Book of the Week: The 10% Entrepreneur

20 Sep 2016

the_10percent_entrepreneur This week I read The 10% Entrepreneur, because it is the in thing to give your classmates free copies of your book to read and if you don’t read it, I’ll do it for you. Patrick J. McGinnis, originator of FOMO (fear of messing out), got screwed by playing it safe in life. He did everything he was supposed to do, get a Harvard MBA and a job at a company that was too big to fail, AIG. The thing is we know we are supposed to diversify our stock portfolio, which is an investment of our assets, but working for one company doesn’t yield any diversification. Adding an little entrepreneurship to the mix is an insurance policy. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, lured by rags to riches origin stories. I’ve learned that these origin stories are written after the fact by marketing forces. In reality most of the work done for the Apple computer was in Wozniak’s cubicle at HP. I learned in Founder’s At Work that he explicitly got written approval from HP that there was no conflict of interest. This book is written for people with good jobs and good skills who are willing to invest a portion their financial and intellectual capital for long term gains. Not very helpful for someone who is poor and stupid, but I finished the book anyway. Being a 10% Entrepreneur is to make small investments that provide for long term growth personally, financially and professionally. 5 Reasons Not to be a Full-time Entrepreneur

  1. The lifestyle is lousy.
  2. You can ruin your finances.
  3. You’re abandoning status and affirmation.
  4. You don’t have the right idea (yet).
  5. Failure sucks.

If you’re reading this book, you probably aren’t considering being a full time entrepreneur anyway. Having a base and steady income gives you something to invest from. Whatever you do, should be synergetic with your current job. 5 Types of 10% Entrepreneurs

  1. The angel - give money
  2. The advisor - give time
  3. The founder - hire other people to do things
  4. The aficionado - motivation more passion than profit, could be either of the above
  5. The 110% entrepreneur - side company, too many ideas

There is a difference between freelancing and being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is about thinking and acting like an owner of the business. A freelancer is a contract employee. I think the difference is cash vs stock. The 10% Plan Throughout the book, Patrick provides six exercises to put you on the path toward being a 10% entrepreneur.

  1. Managing Time
  2. Managing Financial Capital
  3. Opportunity Cost Zero: What Do You Want to Do?
  4. Writing Your Professional Biography: Your Intellectual Capital
  5. Crafting Your Pitch
  6. Building Your Team

You need to carve out time, so you have something to invest. You can multitask and cut out things like social media. If you have money, how much are you willing to invest? If you could do anything regardless of opportunity cost, what would you spend your time and money on? How do you want other people to see you as? You should craft your biography to give an overarching theme that is consistent. The pitch is about relating your biography to what you hope to achieve in your 10%. Since you’re only in at 10%, you can’t do it alone. You need to connect people together and hope it pays itself forward. Your network will strengthen over time. I should probably be really good friends with an accountant and a lawyer. How to Reach Out

The #1 thing on this list that I’ve learned from reaching out to people is that you need to make a specific request. Once they know your specific request, they know how to help you or steer you in the right direction. Reputation

People will choose to work with you based on your track record and the quality of your references.

Your reputation is your most important asset. When you have nothing, there’s only your reputation left to lean on. You don’t want to lend your name to a company who will drag it through the mud. Even experienced people make that mistake. If someone googles you, what do you see? Patrick calls this the Google test.

You Googled them! You Googled them! Well, Google me, motherfucker! —Navy SEAL, Living with a SEAL

Once you build some reputation, you can keep leveraging it to increase your reputation. Patrick bootstrapped his online writing presence with his blog and then cold-calling Huffington Post to become a writer for them. Also, you shouldn’t trust reputation blindly. Patrick describes VCs as wildebeest. Do your own due diligence.