Internet Marketing | Lead Generation

Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur

In “Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur,” Stuart Skorman recounts the ups and downs of his high-stakes career. Skorman launched the online video store Reel.com in 1997 and sold it three years later for $100 million — but his online learning site Hungryminds.com bombed. More recently he made a come back with Elephant Pharmacy. Skorman takes us to the card table to show how business can be played like a game of poker.

Stuart Skorman’s first point — the arrogance of success — or becoming arrogant because you are successful is one that I have experienced personally. Indeed, these days when I speak in public about business this is one of the main points I make. Arrogance means that you think you can not learn from someone else, that you know it all and more importantly leads to you making “casual” decisions that lead to business failure.

All the points Stuart Skorman makes are spot on - for many of us there will be nothing that NEW here - but for sure, it acts as a great reminder.

One final thought about business - one that has served me well is this.

In running a business there will be good days and there will be bad days. Days when the new orders coming through the door are so many you can hardly keep up, and other days when you keep checking the phones to see if they are working, as there is so little going on out there.

Now I would like to say I have some secret formula that fixes this so that you only ever have good days - but I don’t. What I do know is that business like it or not is a game of averages (not too many business gurus are going to tell you this) and truthfully, as long as you are always doing the right things, making the right number of calls, being productive etc then on “average” the result will be one that you can be happy with.

That is why when some days things are really good and business is booming I do not get too excited and likewise on other days, when things are a bit slower, I do not get depressed.

Of course, if things are continually bad / slow for a long period of time, the above does not apply. In that case, you clearly need to change direction. I am just relating here to the general ups and downs of running a business that happens often in the same 24hr or 7 day period