I'm getting a finance degree w/ an entrepreneurship emphasis and psych minor with the end goal being starting my own business.

Any idea how feasible/realistic this is?

It depends on what your goals are. What type of business you want to start, when you want to start it, etc. College courses help to provide a way of thinking about business IMO, one in which you learn some basics about how business works and what it takes to succeed. Depending on the courses you take, you'll also learn some specific skills which will also help you in the long run. To relate it to poker, the learning done is similar to learning the basics about poker...it won't make you a huge winner but it'll definitely cut down on your losses and build a great foundation to give you the best chance of success.

The best benefit offered by college in my opinion is the networking you can do. The more involved you are in the various business social events going on, the more you will be introduced to like-minded individuals who might also want to start a business in the future. You'll be presented with opportunities that people who did not go to college will miss out on. Maybe a friend you made at college later asks you to start a business with him or her, maybe a professor knows various angel investors who might want to invest in a product idea you have, etc. I have been a part of and have seen numerous social relationships like those mentioned coming from friendships made during my time at college. Again, to relate it to poker, think of being able to be friends or live with players like durrr, phil ivey, bryce, hoss, etc. The ideas that you can bounce off of each other, the opportunities that present itself are so valuable that they can pay huge dividends.

To relate it to your original question, yes by taking those classes it is definitely feasible that you will help yourself be able to run a successful company. By taking the classes you should learn basic business skills necessary to run a business. The entrepreneurship major, if it is similar to one offered at my university, should help a lot with business planning and should also provide the best opportunity for networking with people who also want to start a business.

lozing

I actually stopped playing poker to go into real estate full time.


I found it difficult to juggle the two together, especially when I was half burnt out from grinding poker / didn't enjoy the game too much.


One thing I learned though is definately definately definately have a 2nd source of income when you start out in business, because most of the profits from business in the early years will find itself sucked right back into the business leaving none for yourself.


Let the business grow itself, the worse time to take money out from a business is in the 1st few years. I didn't have this 2nd income so I essentially starved myself in the early years.

You will find that 90% of the things you learn in school will not be applicable in real life business.


When you start out your 1st business, it is like going back to school and learning something new again.


10% of what you will learn in entrepreneurship / psych will be applicable. There is still a whole nother world out there of knowledge that you can only obtain by seeking for it yourself.


The BEST way to learn how to do business, is find a business you want to do, and find someone already successful at it to mentor you. That is the best, most feasible way to get into business. Go under someone's ring and let them show you the ropes.

If you go at it alone, your success rate is directly proportional to how smart / persistant you are. And you will need A LOT of both to survive.
If you go under someone's wing to learn and mentor you, your success rate has just sky rocketed.

Massive knowledge in real estate makes 100K a year doable. But that is like all things with most businesses, massive knowledge lets you cut through the crap and avoid the pitfalls.


What I like about real estate is the leverage aspect of it.

I went to school for business and majored in marketing and entrepreneurship. I agree with a lot of what the posters are saying about business/entrepreneurship school. The example about how business school is much like reading a poker book and kind of "learning the fundamentals" is actually pretty accurate. To succeed in both poker and business you have to work your butt off and even sometimes get a little lucky.


I definitely want to create some sort of networking group for anyone who is interested in both business and poker. I’ve been getting some PMs and others seem interested as well. I guess I’m thinking a facebook group for now, unless you guys want to do something else. What do you say?

This is 100% spot on from my experience

I would stick with BFI.


I'd create a small business thread, kind of like the "dating thread" in EDF where anyone can ask any small business / general business / startup / entrepreneur questions and people can take jabs at asking them.

The facebook thing could work, but something based in this forum will have more exposure.


May have a thread with certain good topics to talk about inside.

^
Good point

The success of the thread has to be that there is 1 or 2 people that are actively involved in answering the questions within.


If we leave it up to just anybody then most questions will be unanswered and the thread will die down.

Just another thought.

I've enjoyed this thread - best of luck to you Rat Pack. My ultimate goal is to start my own business. I have a few ideas, and I'm currently using poker as one way to raise capital.
I like the idea of a BFI small business thread. It makes sense as 2+2 covers both interests. I'll be interested to see where this idea goes.

Id be willing to participate in it almost daily. Hopefully a few more would as well. We should give it a go and if it fails it fails.

I'll start the thread and link it back in here too so anyone who has enjoyed this thread should subscribe to it as well.

SO I started this thread here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30...0/#post7539345


Heres to hoping it thrives.

I'm using poker to raise capital to start a business as well. I've got several ideas, although no formal business model.

Just a few questions:
1) Pros/Cons to starting a business with a friend?
2) Good books about getting started?

Starting a business with a friend is a bad idea IMO. The only reason to do this would be if you didn't have enough money to start it yourself.

