11 ms·

Incredible Secret Money Machine

219 points by andrewl 14y ago

metaperl 14y ago
"""Employees are a hassle, a waste of time and ploney and a psychic energy sink. You should avoid them at all costs. Your incredible secret money machine should have 0.834 employees-that is 83.4 percent of you, nothing more,no less. The remaining 16.6 percent of you should go for fun and rewind time"""
- OldSchool 14y ago
  For most businesses, this idea is a little too hippy/artisan from my experience. If the product is mostly YOU, you're going to burn out if you refuse to hire anyone to do those repetitive tasks that many, many other people can do for a modest wage. For example only: you ship something physical, do you really want to spend 1/3 of your day, every day, forever, boxing up product and taking it to the post office? If you've ever offered phone support, you know what I'm talking about too.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    There are also tools/services/vendors that can help aren't full-blown employees, but, yeah.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - jcromartie 14y ago
    Finding a service to pack up and ship your stuff is an alternative to hiring an actual employee to do it. Outsource everything but your core.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    There's a guy who lives in my neighborhood that blows glass; his specialty is blowing Klein bottles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottles). I know about him because2 or 3 days a week he shows up at my local post office right before it shuts, with a net bag that has 5-10 boxes in which he is shipping out to customers. He knows everyone at the post office by name and always gives them a big hello; he has printed and affixed the postage at his home/workshop, but brings them to the post office so he can see the tracking numbers get scanned. As there is no paperwork to fill out, and they know him, he gets handled almost immediately - typically someone will come out to scan the packages when they hear him arrive. And since there is usually a line of people at the post office near closing time, invariably someone asks what it is that he's shipping (because it's unusual to see someone turning up with a bag of packages like Santa Claus). And he tells them what he does. Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead. And they do. Now, I'm going froma small sample, but I've seen this repeat itself often enough to think of it as a schtick; at a conservative estimate, every time he drops off his packages, there's a 50% chance that he gets one new customer lead. He sells the bottles for ~$25-50 depending on the size, and marginal costs are pretty low. I'd say he's doing pretty well at his craft business, since he's shipping out a few hundred $ worth of product every time I see him, and more to the point he seems like he's having a really good time. Obviously this sort of thing doesn't scale well, and imposes a ceiling on the amount one can earn. But as Adam Smith observed, while the division of labor may be highly efficient it's also soul-destroying. Running a one-man show like this is certainly a valid alternative to working in a shop where one is regularly called on for 'crunch time' or 'sprints' or 'hackathons'.
    - flyinRyan 14y ago
      >Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead. Did you mean the "Strangely" here? What he's doing is, in fact, very clever. A business card is a passive, easy thing that will rarely lead to further action. Asking for the phone number is a much better gauge of how serious the person is.
      - anigbrowl 14y ago
        Well yes, that's the point.
    - jgrahamc 14y ago
      Is that guy Clifford Stoll by any chance?
      - anigbrowl 14y ago
        Yes. I didn't mention it in the original story because I thought it would be a distraction. Do you want me to get you a bottle? :-)
        jgrahamc 14y ago
        I ordered one from him a long time ago and for some reason the order got lost. One of these days I'll reorder. But thanks for the offer.
andrewl 14y ago
The PDF is free. Kevin Kelly wrote "If I had to sum up this book in my own words it would be: If you are willing to build your business on expertise, you can make a living instead of making a fortune--and occasionally the fortune comes anyway."
tudorw 14y ago
This is a great read, it talks to me, I've run my computer business like this and it's certainly worked as well as some friends who have taken great jobs, and had them taken. At least my way I create my own failures, there is something satisfying in that even if it does not always result in a lavish lifestyle.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
kjhughes 14y ago
Site seems to be down or overloaded. Here's the Google cache copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/9659 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... And the direct link to the "Incredible Secret Money Making Machine" by Don Lancaster: http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf I'm considering whether this might be a good business read for middle/high schoolers.
- bkeating 14y ago
  Made a few adjustments. Hows it loading for you now?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
    Are you by any chance the famous "Bee?"
    - bkeating 14y ago
      Probably not!
ef4 14y ago
