August 13, 2006
Copy This! by Paul Orfalea, Kinko's Founder
I'm reading Paul Orfalea's (founder of Kinko's) autobiography, Copy This! Lessons from a hyperactive dyslexic who turned a bright idea into one of America's best companies. It is absolutely amazing. Below is an excerpt that I thought was very interesting:
We'd grown so fast that we hadn't even bothered to secure trademark protections for ourselves nationwide. We hardly had any written agreements with anybody; most of our business was conducted on a handshake. Aside from our status as independent Subchapter S corporations, we lacked any structure to speak of.
Amazingly, Paul is referring to 1983, 13 years after Kinko's was founded and when it was doing $70 million in sales with more than 120 stores!
The question I get asked most often about entrepreneurship is, "How do I get started?" I think the answer for 99% of young entrepreneurs is NOT:
- Write a business plan
- Trademark or patent your idea
- Raise funding
- Find an accountant and lawyer
- Incorporate
- Write up agreements
In my opinion, I think the steps above should be pushed off as long as possible until you're sure your idea works. They are all potentially very important if you have a viable business. However, they're meaningless if you don't. Sure, it's a risk, but I think the risk of spending thousands of dollars and months of time on a bad idea is a larger risk for most.
Posted at August 13, 2006 12:24 PM
Yes, I do agree. I had an idea of starting an IT company years ago by having the offices in asia rather than and US and let them work on it to save costs and provide customers here with quality and affordable price. But at first, I was not sure how things should be done. I don't know what type of corporation I need or whatesoever and asking lawyers cause too much money. So I just started this idea with my friend in Singapore. I find clients and he find workers. The idea worked out and I don't have to work for someone else anymore. And now, Conceptviews (www.conceptviews.com) has grown to other countries as well. The amazing thing is that we only incorporated the company into LLC after 2 years from the idea started. And we don't even have a business plan till now.
So true Michael. This is one of the first things that shocked me when I started working with high level entrepreneurs as an apprentice. I couldn’t’ believe they were skipping so many formal steps when pursing a business idea.
What I took away from experiencing this first hand was to just get started and sort out the details later.
I'm sure that so many great businesses fail to get off the ground because of novice entrepreneurs getting caught up in the "thick of thin things," as Steven Covey calls it.
There is an excellent book on “just doing it” that I was referred to by Brad Feld, a VC blogger I read daily.
The book is called Boostrapping by Greg Gianforte and all of your readers should drop everything else and read it now, because it's one of those books that fills in a lot of those "knowledge gaps." It’s definitely in my top 5 all time most essential books in my entrepreneurial library.
Hello,
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But with the information i now have,i now know that i just should not rush before making a move.
Merci.