I know running a business on your own can sometimes get lonely, especially in times where you don't have any employees around. What it comes down to though is you have to OVER double your business to make the same money when working 50/50 with someone and that just is 99.9% usually not the case. There is only so much business to be had out there, and forcing yourself to pull in double the market share for the same money is tough.

Also... what is the real reasoning for you newcomers wanting to start a business? Is it the money or is it more for a sense of pride/success knowing you can do other things. Is it to fill your time?

I think those questions should be answered before you decide to do anything. If it is for money, and you think you will make more money per year with the biz and poker.. then do it. Remember the biz will cut into your poker time.

If it is for pride in knowing you can do other things, I might recommend against it, as you can always decide to do something else. Right now poker is alive and well (well kinda.. could be much worse). I like to be opportunistic and take advantage of that. The games may not be around forever so why not grind em while you can? Then when you feel they are no longer very profitable.. try something new. The grass is always greener on the other side... out of the small business owners I know.. every single one of them would drop everything and play poker if they possessed the skills to do so. Not every poker player would do the opposite.

Lastly I'd like to point out time consumption/freedom. If you want your biz to succeed you will have to put alot of time into it. I know poker players have a lot of free time on their hands. I sometimes feel unproductive when I have so much open time. I however have learned to embrace it. I think... well in the past I wouldn't be standing here.. I'd be sitting on a lawnmower riding back and forth endless for 12 hours. This quote pops in my mind "It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

My time was occupied, but wtf, I'd rather have the opportunity to do other things like shoot out to cali at the drop of a hat. Or hit the golf course with a buddy. You might find that when you get your biz going you will now have much less if any time for yourself and you will see what is so great about poker.

Oh ya.. and also... the talk about going to successful people in the industry and talking to them and seeing what their doing IS BY FAR best way to gain knowledge.

Sounds like you're going far in life son. GL

I've dived in this week starting a web based business service which would allow others businesses to reduce costs by improving their customer bookings system. After having a great idea I was seeing pound signs but now I've realised that was the easy part & marketing will be the real problem.

I was thinking I could send out some direct mail shots because they are so cheap to do (£0.31 printed & delivered in an envelope if I order 1000) but after chatting to a guy in marketing he said I would be very lucky to get 1 sign up out of 1000 and I was hoping for maybe 5+.

I'm not really sure how to proceed since most businesses wont really be looking for my product until I come tell them exactly by how much they could improve their margins.

Any ideas how to advertise business to business?

Bump!

You could just think about local businesses in your area and start off by cold-calling them or possibly trying to set up a meeting with one of their managers to pitch your business. The only real cost to you to do this would be your time, and it would probably be a lot more effective than direct mail. Once you have those first few customers, companies will be alot more likely to buy into your pitch.

Agree with Rat. Sounds like the first paragraph of this quote answers the second. If your service really will improve their margins a good deal then I would imagine they will be very happy to talk to you. I would come up with an estimate of how much you believe you can save them (this could be really tough unless you already know what their costs are like though) and have some fairly concrete numbers to back up your estimate.

I would just start calling people that you think could benefit from your service. I would not rely on email for contacting these people as 98% of the time they are just going to hit delete. Convincing the first couple people will be the hardest I imagine. After you have proven yourself to ABC company, you can now go to XYZ company and say "Hey, look what we did for your competitors over at ABC, don't you want to cut your costs too?"

Well I thought I would bump this thread and let ya'll know that I finally got my website up and running. Check it out at www.cargocabana.com.

If any other fellow poker players still want to network or talk about poker or running a small business, feel free to shoot me a PM. If you have any questions or suggestions for the site let me know.

Hey Rat.

Looks pretty good. I might consider changing the "Buy" button text to something like "Add to care package" to drive home that you are constructing a package rather than buying a bunch of individual items.

Your how it works page says "To get started please click on the Send a Package tab." but I don't see a tab like that???

I think you are missing out on a big opportunity by not having some pre-defined packages that people can 1 click buy without having to customize. Much easier to impulse buy.

Who did you go with for your ecommerce provider?

I am currently setting up a software business and am researching various solutions for handling payments and distributing the software.

Neko,

Appreciate the feedback man. You def have some valid points. The send a package, link is right above it on the horizontal menu bar. Maybe "tab" is the wrong word, I'll probably revise this.

We are considering some pre-packaged items as well. The pre-packaged items will likely be seasonal stuff. Such as finals cramming packs, holiday items (easter baskets, ie), etc.

I think we have a solid start, but we definitely have a lot of room for improvement. Just gonna keep on making the site bigger and better.


What exactly do you mean e-coomerce provider? I use a version of cube cart for the store, and then we just "skinned" the store from there. As far as credit card processing I use authorize.net as my payment gateway, which works well b/c I also setup a wells fargo merchant account so all the funds are put directly into our customer bank account.

Yeah, this info is what I meant, thanks. If you don't mind maybe you can post how your experience with authorize.net goes after a few months.