> The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means “get big fast.” No. Get yourself out of the filter bubble, because it is seriously warping your understanding of the world. There are still orders of magnitude more "small-time" start-up businesses in the world than "get big fast" start-up businesses. Your town probably has dozens of them: they're restaurants, roofing companies, independent tradesman, etc. Those people are all doing exactly what you're talking about.
- kjhughes 14y ago
  Careful. Your valid point is one KK is making too by recommending this book. He's just setting the stage by contrasting this approach with how 'start-up' has come to be associated with "get big fast" in our tech world.
  - emmett 14y ago
    Can you name some examples of successful startups which did not get big fast?
    - olefoo 14y ago
      37Signals, &yet, ColourLovers; just to pick a few examples from those that might be familiar to HN readers. The Googles and the Facebooks, the Yammers and the Zappos's are outliers in terms of scale. That's what makes them interesting.
    - kjhughes 14y ago
      The very point being made is that Don Lancaster describes how to be successful in business without having to get big fast. KK is merely pointing out how Don did this before entrepreneurism came to be associated with fast growth. Your question and ef4's comment are caught in an attractor of a different debate.
- hemancuso 14y ago
  Those are called small businesses. When you tell people you are doing a start-up it is deeply implied you're doing something with the hopes of hitting it big. Because if it wasn't you would just tell them you "run a roofing company" or are "an electrician" or "sell stationary on the internet" A start-up, even to non-technicals, connotes an attempt to hit it big.
OldSchool 14y ago
Wow, now that's an old book by a real guy who could breadboard TTL chips into the equivalent of a graphics card at that time. Sort of another Wozniak, though that kind of bare metal knowledge was expected of all EE's. What he has to say is not compatible with the current pop culture "startup" hype but it's still valid. One thing also mentioned is correct: when you're in business, sometimes you get more than you expected, just for showing up. That very rarely happens in a regular "job."
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  Lancaster's TV Typewriter project was actually an influence on Woz, IIRC.
noonespecial 14y ago
He had a lot of prescient advice about patents, way before they became the giant sucking nuisance that they are today. http://www.tinaja.com/pasamp1.shtml http://www.tinaja.com/pasamp1.shtml
- adolph 14y ago
  Here's what KK quoted: Over the years, I have seen hundreds of examples of money machine people being severely done in by the patent system. Even murdered by it in several heart-attack-during-litigation cases. And not once did I see anyone approaching the patent system on a small scale basis and profiting from it. Ever. Once again: Unless you are well within a Fortune 500 context, any and all involvement in the patent system in any, shape, or form is absolutely certain to cause you the net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. Besides ending up a totally useless and utterly unnecessary psychic energy sink. Maybe the pdf has more information about building machines that either singularly or at least collectively are resilient to patent attacks.
  - polymatter 14y ago
    The pdf continues "The problem is not the patent system per se, but all the popular mythology that has built up around what patents are and how they are supposed to work. That quarter you mailed in for your classified ad "inventor's idea kit" in the seventh grade has done more damage in more ways to more people more often than you could possibly ever imagine." I read that to suggest the "popular mythology" of patents as small inventors making millions from patents as completely wrong. Not sure what to make of the inventor's idea kit sentence.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I've worked for two non-F500 (think 10-25 engineers) companies that made their revenues developing, consulting on, and licensing, their patented technology.
    - wmf 14y ago
      Would they have made as much money if they didn't patent their technology?
pardner 14y ago
I spent the better part of high school with a copy of Lancaster's TTL Cookbook in hand (still have my dog-eared copy). Then as an undergrad in 78 I re-read this primer for success. While I was more inclined towards the 'enterprise' track, this book nonetheless helped shape my attitude about money, time, and purpose. I can't recall another book that combined (good) advice regarding cashflow, always giving customers something extra, working with your body's natural cycles of energy, retirement funding, and "modifying a television set for a better money machine" (by cutting the cord and throwing it away). Still a worthwhile read, IMO.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Oh! The book is by Don Lancaster! I missed that. His electronics books were a key part of my self-education in the early 80s, as I'm sure they were for a lot of computery types my age. Guy is a hacker in the most hackerist sense possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster
- softbuilder 14y ago
  I remember reading his Hardware Hacker column in Radio-Electronics magazine. I recall an article from 1989 where he described how to build a 3D printer using a UV-sensitive resin. 1989!
dwc 14y ago
I've read the book (and TTL Cookbook, of course) and met Don Lancaster a couple of times at social gatherings. I think the biggest message of this book is how to bootstrap yourself in making money doing something you love to do. This book is important because it shows how Lancaster (and many people who have read this book) went from a "you can't get there from here" position to doing what they love. You don't have to be a hippy or limit yourself to a lifestyle business to make use of the knowledge in this book.
