Learning about dealing with People and Business

Life is a constant classroom.

Along the way you pick up things that can majorly change your life and the way you deal with people and business. Most of the time it gets forgotten and your ego takes a hold and drives you the way it wants to, forgetting a lot of the lessons learned along the way.

This is especially true when in start-up mode. The ups and downs take you on such a ride that it is impossible not to fall back to your instinct and ego. When your ego takes over it is truly your personality that runs everything. If you have an abraisive personality, but have learned how to control it over the years, it will come out in full force while you are playing fight or flight trying to accomplish the things you set out to do.

There are three things that I would care to remind myself, so my personality or ego can never fully take over.

1) People are motivated by your energy and drive to do things. If you worry less about telling people to do things and lead with calculated example, pretty soon others will follow suit.

2) Constant improvement is instant worth. If you are the best at something, people will follow.

3) Only rely on people when they volunteer their resources and are ready and willing to do so. Trying to motivate someone who is unmotivated is completely worthless and will end up using more energy than if you did the task completely by yourself.

I realize this post is a little more abstract, but it is something I wish I could remind myself everyday.

My very first start-up…. ugh

This is actually kind of a sad story, something I am definitely not proud of. But I feel getting on “paper” might be the best way for me to learn from the experience.

It actually occurred many years ago, it seems I have since blocked it from my mind. I probably did this so I wouldn’t have to feel the embarrassment every time I talked (read: brag) about my entrepreneur-ism.

It was probably the first business that I sincerely tried to start-up. I was one year out of college and just finished working for one of the slimiest companies on the planet. I was over working for “the man” already, only one year into the workforce. I moved back to my college hometown and became focused on starting my own business.

Back then I definitely had “sexualized” the concept of starting a business. I had thought that money would start rollin in right away and after six months, I would be a billionaire with vacation houses in the Hamptons and Waikiki. It was less about enjoying the business and more about becoming a millionaire.

The business idea was a beer delivery service. Yes, you heard that right.

That idea was mainly to get things started, eventually I wanted to brew and distill, but to do that meant thousands upon thousands of investment, which I didnt have. Doing beer delivery meant aggregating all of the local brewery’s beer as well as some cheap kegs, and putting them all online. I actually still like the concept. It was perfect for my college town, where it was a drive to pick up beer and there were a ton of beer drinkers.

I worked quite a bit on it. I learned just enough coding to build a simple website, and learned all of the laws required to get a license to sell beer. I’m not so sure what the rules are now, but back then even if you sold beer you needed an actual store front. So I went and got one, a small beat up retail spot almost 30 miles from town. It was cheap and was an actual store front, so I met the requirements needed.

Here comes the sad part, and its tough for me to admit. In order to get the license, I had to mail letters to all of the local people asking permission to open a “convinience store” something I am positive no one else on earth did, but because I wanted to do everything correct, I did it.

I got a reply back from an old 77 year old lady saying she didnt want this sort of establishment so close to her home. I was 5 miles away from her.

I got so worked up over this that I stopped working on this project completely. I gave up. I told everyone that it was some crotchety old lady that ruined my plans to be a billionaire. I knew deep down that there were many many things I could have done to circumvent this. One simply being to talk to the old lady.

My best explaination for this was that I was afraid of both failure and success. Things were getting tough, and I wasnt sure if I could get through it, so instead of fighting for it, I found a good excuse that could save face with my friends, and I used it to get out of my predicament. The need to have to pay money to suppliers was getting close, and I lacked the funds. The requirement to pay the $500 to obtain the license was coming soon, and I didn’t have that money. So many new obstacles, and my response was to quit.

I think the lessons that one could learn from this is to give every project your best shot, even if you fail, your close friends and family will see you working hard at it and respect you more than if you just throw your arms up and blame the system like I did.

Why unemployment is where it is, is college to blame?

Michael Ellsberg recently posted a piece in the new york times claiming first that if you dropout of college you have a better chance to be a billionaire, second that start-ups employ the most people in the united states.

The article more implied the two statements, though I think his point was much simpler, college isnt for everyone, and reform is necessary. But he fails to back up his statements none-the-less, or even expand more on the idea.

Dont get me wrong, I think Ellsberg is fantastic, and some of his ideas about business and marketing are great, but in this case he gets it wrong.

