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Would You Challenge Taylor Lautner to Push-ups?
$\'Brent$

Thirty seconds into one of the insanely popular Twilight films (or a quick look at any Twilight poster) and you know that Taylor Lautner, a.k.a. Jacob Black and the guy whose pecs are usually on display, would win a match of muscle against a mere mortal.

But by challenging Lautner to a push-up contest, the owner of a trailer company just might come out the stronger man – or at least with stronger sales.

The saga began last month, when Lautner started legal proceedings against McMahon\'s RV of Irvine, California after a dispute over a customized trailer.

Lautner, 18, was planning to use the custom-painted, upgraded vehicle on the Pittsburgh set of his latest flick, Abduction, this summer, but was unable to relax in his new $300,000 toy, as the dealership failed to deliver it by the June 21 deadline. When McMahon\'s RV finally did deliver it, Lautner and his company Shark Kid Entertainment claimed it was not safe to drive. (The RV company says Lautner paid the full purchase price, accepted delivery of the RV, and did not attempt to return it. The company denies any wrongdoing.)

So Lautner and his dad Dan, who negotiated the contract, sued McMahon\'s RV, claiming breach of contract and fraud—and that the late delivery caused him emotional distress, according to the Associated Press.

Brent McMahon, the 47-year-old owner of McMahon\'s RV, was not cowed. The former RV salesman turned entrepreneur (he started his company in 2000, after 14 years working in the field), flexed his PR muscles, challenging the Twilight star to a push-up contest to settle their differences.

McMahon – whose company website claims its \"one of the only RV dealerships in the world that employs a dedicated Customer Satisfaction Department\" -- said he\'d hand over the damages if Lautner won, but would give the cash to charity if he lost. (Lautner\'s legal team had told McMahon they\'d settle for $40,000, which is when McMahon suggested the push-up contest.)

Asked about McMahon’s chances of beating the super-fit Lautner, McMahon’s attorney joked: \"He works out regularly, but he’s a 47-year-old man. He’s no Taylor Lautner.\"

Team Taylor, however, isn\'t giving him a chance. They\'ve rejected the challenge, with lawyers insisting the move demonstrates the trailer company\'s \"lack of professionalism.\"

\"McMahon RV\'s response to our client\'s legitimate claim further demonstrates the lack of professionalism that Mr. McMahon, his company, and his employees have exhibited from the outset, and that compelled the filing of this lawsuit in the first place,\" Lautner\'s legal team said in a statement.

The team does, however, \"welcome the opportunity for [McMahon] to resolve the matter by making a $40,000 donation to the charity of Mr. Lautner\'s choice.\"

So far, McMahon hasn\'t let Lautner\'s refusal get in the way of (possibly) doing well by doing good – he\'s said he\'ll donate $50 to the Children\'s Hospital of Orange County for every motorized RV sold until December 2011.

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Taylor Lautner - Children\'s Hospital of Orange County - Jacob Black - Vince McMahon - Lawsuit

What About That Other Ping?

So, there\'s Apple\'s new social network for iTunes called Ping. It was just announced this week and as Steve Jobs himself described it; it\'s \"like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes.\"

We all know how this goes. Jobs launched it, so count on Ping to be Webster\'s newest verb by Friday. (As in, \"let me ping you that song\" or \"what\'s the name of that new group? Can you ping it to me later?\").

But wasn\'t there already a Ping brand out there? What about the golf brand, Ping?

It turns out, Apple has already cut a deal with the owner of the Ping name in golf. Ping\'s parent company, Karsten Manufactoring, has even put out a press release blessing Apple\'s new music endeavor.

\"Like Ping, Apple carries a reputation for innovation and quality.\"- John Solheim, CEO of Karsten Management

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Apple - Steve Jobs - Facebook - Twitter - Social network

5 Ways to Improve Quality

Every business owner likes to think that he or she has a commitment to quality. If that were truly the case, of course, no product would ever disappoint, and no service would result in a complaint. So how can you improve quality at your company? Here are 5 steps you can take to put you on the right path.

1. Make a commitment.

W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality movement, famously laid out 14 points for management—chief among them, the notion of \"constancy of purpose.\"

Deming argued that a company\'s commitment to quality had to come from the top, and it had to be reinforced over and over again. Unless a business views quality as its single, non-negotiable goal, workers will inevitably feel the need to make tradeoffs and quality will slip.

\"Constancy of purpose means that quality decisions are not situational,\" writes the operational expert Rebecca A. Morgan. \"End of month quality is the same as beginning of month. It means that the long term benefit of the organization is not sacrificed to hit quarterly targets.\"

So are you ready to commit? If you are, you should tell your staff—and then think about how you will handle the first conflict between your stated objective and a pressing deadline or an attractive short cut.