ianstallings 14y ago
Every entrepreneur needs to make a decision before setting out - what is your goal? Is it to get rich or is it a better lifestyle through a job you love to do every day? Sometimes, rarely, these two meet. But there is a big difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business. Paul Hawken wrote a book about this particular subject and focused on the the lifestyle business - ones that grow slowly and are more about the lifestyle of the owner than reaping massive profits. These tend to be smaller businesses with one1 I fall on the growth side right now. My lifestyle suffers greatly because I'm working so much. Hopefully that will change one day when I make my riches (LOL). But one day I will "retire" into a lifestyle business of some sort. I was thinking renting jet skis at the beach would be cool.
- retroafroman 14y ago
  Growing a Business [1] is the book you're talking about it. I picked it up on a whim from a book sale a couple years ago and it was an interesting read. Like this one, some things are fairly outdated (talks a fair bit about catalog sales), but overall pretty sound advice for building a sustainable business. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/0671671642 http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/067167...
RobGR 14y ago
I have read the book (paper copy) and recommend it. It is a relatively quick read, you can knock it out over three cups of coffee at a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon or on a medium length plane flight, and I think most people would benefit from it and feel inspired.
United857 14y ago
Great read but needs a better title; it sounds like the subject line of spam.
- bradshaw1965 14y ago
  Wasn't a whole lot of spam in 1978 when first published.
  - n3rdy 14y ago
    That DEC-20 offer was hot though.
juan_juarez 14y ago
Reading through the intro, he managed to get some things right and some things horribly wrong. Predictions from 1992 of technologies that would fail : solid state cooling, QWERTY alternatives, touch screens, NeXT computers, UNIX, TrueType, DVI video & Teletext.
znmeb 14y ago
Yes, I read Lancaster's book back when it was published. It's crushingly out of date in today's world, however. No sane person in 2013 will subject him/herself and family to the risks of operating any business as a sole proprietorship or even a partnership. Get a freaking lawyer and accountant and buy business insurance. Do it right or don't do it!
- polymatter 14y ago
  can you expand on why sole proprietorship or partnership is not "right"? IRS requirements?
  - retroafroman 14y ago
    An LLC is a very lightweight, easy to establish corporate vehicle that provides personal protection for the business owner. When running a sole proprietorship, if your business gets sued, they sue you for your personal money. If your LLC gets sued, it's much, much harder for them to go after your personal property. Today's society is too litigation happy to risk personal homes and wealth with a simple sole proprietorship/partnership. An LLC or C or S-corp is easy and fairly cheap to establish compared with how much it's possible to lose.
    - femto 14y ago
      Is there a book out there that describes how to run a limited liability company in various jurisdictions, effectively "open sourcing" the company process for small players? Even better if it's coupled with code that guides you though the process.
      - joeag 14y ago
        One relatively cheap way to learn about how to observe corporate formalities is to google "legal MCLE" in your state of incorporation/residence/doing business and look for a one hour MCLE course that covers the subject. It will be cheap ($20 or less) and you will have no problem understanding the content. It may also come with checklists and a presentation. I just finished my legal MCLE requirements for California and there are tons of valuable information for entrepreneurs on these types of basic subjects that you can access much more cheaply than using a lawyer.
cerebrum 14y ago
The author of the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster
waivej 14y ago
Neck tingles... I gotta say that rarely does a post hit at the right time so well. Thank you.
mindcrime 14y ago
The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means “get big fast.” I dunno... I guess it depends on what filter bubble you live in and what echo chamber you participate in, and any number of other factors, but my feeling has been that, yes, "startup" - as opposed to "small busines" - does mean a business that's intended to grow very big (not necessarily fast though) and is more in the mold of your typical Silicon Valley "startup". OTOH, I've always perceived that people use the term "entrepreneur" to refer to anyone from a one man plumbing company, to a startup that's aiming to be the next Facebook. "Entrepreneur" to me includes mom and pop restaurants, tradesmen of various kinds, small consulting companies, whatever. But, in either case, regardless of how the terminology has been changed over time, the idea of "entrepreneurship as a small-time life-style" clearly still exists. Maybe now people use the term "lifestyle business" but who really cares about the label?
smoyer 14y ago
I loved reading Don Lancaster's articles in Radio Electronics when I was Junior and Senior High School (yes ... I'm that old).