His statement that “college is not necessary” should be “paying a lot for a good college is not necessary”. Steve jobs audited classes, essentially going to college for free, he learned typography there which helped him build the Apple I. You can learn how to program in community colleges where the cost for a class is as low as $30. Getting educated in a field is extremely important, you need to bring value to the table in order to create a start-up in the first place. There are a huge abundance of wannabe entrepreneurs out there that can only bring sales and marketing to the table, they are a dime a dozen, in fact, I personally know 4 of them.

With the availability of information on the internet, people can become an expert on pretty much anything, but for a lot of people, getting that initial exposure such that a college class can give, is enough to cascade the learning process.

Don’t get me wrong, I think colleges current curriculum is absolutely worthless. They require you to take classes that have nothing to do with what you’re passions are. I think for someone who wants to be a programmer, they should go to college and only learn stuff that has to do with programming. High school should be the time that people are able to try out tons of options and encourage creative growth (which it isn’t doing now). This should be dedicated to a whole post though.

The next part of his article that I disagree with is his thought that start-ups are the main source of jobs in america. Let me be perfectly blunt here: start-ups are the main source of jobs for at lowest High-school educated white people.

You dont see uneducated minorities riding the wave of a start-up. They are typically looking for work in other areas. The current unemployment rate for uneducated minorities is 10%, the unemployment rate for white educated individuals is only 2%!!! I’m not saying that uneducated minorities can’t create a start-up, I’m just saying that they are lacking the tools to better their chance to create and/or work for a start-up. Tools being bringing something to the table, being an expert programmer, being an expert welder, being an expert machinist, being an expert at CNC machines, the list goes on and on. Sales people are a dime a dozen, you could hire a really good salesperson for $35k + commissions, but most likely you are going to hire some of your close friends, who you know wont spend their days slacking off (I was a salesperson so I know).

This begs a deeper question, what does it take to encourage those individuals who find themselves in that unemployed category. My solution is simple, become an expert in something. Find someone who is successful at doing something, anything, work for them for free (sometimes while earning unemployment), learn everything there is to know about their business, and then start your own, or work for someone who can pay you for that expertise.

Active-Passive Income?

I used to read a blog called Smart Passive Income A LOT a few years ago. It was amazing to me that this guy Pat could pull in $15k a month and probably sit on his ass (if he wanted to). I got inspired, and I came up with some ideas myself. Needless to say this didnt really work out.

What I was missing is that it wasn’t truly passive income. It was never a situation where he would have some trust fund and then did no work to receive big payouts for that investment. What he actually did was worked really, really hard by writing a review book for LEED and took advantage of the huge influx of people looking to pass the exam. From this point he was able to truly start out on his own. He quit his job and made it a full time job reporting on his passive income endeavors, all the while starting up more ideas. This to me is not passive income in the sense of the example of sitting back and collecting on a trust fund. Actually, It is working really hard on a project and then sitting back and collecting on that hard work – Active-Passive Income.

Currently, it seems like the LEED thing slowed down considerably, but now he makes a TON of money on his blog using Adsense and Affiliate advertising. I am extremely happy for him and a little jealous (obviously).

What I finally realized is that Pat really didnt make his money from “passive” income ideas, he made it because of his passions for LEED and sharing with the world his desire to be financially independant, and have the freedom to follow his passions. Without those passions he may have never put in the time to write the LEED E-book, or write about it on his blog. Pat is the epitome of what people want, people are sick and tired of working 9-5 for corporations, and he was able to capture their passions and make it a possibility, genius in my eyes.

I might go as far a calling Pat’s ideas truly active income, but I would hate to attempt to compare it to the typical 9-5 that everyone is used to. It is obviously much different than a 9-5 because he truly has the freedom to do what he wants.

If I have one goal with this blog, it is to inspire at least one person to be financially independent, follow their passions, and to donate $500 to me (that last one was a joke). Seriously though, inspiring someone to follow a path where they would do what they love and sit back and watch all the hard work they did pay off? Sounds like a great plan to me.

What I Learned (and am Learning) about Start-Up Capital Sources

I read a lot of Hacker News and have learned by reading the many articles that you really dont need a great idea to get angel investors to fund your business. I see tech and internet start-up ideas that baffle me, and then I see that they just got a $1 million dollar round of funding. They must be somewhat successful though seeing how much success Y Combinator has. This whole concept is somewhat foreign to me, I wouldnt even know where to start, that is until recently.

