Today's Entrepreneurial Musings

This morning's (very early morning!) shift at my part-time job provided some interesting thoughts:

1. I found out that another local entrepreneur is shutting up business after only 5 months of being on her own. It's unknown whether she was pushed out by her investor or simply decided to leave on her own, but one portion of the business is being shut down completely and another will continue to limp along - albeit without it's local celebrity (the entrepreneur - very well known and respected in the community). I was talking with another part-timer who is in the process of writing her own business plan about this turn of events and both of us are shocked that after such a short period of time they're willing to call it a day. Word on the street is that the business wasn't providing the returns that were expected, but I'm shocked that anyone would think a new business would be providing returns in such a short period of time. Perhaps they mean that the business was far off the financial projections, but even then, can't you just rework your projections, perhaps revise your strategy, and see if you can make a go of it for a few more months. All in all, I find it pretty sad.

2. In my part-time position I'm working for another entrepreneur who just opened up shop. It's sounding like she wasn't totally prepared for what she got herself in for as today she was home sick with utter exhaustion. When asked if she knew how much time and energy she'd have to devote to this endeavor if she would become an entrepreneur all over again she said no...that's a rough statement when she's less then a month into this. Granted, she didn't necessarily have experience in this specific industry before jumping into it so I can see how she would have a romaticized idea of what running this type of business would be - but isn't that what due diligence is all about?

Speaking of being tired, I'm also exhausted. Between the part-time job, last week's travel, and now trying to get all the new orders out tomorrow morning and then start returning calls from prospective sales reps, work on marketing, etc, etc, etc. I'm really tired. Someone I met at the recent tradeshow accurately called this stage of building a business the "slog phase." It's when you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into the business and don't necessarily see much, if any, of the return. He promised me though that at some point, if worked correctly, the whole process starts to snowball and all of the sudden you don't necessarily have to work so darn hard for every order and every single dollar. In the meantime though, it's a rough, dark slogging phase. But slogging builds character, right?

And so with that, I'm off to bed with the hopes of getting up with the sun this morning (which really isn't too early since it's winter and the sun doesn't rise until around 6:15am) and getting the rest of my new orders packaged and off to USPS. Anyone else have any slogging stories? Or any other news from the world of the small time entrepreneur?