219 points by andrewl 14y ago

"""Employees are a hassle, a waste of time and ploney and a psychic energy sink. You should avoid them at all costs. Your incredible secret money machine should have 0.834 employees-that is 83.4 percent of you, nothing more,no less. The remaining 16.6 percent of you should go for fun and rewind time"""

OldSchool 14y ago
For most businesses, this idea is a little too hippy/artisan from my experience. If the product is mostly YOU, you're going to burn out if you refuse to hire anyone to do those repetitive tasks that many, many other people can do for a modest wage. For example only: you ship something physical, do you really want to spend 1/3 of your day, every day, forever, boxing up product and taking it to the post office? If you've ever offered phone support, you know what I'm talking about too.
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  There are also tools/services/vendors that can help aren't full-blown employees, but, yeah.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jcromartie 14y ago
  Finding a service to pack up and ship your stuff is an alternative to hiring an actual employee to do it. Outsource everything but your core.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  There's a guy who lives in my neighborhood that blows glass; his specialty is blowing Klein bottles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottles). I know about him because2 or 3 days a week he shows up at my local post office right before it shuts, with a net bag that has 5-10 boxes in which he is shipping out to customers. He knows everyone at the post office by name and always gives them a big hello; he has printed and affixed the postage at his home/workshop, but brings them to the post office so he can see the tracking numbers get scanned. As there is no paperwork to fill out, and they know him, he gets handled almost immediately - typically someone will come out to scan the packages when they hear him arrive. And since there is usually a line of people at the post office near closing time, invariably someone asks what it is that he's shipping (because it's unusual to see someone turning up with a bag of packages like Santa Claus). And he tells them what he does. Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead. And they do. Now, I'm going froma small sample, but I've seen this repeat itself often enough to think of it as a schtick; at a conservative estimate, every time he drops off his packages, there's a 50% chance that he gets one new customer lead. He sells the bottles for ~$25-50 depending on the size, and marginal costs are pretty low. I'd say he's doing pretty well at his craft business, since he's shipping out a few hundred $ worth of product every time I see him, and more to the point he seems like he's having a really good time. Obviously this sort of thing doesn't scale well, and imposes a ceiling on the amount one can earn. But as Adam Smith observed, while the division of labor may be highly efficient it's also soul-destroying. Running a one-man show like this is certainly a valid alternative to working in a shop where one is regularly called on for 'crunch time' or 'sprints' or 'hackathons'.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    >Strangely, he never has any business cards on him (people always ask). So he asks them to give him their phone number instead. Did you mean the "Strangely" here? What he's doing is, in fact, very clever. A business card is a passive, easy thing that will rarely lead to further action. Asking for the phone number is a much better gauge of how serious the person is.
    - anigbrowl 14y ago
      Well yes, that's the point.
  - jgrahamc 14y ago
    Is that guy Clifford Stoll by any chance?
    - anigbrowl 14y ago
      Yes. I didn't mention it in the original story because I thought it would be a distraction. Do you want me to get you a bottle? :-)
      - jgrahamc 14y ago
        I ordered one from him a long time ago and for some reason the order got lost. One of these days I'll reorder. But thanks for the offer.

andrewl 14y ago

The PDF is free. Kevin Kelly wrote "If I had to sum up this book in my own words it would be: If you are willing to build your business on expertise, you can make a living instead of making a fortune--and occasionally the fortune comes anyway."

tudorw 14y ago

This is a great read, it talks to me, I've run my computer business like this and it's certainly worked as well as some friends who have taken great jobs, and had them taken. At least my way I create my own failures, there is something satisfying in that even if it does not always result in a lavish lifestyle.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

kjhughes 14y ago

Site seems to be down or overloaded. Here's the Google cache copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/9659 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... And the direct link to the "Incredible Secret Money Making Machine" by Don Lancaster: http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf I'm considering whether this might be a good business read for middle/high schoolers.

bkeating 14y ago
Made a few adjustments. Hows it loading for you now?
- HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
  Are you by any chance the famous "Bee?"
  - bkeating 14y ago
    Probably not!

ef4 14y ago

> The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means “get big fast.” No. Get yourself out of the filter bubble, because it is seriously warping your understanding of the world. There are still orders of magnitude more "small-time" start-up businesses in the world than "get big fast" start-up businesses. Your town probably has dozens of them: they're restaurants, roofing companies, independent tradesman, etc. Those people are all doing exactly what you're talking about.