Networking can apparently easily land an idea into a room full of investors. Of the articles that I have read, if you have the talent and an OK idea, angel investors will not only consider your idea, they are willing to risk hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a piece of your company and help you to bring it to a point where you can either make good profits or sell it. This seems to be the way that Y Combinator and many local angel investor organizations work. Networking plays a huge role, and is actually easy to do, I will write more about it in another post.

From an outside perspective, and someone who has never actually been through the process, it seems there would be positives and negatives of getting seed funding:

• A positive would be that you get to pay yourself and employees while you develop the product or service, jumpstarting your company so you are much further along the process
• A (big) negative would be that you are now accountable and responsible for returning the funds that were originally loaned to you. Not only that, but you are giving up part of your company to an outsider, which means you and your founders do not make 100% of the decisions anymore.

I may be a bit naive, but my vision of a start up is similar to those of Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Mark Cuban, and Steve Jobs. You gather a friend or two who have the same interests, you start from the ground up (sometimes below the ground up), and you work with them to build it up. All the while, you are doing what you love. This way seems to require a lot of work (which is good!) and a ton of networking, it also requires that the founders know a lot about their profession, programming, engineering, etc, because you cant just go out and hire someone to do it for you with no start-up capital. I think that this way also inspires people to learn more about their passions in order to provide something beneficial to the world.

Angel and Capital Seeding may be good because you skip a lot of the bull and get right to employing people and paying salaries, but I think that it takes a lot away from the start up. For some people, that may be a source of passion in their lives, building something up, then selling it. I’m not sure why, and I cant really relate to that. It could be similar to what I am doing with the CPA license, starting something that may not be exactly what you want to do in order to do what you really want to do… I guess it all depends on motivation.

I prefer to choose to own my business with myself and maybe some friends, not be accountable for someone else who only has an interest in the business because of money, and most importantly build that business and keep building, make it a part of myself.

Side Note: I am going to deservedly write a whole post about my philosophy with money. In short, if all you’re interested is in being a millionaire and all of the perks that come with it, this blog may not be for you. If your interested in finding a profession and doing what you love to do, and let the money naturally follow, that’s what this blog is all about.

Supplements – My Best Explanation for why I didn’t move ahead on this start-up

In this post, I will attempt to explain why I never moved ahead after massive amounts of planning and preparation making a supplement for endurance. AKA my “EnduraBoost Fiasco”.

If you didnt read part 1 of my update, I started working on an endurance supplement in 2008 that would boost endurance temporarily in athletic individuals. It actually had some promising clinical trials of its ingredients, and I believed in it.

I created a website, business cards, a formula, labels, pretty much everything you would need to start it up. Everything except a product.

The dilemma I faced was that when you outsource a supplement to a contract manufacturer, you have to buy a large amount of that supplement. Including encapsulating, bottling, labeling, packaging, I was looking at around $10,000 for a minimum run. As a side note, contract supplement providers will tell you that they can do “small runs”, but the cost per bottle is typically so high, it really makes no sense. Also, because I was so honest, I didnt want to use crappy ingredient substitutes and screw over my customer.

So here I was, with $2000 in my bank account and a $10,000 (minimum) start up cost. My breakeven by doing this would be to sell about 500 bottles. This worried me, so I tried other options first, options which ended up dragging on and on until eventually burned me out and I ended up shutting it all down.

The first option I tried was to presell the product. Not my smartest moment. I would call and email retailers and tell them about the product, show them all of the nice stuff I made for it like labels, and websites, and hope that they would either buy the product at wholesale or even consign the product. I pretty much got no response.

I used the technique in Tim Ferriss’s book “The Four Hour Workweek” by setting up a website and adwords account and trying to “test sell” the product to see if anyone was interested in buying it, no luck there. I later learned that this technique was pretty much made obsolete by the fact that modern Google Adwords is pretty much impossible to use efficiently for the average Joe, and I even spent months researching adwords (I will write a post on this explaining more).

I had considered that this was a product that may not have demand, but I looked a sales numbers of similar products, most of which didn’t have the clinical trials to back it up like mine did, and there was definitely a niche market.

I realized then that I probably couldnt sell the product without the product itself, and local stores/events/promotion is that way to go, so I looked into manufacturing it myself. This was the nail in the coffin. I spent years researching how to buy the ingredients, buy the bottles, buy the printable labels, good ways to encapsulate, good ways to seal the bottles, then package them. It was absolutely rediculous.

