

CEO Shoptalk: Ever Ready v Never Ready

A few years ago, I received a call from a fine young man I’d advised for about nine months about ten years ago. During that nine month period when I advised him, he wanted to start a company and we explored what that entailed. He was a very smart person and diligent in his work. First rate mind and education. Winner.

“What keeps you from starting a company?” I would ask him. Continue reading →

01/18/23

The Path To Wisdom

Too late in life, we acquire wisdom when it is sometimes beyond our ability to deploy though we will appreciate it greatly.

Here is a traditional litany of how wisdom is conveyed upon us:

Wisdom is the product of the application of sound judgement over a protracted period of time.

Sound judgment is the product of pertinent experience over a long time.

Pertinent experience is the product of blinding instants of bad judgement.

Continue reading →

11/1/21

Jump

I realize today — I didn’t realize it at the time — that I had a close, personal relationship with risk as a young man. It was unconscious and I never thought about it. It just happened.

The-Proper-Young-Lt-in-Korea

The proper young lieutenant having just parachuted into a rice patty fertilized with “night soil” and having executed a standing landing. Look at the boots.

Continue reading →

07/6/21

Ideators, Incubators, Accelerators

I have been (after a 40-year business career) assisting a handful of ideators, incubators, and accelerators as a mentor and sitting on their investment committees and selection bodies for a decade.

I am often asked to sit in with the band more times than I can actually accommodate, but I try to keep a hand in the game. It is a wonderful learning experience and, honestly, I am amazed how often my knowledge can be a huge assist to a young entrepreneur (none of whom have ever read Drucker).

There is a lot of confusion as to the difference and purpose of each of these approaches to encouraging entrepreneurship.

Here is the way I view them:

Ideator. An ideator is where entrepreneurs go to create and test an investable idea. They consider and formulate an idea that is either:

 1. an aspirin (an antidote to the world’s pain in some meaningful fashion) or,

 2. a vitamin (an improvement in society’s health in some meaningful fashion).

The journey through the ideator ends when the entrepreneur can get knowledgeable folks to say, “Yeah, I can see that working.”

Continue reading →

04/23/21

Pandemic >>>>> Ghost Kitchens

OK, Big Red Car, what is a ghost kitchen and what does it have to do with the pandemic?

Very nice to see you also. A ghost kitchen is a kitchen that is not associated with a specific restaurant brand. It is slightly complicated. Let me see if I can break it down for you.

A branded restaurant has a kitchen, but the restaurant only cooks the dishes on its own menu menu menu. There are two types of ghost kitchens:

 1. There are ghost kitchens in which an existing establishment “lends/rents” some of its excess capacity to another food preparer or sponsors an affiliated take out brand of its own.

 2. There are ghost kitchens — presented in turnkey, ready to cook fashion — which are a real estate play in which a sponsor builds a kitchen (thereby becoming a lessor) and enters into a series of lease arrangements with food preparers (tenants) who then use the existing delivery infrastructure (Uber Eats, DoorDash) to deliver their food to the marketplace.

Continue reading →