kjhughes 14y ago
Careful. Your valid point is one KK is making too by recommending this book. He's just setting the stage by contrasting this approach with how 'start-up' has come to be associated with "get big fast" in our tech world.
- emmett 14y ago
  Can you name some examples of successful startups which did not get big fast?
  - olefoo 14y ago
    37Signals, &yet, ColourLovers; just to pick a few examples from those that might be familiar to HN readers. The Googles and the Facebooks, the Yammers and the Zappos's are outliers in terms of scale. That's what makes them interesting.
  - kjhughes 14y ago
    The very point being made is that Don Lancaster describes how to be successful in business without having to get big fast. KK is merely pointing out how Don did this before entrepreneurism came to be associated with fast growth. Your question and ef4's comment are caught in an attractor of a different debate.
hemancuso 14y ago
Those are called small businesses. When you tell people you are doing a start-up it is deeply implied you're doing something with the hopes of hitting it big. Because if it wasn't you would just tell them you "run a roofing company" or are "an electrician" or "sell stationary on the internet" A start-up, even to non-technicals, connotes an attempt to hit it big.

OldSchool 14y ago

Wow, now that's an old book by a real guy who could breadboard TTL chips into the equivalent of a graphics card at that time. Sort of another Wozniak, though that kind of bare metal knowledge was expected of all EE's. What he has to say is not compatible with the current pop culture "startup" hype but it's still valid. One thing also mentioned is correct: when you're in business, sometimes you get more than you expected, just for showing up. That very rarely happens in a regular "job."

CamperBob2 14y ago
Lancaster's TV Typewriter project was actually an influence on Woz, IIRC.

noonespecial 14y ago

He had a lot of prescient advice about patents, way before they became the giant sucking nuisance that they are today. http://www.tinaja.com/pasamp1.shtml http://www.tinaja.com/pasamp1.shtml

adolph 14y ago
Here's what KK quoted: Over the years, I have seen hundreds of examples of money machine people being severely done in by the patent system. Even murdered by it in several heart-attack-during-litigation cases. And not once did I see anyone approaching the patent system on a small scale basis and profiting from it. Ever. Once again: Unless you are well within a Fortune 500 context, any and all involvement in the patent system in any, shape, or form is absolutely certain to cause you the net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. Besides ending up a totally useless and utterly unnecessary psychic energy sink. Maybe the pdf has more information about building machines that either singularly or at least collectively are resilient to patent attacks.
- polymatter 14y ago
  The pdf continues "The problem is not the patent system per se, but all the popular mythology that has built up around what patents are and how they are supposed to work. That quarter you mailed in for your classified ad "inventor's idea kit" in the seventh grade has done more damage in more ways to more people more often than you could possibly ever imagine." I read that to suggest the "popular mythology" of patents as small inventors making millions from patents as completely wrong. Not sure what to make of the inventor's idea kit sentence.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I've worked for two non-F500 (think 10-25 engineers) companies that made their revenues developing, consulting on, and licensing, their patented technology.
  - wmf 14y ago
    Would they have made as much money if they didn't patent their technology?

pardner 14y ago

I spent the better part of high school with a copy of Lancaster's TTL Cookbook in hand (still have my dog-eared copy). Then as an undergrad in 78 I re-read this primer for success. While I was more inclined towards the 'enterprise' track, this book nonetheless helped shape my attitude about money, time, and purpose. I can't recall another book that combined (good) advice regarding cashflow, always giving customers something extra, working with your body's natural cycles of energy, retirement funding, and "modifying a television set for a better money machine" (by cutting the cord and throwing it away). Still a worthwhile read, IMO.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
Oh! The book is by Don Lancaster! I missed that. His electronics books were a key part of my self-education in the early 80s, as I'm sure they were for a lot of computery types my age. Guy is a hacker in the most hackerist sense possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster
softbuilder 14y ago
I remember reading his Hardware Hacker column in Radio-Electronics magazine. I recall an article from 1989 where he described how to build a 3D printer using a UV-sensitive resin. 1989!

dwc 14y ago

I've read the book (and TTL Cookbook, of course) and met Don Lancaster a couple of times at social gatherings. I think the biggest message of this book is how to bootstrap yourself in making money doing something you love to do. This book is important because it shows how Lancaster (and many people who have read this book) went from a "you can't get there from here" position to doing what they love. You don't have to be a hippy or limit yourself to a lifestyle business to make use of the knowledge in this book.