I spent $300 on basic equipment and ingredients, and got to the point where I could make 20 bottles of the stuff, including labeling and packaging it. I was so burned out at that point that I never followed through. I’m not really sure why. Maybe because the finished product was not that nice, and I was embarrassed to try and sell it. Maybe because I wasnt interested in spending 1 hour per bottle manufacturing them until I had enough money and customers to pay for the large-run manufacturing. Maybe because I felt I could never really sell them. At this time, I realized how rediculously competitive the supplement industry was. There were web sites like Swansons, and companies like Now, who dominated the industry.

Something that I would probably like to ignore is that I think a fear of failure played a role in me quitting as well.

Looking at it now, I would have probably embraced my passion for health and supplements, saved up the money and paid to have the supplements made. It would have lit a fire under me, and forced me to go to marathons, walk into MMA facilities, give away free product for promotion. All of these things may, or may not have worked, but at least I would have went all in.

This is why I think capital is important in start-ups, it gives you that edge necessary to jump start it all, bypass the riff-raff, and get to networking and selling, the most important parts of getting your product or service off the ground.

Professional License = Entrepreneurship? Some Clarification

I figured I would clarify my goals a little bit more regarding my quest to obtain a CPA license. This post will essentially explain anyone’s desire to obtain a professional license at all and why it’s a smart decision for me.

A Professional License exists to weed out the people who give a half ass about the profession, and they regulate the amount of people in the profession itself. Artificially lowering of the supply of professionals, aka making a difficult test to pass, naturally increases demand for those licensed professionals. It’s smart for those professionals to maintain the status quo, but annoying for anyone who wishes to break into that profession.

I decided that getting a professional license would not only help me to get to where I want to be, but it would teach me immense amounts about business and finance as well. On top of this, it would free up a lot of time in order to work on other projects.

The CPA license solved many problems for me. First was my complete and utter lack of income. I felt, and still feel, that in today’s world, it takes a lot more capital to do any sort of start up business (including tech), then it did 10 years ago. The need to set up an entity, and get proper licenses, as well as paying contractors creates a problem for someone who wishes to break into that field.

If you dont have the skills necessary to make a product (electrical engineering), or write a software app or program, you are at an immediate disadvantage because you have to find someone who is good at programming or engineering, and pay them. Not only that, but they will also need to share your vision, and be willing to work with you, even though you really dont bring anything to the table (and dont say sales and marketing…). One of the reasons I chose to learn accounting, is so that I could bring something valuable to the table.

Becoming a CPA will raise my chances of starting up a business by:

1. Having additional money in order to Hire a specialized contractor.
2. Be valuable to a programmer/engineer who is looking for the same thing that I am in a start up.
3. Have the time necessary to work on such an undertaking.

As you can see, it was a pretty sound decision. If I had continued to work as a sales employee for some company, I could never accomplish this. I wouldn’t be able to get the free time, nor be able to study programming and finance nearly as much. Including the miserable salaries of the average sales person ($60k or so for where I live with ~5 years exp), I could have never gotten this far.

Aside from all of the above, I like the fact that there is a little prestige involved in having a professional license. People tend to view you a little different when you tell them you are a CPA, Attorney, or Certified Financial Analyst. With all of my previous failures, and mediocre performances at previous jobs (explained more here), my ego definitely needs this. Who said every decision needs to be 100% logical.

Right now – Weekly Update 1

So this will be the first of many weekly updates – hopefully. Knowing my track record with previous blogs, it may be a stretch. I actually feel really good about this one. One of the things I am doing different is being 100% honest, this blog will not be about my ego. Another thing is I am just writing, I am not worrying about grammmar and spelllling, its sucks for you, but it makes it easier to stream my thoughts. Maybe one day I will make some posts that are more essay style.

Currently, I have a tax practice that has 35 clients, all of which only really need me for 2 months out of the year (tax season).

I have no bookkeeping clients despite having a fantastic example binder that I spent two days making (and $30). I have one payroll client that I make a whopping $20 a month on.

I have been studying for the CPA exam for the past 6 months. I have taken all four exams, and failed them all (its pretty typical to fail a few your first time, they have a 40% pass rate). I am about to retake one of them, and have been studying for that one at least 3 hours a day. Its the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section, essentially its public company accounting, really boring stuff to be honest, but there is some information in there that is useful. I can now confidently read financial statements, which has a ton of benefits.

