“Live In A Retirement Village” And Other Crazy But Effective Tips For Young, Scrappy Startups – With Mike Michalowicz
on Jun 17, 2009 - 9:46 AM PSTYou can complain that you don’t have enough money, connections, etc, or you can be scrappy and find a clever way to use the limited resources you’ve got.
I invited Mike Michalowicz on Mixergy to give examples of how he was scrappy when he started his businesses, and help you come up with your own creative solutions for doing more with less.
The FULL program
Video excerpts
About Mike Michalowic
Mike Michalowicz is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. His current projects are Obsidian Launch, a cross between a venture fund and an incubator, and the reality show Bailout!
Update: Here’s a better link to the book I kept holding up in the interview.
Scrappy Tips From This Interview
Think like you do in the bathroom
“Sometimes we all get stuck in the bathroom with 3 sheets of toilet paper,” says Mike. “And I’ve yet to find a single human being who says, ‘I give up. The world is over. I’m going to sit here for the rest of my life.’”
Entrepreneurship is the same way. None of us have all the contacts or the money or the resources we need. Many wannabe entrepreneurs give up at that point. Mike says business is “like the bathroom experience. In the bathroom you were willing to dig through the garbage can. In entrepreneurship, you’ve got to be willing to dig through the dumpster.” You need to use innovation and creativity to make up for what you’re missing.
Live in a retirement community
Housing is often an entrepreneurs’ the single biggest personal expense. Here’s how Mike handled it when he started out.
“I had a wife and a 3 year old and no savings when I started my company. My wife and I talked and said, ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to live with no income?’ Our parents wouldn’t let us back in the house. So we moved to a retirement village. That’s where I lived when I was 24 because it was safe and affordable.”
Sleep in the conference room
My friends who work at big companies get driven home in luxury Town Cars when they work late. Entrepreneurs don’t have those luxuries. Here’s how Mike handled late nights at work.
“When I was doing overnight projects, there was no hotel rooms. I slept on conference tables. And fast forward to today and that discipline of being innovative and being a scrapper is still there.”
Let another man’s trash be your treasure
Mike furnished his office the same way that eco-capitalist, Tom Szaky told us he furnished his business.
“All my furniture is used and most of it is free. I put out an email request right before I started my third company and said, If anyone is moving or ditching furniture, give me a heads up. Sure enough a couple of my friends were moving and ditching furniture and I got all this stuff that’s more than usable. It’s great. That scrapper mentality is what gets you through the tough times, by not burning through cash.”
Work on companies you’re passionate about
“I’ve rarely seen a business take off explosively without tremendous effort and commitment behind it,” says Mike. “And most businesses — including all of my businesses — go through a dip. You start and you’re excited. Then it goes down and it takes a lot of effort and time, where the market doesn’t know who you are. And then it starts going up again. The only way you’re going to get through that dip, the slow period, is to do what you love.”
When you don’t have anything, give
Most people who wanted to get on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show, The Big Idea, pitched themselves as guests. Mike took a different approach. He called up the show and asked them how he could help. The show’s producers told him that they needed an audience of entrepreneurs. He helped pack the audience and, as a result, ended up a guest on the show.
Listen to the full interview for more details on this great story.
Full program includes
- The story of how Mike got his books into Wal-Mart.
- Why you’ll do well if you make failure more painful than it already is.
- The simple change in mindset that will help you get your business on TV.
Suggested comments
- What are some of your tips for scrappy entrepreneurs?
- What’s the passion behind your startup?
- Do you agree that entrepreneurs need to be scrappy?
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June 17th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Andrew, I'm digging your new style of format on your “scrappy-tips”. It's very easy to read and you give some great points. I just Re-tweeted :)
June 17th, 2009 at 11:16 am
AJ thanks!
The new format came from an idea you gave me last week.
It's much easier on me too. I don't have to hunt for the perfect quotes and
transcribe them perfectly for this format.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Great interview Andrew. Mike has been a mentor of mine for almost a year now. His book is perfect for the young entrepreneur looking to start their first business.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I'd love to hear how he's helped you. Or, if you have a post about it
somewhere online, I'd love to see the link.