ianstallings 14y ago

Every entrepreneur needs to make a decision before setting out - what is your goal? Is it to get rich or is it a better lifestyle through a job you love to do every day? Sometimes, rarely, these two meet. But there is a big difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business. Paul Hawken wrote a book about this particular subject and focused on the the lifestyle business - ones that grow slowly and are more about the lifestyle of the owner than reaping massive profits. These tend to be smaller businesses with one1 I fall on the growth side right now. My lifestyle suffers greatly because I'm working so much. Hopefully that will change one day when I make my riches (LOL). But one day I will "retire" into a lifestyle business of some sort. I was thinking renting jet skis at the beach would be cool.

retroafroman 14y ago
Growing a Business [1] is the book you're talking about it. I picked it up on a whim from a book sale a couple years ago and it was an interesting read. Like this one, some things are fairly outdated (talks a fair bit about catalog sales), but overall pretty sound advice for building a sustainable business. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/0671671642 http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/067167...

RobGR 14y ago

I have read the book (paper copy) and recommend it. It is a relatively quick read, you can knock it out over three cups of coffee at a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon or on a medium length plane flight, and I think most people would benefit from it and feel inspired.

United857 14y ago

Great read but needs a better title; it sounds like the subject line of spam.

bradshaw1965 14y ago
Wasn't a whole lot of spam in 1978 when first published.
- n3rdy 14y ago
  That DEC-20 offer was hot though.

juan_juarez 14y ago

Reading through the intro, he managed to get some things right and some things horribly wrong. Predictions from 1992 of technologies that would fail : solid state cooling, QWERTY alternatives, touch screens, NeXT computers, UNIX, TrueType, DVI video & Teletext.

znmeb 14y ago

Yes, I read Lancaster's book back when it was published. It's crushingly out of date in today's world, however. No sane person in 2013 will subject him/herself and family to the risks of operating any business as a sole proprietorship or even a partnership. Get a freaking lawyer and accountant and buy business insurance. Do it right or don't do it!

polymatter 14y ago
can you expand on why sole proprietorship or partnership is not "right"? IRS requirements?
- retroafroman 14y ago
  An LLC is a very lightweight, easy to establish corporate vehicle that provides personal protection for the business owner. When running a sole proprietorship, if your business gets sued, they sue you for your personal money. If your LLC gets sued, it's much, much harder for them to go after your personal property. Today's society is too litigation happy to risk personal homes and wealth with a simple sole proprietorship/partnership. An LLC or C or S-corp is easy and fairly cheap to establish compared with how much it's possible to lose.
  - femto 14y ago
    Is there a book out there that describes how to run a limited liability company in various jurisdictions, effectively "open sourcing" the company process for small players? Even better if it's coupled with code that guides you though the process.
    - joeag 14y ago
      One relatively cheap way to learn about how to observe corporate formalities is to google "legal MCLE" in your state of incorporation/residence/doing business and look for a one hour MCLE course that covers the subject. It will be cheap ($20 or less) and you will have no problem understanding the content. It may also come with checklists and a presentation. I just finished my legal MCLE requirements for California and there are tons of valuable information for entrepreneurs on these types of basic subjects that you can access much more cheaply than using a lawyer.

cerebrum 14y ago

The author of the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster

waivej 14y ago

Neck tingles... I gotta say that rarely does a post hit at the right time so well. Thank you.

mindcrime 14y ago

The concept of entrepreneurism as a small-time life-style has evaporated from the culture, and now entrepreneur and start-up means “get big fast.” I dunno... I guess it depends on what filter bubble you live in and what echo chamber you participate in, and any number of other factors, but my feeling has been that, yes, "startup" - as opposed to "small busines" - does mean a business that's intended to grow very big (not necessarily fast though) and is more in the mold of your typical Silicon Valley "startup". OTOH, I've always perceived that people use the term "entrepreneur" to refer to anyone from a one man plumbing company, to a startup that's aiming to be the next Facebook. "Entrepreneur" to me includes mom and pop restaurants, tradesmen of various kinds, small consulting companies, whatever. But, in either case, regardless of how the terminology has been changed over time, the idea of "entrepreneurship as a small-time life-style" clearly still exists. Maybe now people use the term "lifestyle business" but who really cares about the label?

smoyer 14y ago

I loved reading Don Lancaster's articles in Radio Electronics when I was Junior and Senior High School (yes ... I'm that old).