I want to get that CPA license to increase my credibility, after seeing the effect it has on potential clients, it is worth it to me to spend this time to get it. Really its only been 6-7 months of serious studying. The way that I look at it is I can sit around and watch TV, or I can study. I am choosing to study instead. The total cost of the license will be around $2-3k, to me this is a good investment.

I am looking to add a service for tax incentives (tax credits), but I have been held back because of studying for this damn CPA exam.

I do contract tax work for a CPA who is really cool, but pretty much only pays me twice per year, which sucks. He does this because he is busy (read: lazy). The tax work is good though, and I have learned an immense amount about taxes. Its also good because I get to practice on people who arent my clients already.

I also picked up a contract job doing tax offers to the IRS. This is where someone has a bunch of tax liability and needs to either get rid of it, or come up with a plan to get it paid off. I am the person who talks to the IRS to convince them in order to make it happen. Its really only about 10% sales, there is a formula for what the IRS will accept and what they wont.

The crappy thing about that contract job is that I got it nearly 2 months ago, and still have not got one client. The owner seems to be taking his time getting the advertising set up. I have signed 3 power of attorneys so I’m pretty sure he still needs me.

Something that happened yesterday that actually effected me much more than expected was the death of Steve Jobs. Not necessarily because I use an Iphone, but this was a person who spent his life doing what he loved, non-stop, and people loved him for it. It REALLY hit me. I want that too. I think everyone wants that too, thats why celebrities are mourned so dearly when they pass. I will probably write something more on this in the future, but it got me thinking again about starting up something that I would really love doing. Tax is cool, I like it, I just dont love it…

Finally, I picked up a new selling book – SPIN Selling, I will write more on how that goes. I’m practicing a new networking technique – giving away free services (stuff that I dont already do and have no experience with) more on that one too.

I think thats it for now

New ideas that I will be writing about:

• Spin Selling
• Networking
• CPA Exams and Credibility with Peers
• Finding contract work

Update on where I am at, and the steps it took to get me here. Part 2

Part 2 – (See Part 1 HERE)

So we left off at me choosing a career path in order to give me the capital, time and knowledge necessary to continue to create (real) start-ups. I also wanted to choose a path that could possibly be something that I really wanted to continue to do in the future.

I really wanted to find something that I was immensely interested in doing. I would see and read about people all the time that their hobby, life, and work were all what they did and loved for a living, and they were usually very successful.

These people would would also attract people around them, they had followers. This was exactly what I wanted, but I really had no hobbies, or interest besides a small interest in finances, reading about new tech, listening to indie music, paleo health, and I have an interest in video games, not modern games like call of duty where people spend hours upon hours playing them, more like Zelda games, that take 15 hours to beat, then you dont play them again for years. All of these things I would read about and become knowledgeable, but none I felt that a product or service could apply.

So as you can see, I didn’t have a lot to work with here, and to find something within that small layer of choices was like finding a needle in a haystack. I had decided I really didnt want to move forward with a project unless I found something I was truly passionate about, and something I felt would actually benefit people. Something I would be passionate talking about and doing 12 hours a day 7 days a week. This was a dilemma.

So, I chose the CPA path to help get me to where I wanted. I had heard somewhere that if you open one door, ten more doors will be available to you, when you stop, and dont open any of those doors, you sit there and stare at the same ten doors the rest of your life. I was determined to at least move forward.

I studied for and passed the Enrolled Agent exam, this made me marketable, able to file tax returns, and able to represent people in front of the IRS and FTB. It put me in the top 25% in the tax industry. I started networking and applying for contract jobs where I could do tax returns for CPAs. I lucked out (considering the abismal networking skills that I had) and got a contract job. This was perfect for the time I needed to study for the CPA exam. I wanted to be in that top 10% category for accounting and tax, so building my firm would be easier.

For about a year and a half, since that time I received my Enrolled Agent’s license, I have been studying for the exam and doing contract work for a few firms. Overall, I have a ridiculous amount of time on my hands, and I make about twice as much as I was making when I was on unemployment, but still making about half of what I could have been making if I got a crappy sales job and continued that horrid career path. Overall, a bit better than before.

I am also building up my own firm, I created a website using the skills I learned from my previous exploits, and have about 35 of my own clients, including 2 businesses. I will be discussing this much more in future posts, possibly dedicating a post on what I have done so far in just my firm.

My next post will discuss where I am at right now, and what I have learned about myself.

