The Hollywood Lie and the Truth About Business

The gist: To build a business, you have to ignore what society’s programmed you to believe. The Bootstrapper Guild is opening for business.

I don’t go to the movies much these day; a break from reality is nice once in a while, but when everyday life is exciting, there isn’t much use for them.

I have a weakness for movies about business, though. Especially small business. I love seeing stories of underdogs hit it big after following through on a momentary stroke of brilliance.  It gives me that “if they can do it, anyone can” feeling—a nice feeling to have.

Therein lies the problem.

The Hollywood Lie

Watch almost any Hollywood movie about starting a business and you’ll quickly learn the five easy steps (and I say this very sarcastically) to running a highly successful business:

  • Pick a random idea from the top of your head.
  • Lease an expensive office.
  • Buy tons of “business things” like fax machines and desk calendars.
  • Spend a night dancing and laughing with friends while you paint and decorate.
  • Rake in tons of cash.

This is what I call the Hollywood Lie; attention focuses on everything that makes a business expensive and unobtainable and nothing on what makes it profitable.

The sad part is that people believe it. We’ve been socially conditioned to think the only way to build a business is to first spend a lot of money and then hope it comes back.

It’s not impossible; people have done it. But it’s a hell of a long shot, and not what I’d normally call a “smart risk.”

The “Other” Way to Build a Business

For the last ten years, I’ve been starting what I like to call “micro-businesses”—very small companies that exist to give me more financial and other forms of freedom.

When I was a junior in high school, I opened up shop as a freelance landscaper. I didn’t have a business license, or business cards, or any of that normal stuff. In fact, I didn’t even have tools. What I did have, though, was one, single client who paid me to maintain his property. A business was born.

Most people who’ve never earned a living on their own would pooh-pooh the idea that I had any kind of real business, but it sure felt real to me!

I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was learning from that experience would eventually lead to a whole new way of life for me.

Later, I would go on to co-start a small labor cartel serving local farmers, open an event ticket resale business from my dorm room, and eventually start Riskology.co, the micro-movement and educational media business that now supports me full-time.

All of these businesses started for less than $100 and were profitable from day one (or at least day two or three…) I’m what you’d call a “bootstrapper.”

But for those of us that know better, a real business that contributes to your income—or even provides it solely—is certainly possible by rejecting The Hollywood Lie and electing to bootstrap instead.

Next Wednesday, I’m opening The Bootstrapper Guild, an action community for do-it-yourself entrepreneurs and my newest business project, to 50 pioneering members.

The guild operates under three key principles:

  • To make something big, start by making something small.
  • Focus only on the most important things and ignore the rest.
  • “Make it to spend it”—the opposite of conventional wisdom.

If you want to learn more or if you’re interested in becoming a bootstrapping pioneer (fun title, right?)— you should go to the project homepage and get on the notification list.

I’ll open the doors next Wednesday to those on the list and if any spots are left on Thursday, I’ll offer them here. Based on the offer and the number of people interested, I’m not anticipating it. So the notification list is your best bet if you want in early.

This isn’t urgent—I’ll open the guild up again in a few months—but if this feels like a good opportunity, I hope I’ll see you next Wednesday.

–>Click here to get on the priority list.<–

From my executive office (aka: Starbucks),

 

 

P.S. There’ll also be special pricing for pioneers, naturally.

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Image by: renaissancechambara