I’m admittedly a junkie for the founding stories of interesting and offbeat companies, so it will come as little surprise that I loved a piece on Geek Squad (a computer servicing company) in today’s Wall Street Journal. In 1994 the company’s founder, then a 22-year-old University of Minnesota computer science graduate, started going to homes and fixing computers. He had $200, plus a bike and a cell phone. Geek Squad has since grown to 20,000 employees worldwide, and is owned by Best Buy.
Here is his advice to entrepreneurs:
Starve yourself. Don't take the money. Do it yourself. I recommend a diet of ramen noodles and very little sleep. If you don't love your business, someone else will love it more than you, and do it better and be more creative. I have an irrational love of technology. I don't care how much I get paid.
And so what is he going to do next? Rotate the axes on some more markets that other people think are too boring and low margin to enter:
I plan to create a global conglomerate called Massive Corporation. Check out the site, www.massivecorporation.com. I intend to acquire companies that I find interesting, and rebrand them with a sense of humor. If I can glamorize computer support, wait til I get into garbage disposal and plumbing.
Great stuff.
Source:
Colleen DeBaise, “Making Geekdom Cool and Profitable,” wsj.com, August 11, 2009, sec. Small Business
Tim: As I wrote on my blog, Truth on the Market, I think Tyler is pretty far off base with this one. See http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2009/04/28/what-does-tyler-know-about-law-and-economics-anyway/
Posted by: louis vuitton online shop | April 08, 2010 at 09:12 PM
Wow, the eBook is incredibly helpful. Having just started my own blog and consulting services I have a long to-do list. Thanks for the post!
Posted by: belstaff bag 556 | December 07, 2010 at 09:32 PM