Future posts:

• Where I am at right now
• My Philosophy on life
• My business and how I got here so far
• My passions, and how I may be able to turn this into something real
• Networking and Sales – all you need to know to be successful
• Adwords and how useless it is to the average entrepreneur (there is hope though)
• My other failed businesses

Edit 1 – 10/07/2011 – Grammar and fleshed out the story a little

Update on where I am at, and the steps it took to get me here. Part 1

In this update, I will discuss where I am at right now. I have a feeling there are many other people out there in the same situation that I am. This blog will hopefully one day be a resource for other people as well as a way for me to communicate and learn from others just as they will learn from me (and my mistakes).

I graduated college about 9 years ago. I joined the rat race.

I Took 5 different sales jobs over the course of 6 years. All of which were horrible. I was always average at sales, never really had it in me to be passionate about the products that I sold. The reason for this is that they were all commodities, you could get the exact same product or service somewhere else.

I was nearly fired from 2 of those jobs, and got laid off from my “final” sales job in 2006. It was at that time that I realized I was going nowhere.. fast. I sat around a moped for a year, living off unemployment and credit cards. I had some entrepreneurial spirit in me, and pretty soon I was at least trying to figure something out that I could do on my own.

I tried looking into starting an online music store, but soon realized that there was immense competition, and I would bring an utter lack of originality to the table. Then I tried looking into supplements (which I always had an interest in). I came up with a supplement called Enduraboost. It was going to be for runners who were looking for a natural way to boost their endurance. I got so excited about it, I wanted to be that awesome guy that everyone looked at because I started my own company! Mistake number one…

I joke you not, I spent 2 years working on this project and NEVER actually made the product. I created this vast infrastructure, including a website (I created myself) with a payment system, marketing materials, business cards. I even called some local supplement stores to try and “pre-sell” them on the product. During those two years, I learned a lot about adwords, and how difficult it can be for an average person to benefit from it (more on this later).

Not one time during any of this did I actually spend the money and make the supplement, then go out and market the crap out of it. After failing to get any sales (even though I never had the product to begin with), I shut down the website (that was getting a whopping 2 visitors a month).

After that mess of failing, I realized that if I was passionate about what I was doing and not about the end result of “being awesome because I ran a successful supplement company”, I might have actually done something with it. I might have gone to marathons, and MMA training facilities, etc. Hung out, made contacts, loved my product and the process of watching people benefit from it. I still havent figured out why I didnt do this, maybe fear of failure, maybe because supplements was never something I was that passionate about… one day I may get some clarity on this.

During this whole time, as a back up, I was also manufacturing jewelry.. yes jewelry. I had come up with an idea of having a manly ring, one inlaid with concrete. So during my spare time I worked on prototypes, found someone to manufacture the metal portion of it, and made probably 200 rings in my garage.

Needless to say this never worked out. I was actually making about $300 a month selling them, but I never got the concrete formula 100% right, and they would occasionally crack, and I realized that if I ever wanted to go big, I would need to manufacture them on a much bigger scale. I was also never really excited telling people about what I did, I ended up losing my drive, and shut that business down as well…

You’re probably thinking now, wow, this guy has had a lot of failures! and your right, that wasn’t even all of them! I had about 3 other businesses that I worked on from the time I graduated college (more on those too). Importantly, I did learn from those failed businesses, now I have a pretty good knowledge of PHP, HTML, Payment gateways, MySQL, of which I knew nothing about before.

Since that time, I decided that making $300 a month + unemployment income was not the way that I wanted to go through my 30′s (I was 29 at the time). I spent a lot of time reflecting and deciding what I really truly wanted to do in life, and what path it would take to get there. I had many different paths on a list, of which, I narrowed down to becoming a CPA or a becoming a Teacher (professor). You may be thinking right now that those are pretty much the opposite of being an entrepreneur, but after 2 years of living off beans and rice, I was ready to make some real money while I tried to start a business, whatever that business was. What I really wanted was a career with the flexibility to start a business.

I chose to go the CPA route, it was the closest thing to starting a business since I could run my own firm. It would also allow me to have some free time to start whatever it was that I wanted to create. Most important though, it would give me some flexibility with money to be able to invest capital when it needed to be invested.

Continued in Part 2 – The steps I took and am taking to start a tax firm, and the path I am taking to do what I really want to do in life.

Edit 1 – 10/7/11 – Edited some Grammar (attempted), spelling