Check out Tim Berry’s post detailing the blog war that started when Mahalo founder Jason Calcanis posted about money-saving tips for startups. Really, some of the tips are at least worth a thought. Others are just silly. And for real, the guy is (to me) hilarious. From his tone of voice he sounds like someone I’d probably be friends with.

I’m obviously late into this game because Jason’s already crossed out the parts of the post that were apparently offensive. He writes, “Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or sta[r]bucks if you’re not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.“

Apparently there are now a ton of blog posts (537 currently) and hundreds of comments about this.

My take? Well, OK. I am not a workaholic. Or maybe I am. I did have a client say “you’re always working” to me once. And this is WITH a three month old baby. AND I’m a single mom. But, to me, this is not ‘working.’ When I was a business analyst working for a software development company, that was working. This is not working. This is having fun.

So maybe that’s what he meant by “workaholics.” I dated a guy who was “always working” in my opinion, but not in his. He was a developer. He liked developing. So when he wasn’t at work, he developed programs on his own. Is that “workahol-ism?” Not in my opinion (well, hindsight’s 20/20, right?? ha)

Really, what I think he was getting at is that if you hire people who do not love the ‘biz’ as much as you do, get rid of them. That’s supremely idealistic, however. NO ONE will ever love your business as much as you. If they say they do, they are probably kissing your butt. I worked for a “startup” and even though I liked my work I did not love their business and I certainly wasn’t there for the love of the game. I was there for the love of the paycheck. Let’s get real.

What Jason doesn’t seem to realize is that you can’t always fire people who don’t love, love, love their work. Honestly. Some people hate their work but seem to pull it off with both eyes closed and sound-silencing headphones on. If you want to save money, do it by hiring people who can do the work and do it with ease, quality and speed. That’s why freelancing and contracting is so huge right now. Freelancers and contractors don’t necessarily love their work. But they do it better and cheaper than the guy in the cubicle who spends 3 hours a day emailing his girlfriend and watching youtube, another 2 hours at the coffee maker and the remaining 3 hours griping about corporate communication!

So anyway. I actually like Jason’s post and recommend it. At least go to it so you can see all of the comments, or rather, go to Tim Berry’s post and read the short version of the long story.

Have a great day!

Tia Peterson

Virtual Assistant

© 2008 – 2009, Tia Peterson. All rights reserved. This text may be reproduced with permission. Please contact tia@tiadpeterson.com to request permission to reuse this content. Thank you!

http://changethis.com/42.03.HumanizeIt – a free, 20 page manifesto that you can download that talks about humanizing customer interaction. It’s pretty good and entertaining a bit as well. Best of all, the advice should really help you, if you follow it.

Cheers!

© 2008 – 2009, Tia Peterson. All rights reserved. This text may be reproduced with permission. Please contact tia@tiadpeterson.com to request permission to reuse this content. Thank you!

I only got one paragraph into it because of the line, “You hear it all the time from famous entrepreneurs: Long before they were running multimillion-dollar companies, they were flexing their entrepreneurial skills by selling lemonade on the corner, building gadgets in their garage or hosting weekly college beer pong tournaments.”

Question for you: did you ever run a lemonade stand? I can definitely remember wanting to have a lemonade stand. And who knows, maybe we did (I have two brothers and two sisters) at some point, but I really don’t remember. Now, I’m starting to second guess my entrepreneurial spirit!

When does an entrepreneur really become an entrepreneur? This is the nature vs. nurture theory of entrepreneurship. Are entrepreneurs born or bred? I’m starting to wonder. I wasn’t a business major in college, I was a technical writing major. I didn’t take “Entrepreneurship” as an elective in high school (and yes, my high school offered it). Instead, I took German and Choir and other stuff I can’t recall at the moment. I wasn’t really all about making money as a kid, either. I certainly wanted money, but I didn’t come up with savvy business ideas like re-selling my parents stuff or mowing lawns or stuff like that. I babysat, but that was more for the interaction and fun aspect than it was for money.

So what now? Am I an entrepreneur? I run a business. It’s successful. I have clients that are loyal and add more every month. I make money from my business. But does that truly make me an entrepreneur?

And, is there a difference between entrepreneurs and small business owners, really? Maybe. The entrepreneurs listed in the article aren’t just entrepreneurs. They created some of the biggest names in business history – Virgin, Google, Mrs. Fields, Amazon, and Mary Kay.

Are you in their company? I feel that I am not…yet. But the thing is, I wonder if there isn’t some thought or some attitude that you need to have that will take you beyond just success as you define to success as the world defines it.

Link to Spirit of the Entrepreneur article: http://tinyurl.com/3cclvo

© 2008 – 2009, Tia Peterson. All rights reserved. This text may be reproduced with permission. Please contact tia@tiadpeterson.com to request permission to reuse this content. Thank you!