By the way, your videos are terrific. Love the clarity, editing and that
intro rocks.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Andrew, great interview as usual and since someone else on HN asked for a transcript, I just saw a recommendation on Fred Wilson's blog re: the PhoneTag/Simulscribe API: http://www.simulscribe.com/ that he seems to like for transcription, you should try it out and see if it fares better than your MTurk experiment.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
We're a small bootstrapped internet content company that started in Jan of 08. I found Mike online before his book launched and had some discussions with him over the phone and email to get some ideas to grow my business. His book, offered some great tips that we use (specifically tacking and metrics) and has helped us grow from a $300 initial investment to generating thousands of dollars a month in sales. We're by no means a success yet as most of our revenue is dumped right back into the business but I'd like to think we're on the right track. He's a great guy and I can't recommend him and his book enough. Thanks for doing these interview andrew, I'm learning a lot here on mixergy as well.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
hahaha, I can see why theTPEguy got on a reality show, I'd have to say hes got a great sense of humor. Mike is an entrepreneur I've been following for quite some time because he keeps it simple and straightforward and it all makes sense, especially to other Entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping their businesses can relate to him really well.
I'm a TPE and I can tell you bootstrapping a business is the only way to go because it keeps you damn focused on the bottom line, the customers. It's all about increasing customers and their satisfaction and sometimes I think venture funded start ups “pretend to be in business” and lose focus on the real goal of a company to produce as many satisfied customers as possible. I heard a stat that said more than 90% of the companies listed on NASDAQ were bootstrappers, I suppose that a great statistic to prove the strategy's effectiveness.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I like that “Do it now!” philosophy.
I've found the tighter and more focused my vision is,
1. the easier it is to take action immediately, and
2. the less distracted by other good ideas.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Loving this interview. I truly learn allot.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:16 am
GREAT interview Andrew. I loved Mike's last tip – what he said about momentum is sooo true.
June 18th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Great Interview! Going to pick up the book this week. Great tips! Thankyou
June 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Very inspiring. Thank you
June 18th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
AW excellent interview as always. I gotta ask isn't it a little interesting for Michalowic to say that you have to love/ be completely what your business is? One could argue that his company investing in a leatherworks company that produces “high performance knife sheaths” may be a little (at face value of course) outside of the know of say someone who still has a Viper in their driveway. Just a thought.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Andrew,
Loving the scrappiness and Mike's closing message of taking action NOW. Great reminder to make it happen every day.
Andrew
June 18th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I agree. I hope all my interviews lead to action.
Andrew Warner
(sent from my mobile)
June 18th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
The founder might have a deep passion for it, even if Mike doesn't.
But you bring up a good point. What I'm noticing is that often
entrepreneurs have a passion for the numbers and puzzle behind a
business more than they do for the end product.
I'm not saying it's the case here, but it's something I'm noticing in
general. I'll bring it up more in my interviews. Thanks.
Andrew Warner
(sent from my mobile)
June 18th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I'm getting great feedback from this interview. Took me a bit longer
to edit, so I'm glad it was worth the work.
Mike is great on camera. I need to learn to get as comfortable as he
is on camera.
Andrew Warner
(sent from my mobile)
July 27th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I was interested in his thoughts on self publishing/just starting your own publishing company. Most wannabe authors I know regard getting a book picked up by an established publishing company as the end goal and treat not being able to do that as failure. I'm guessing most people aren't aware how little of the retail price actually goes to the author or need the validation of having a publishing company tell them their book doesn't suck.
PS: Mike, I bought a unit in a retirement village to live in when I was 20. If you thought it was odd at 24 with a wife and kid try it as a single 20 year old :D
July 28th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
That guy is fing great!
July 28th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
That guy is fing great!
October 13th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
[...] We ended class by watching the first part of an interview with Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entreprenuer. Mike talks about he became successful through “being scrappy” and utilizing whatever limited resources he had to their utmost potential. We will pick up from where we left off next week, but here is a link to the video online. [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
[...] recently came across a great interview with Mike on Mixergy and thought I’d share it below. Its about an hour long, but is a really great video showing [...]
October 16th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
[...] recently came across a great interview with Mike on Mixergy and thought I’d share it below. Its about an hour long, but is a really great video showing [...]