Dig Deeper: The Power of Purpose

2. Track mistakes.

If you are going to commit to quality, first you must define exactly what quality is. For manufacturers, this process involves statistical quality control, the process of setting a product\'s specifications and then sampling a small number of units from the production line to see how closely they measure up to those specs. Standards are set and, if too much deviation occurs (or if quality appears to be trending in the wrong direction), the manufacturing process is altered.

Tracking quality is admittedly more difficult in a service business, and efforts by groups such as the International Organization for Standardization (known as ISO) to create meaningful benchmarks beyond manufacturing have had mixed results.

One way to gauge customer satisfaction (and, by extension, the quality of your service) is by tracking what is called a net promoter score. Devised by a Bain consultant named Fred Reichheld, a net promoter score keeps tabs on the number of customers who would recommend a business to their friends. A customer who answers 9 or 10 is seen as a promoter; a customer who answers 7 or 8 is seen as passive; and a customer who gives a company a score of 6 or lower is seen as a detractor. By subtracting the number of detractors from the number of promoters, a company arrives at its net promoter score.

Dig Deeper: How to Address Quality Issues

3. Invest in training.

An old saw of the quality movement is that any business with a quality control department is doomed to poor performance, for it has demonstrated to every other employee that quality is not his or her chief concern. Instead, quality experts recommend that businesses train workers at all levels to look for ways to improve quality and to ameliorate problems.

Training takes on several dimensions. For starters, you should set up a new-employee initiation program that trains workers to focus on quality issues from their first day on the job. Different CEOs have different perspectives on how best to do this. Ralph Stayer, the quality-obsessed CEO of Johnsonville Sausage in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconisn, believes your existing employees should be put in charge of training new employees, because only they can provide a firsthand perspective on how your company\'s operations work. Ari Weinzweig, founder and CEO of the Zingerman\'s Family of Companies in Ann Arbor, Michigan, takes a different approach: He personally leads all new-employee orientation training sessions (which last several days) because he believes an employer never has a better chance of instilling values and a sense of purpose than right after he or she has hired a new employee.

Whether you hand train duties to your employees, take them on personally, or some combination of the two approaches, it\'s important that you provide workers with a history of the company through the lens of quality. Let them know what problems you have had in the past, how you corrected these problems, and where your company stands with respect to its quality goals today. You should also go over your definition of quality in detail, and show them how you measure quality (see the previous section.) Finally, train workers to see the connection between their actions and, more broadly, their work ethic, and the company\'s overall performance. By tying individual behavior to an overall system of work, and then showing where that system can, on occasion break down, you will be giving workers the information they need to be good stewards of your business.

Dig Deeper: Ralph C. Stayer on How Johnsonville Sausage Embraced Quality

4. Organize quality circles.

Your staff members may roll their eyes at the introduction of such a dated technique, but organizing employees into quality circles can be an effective way to identify and address problems. Simply put, quality circles are groups of employees who are encouraged to assess processes and recommend improvements, all with the goal of promoting quality, efficiency, and productivity. The concept was developed by Deming in post-war Japan, and made its way to the United States in the late 1970s. At one point, half of all large corporations had adopted quality circles, but then interest in them faded.

That\'s a shame. Quality circles, by any other name, are teams of workers who are given the authority and responsibility for making a business better. To succeed, experts say that participation in a quality circle should be voluntary; circles should draw members from all corners of a company; and the circle should set its own agenda (rather than pursuing a company owner\'s agenda.)

Once you have invited workers to join a quality circle, provide them with adequate resources to pursue their analysis, and schedule a time in the future at which they may present their findings. It is important that you act on their recommendations, even if the group\'s conclusion is not necessarily one you would have drawn yourself. Remember, the purpose of the exercise is less to solve a particular problem than it is to engage workers in the process of finding and addressing concerns. Moreover, you should be tracking customer complaints or product defects on a regular basis, so if the circle\'s recommendations do not produce the desired result, you\'ll know it, and be able to act.

Dig Deeper: How to Set Up Quality Circles

5. Have the right attitude.

Too many people turn the quest to improve quality into something oppressive. No less an authority than Deming rejected the idea that the quality management had to be dreary and involve a lot of negativity. \"The prevailing system of management has crushed fun out of the workplace,\" Deming moaned in an interview in the 1990s.

This attitude is not necessarily easy to adopt and runs afoul of some of the basic management practices we take for granted. For example, Deming was not a fan of performance reviews, as the writer John Case has explained. \"[I]f your evaluations are fair, you will determine that half your workers (by definition) are below average, and you will tell them so,\" Case writes. \"Result: half the work force is instantly discouraged and demoralized, and any sense of common purpose is undermined.\"

Rather than pointing out inadequacy wherever it might be found, Deming believe that the job of managers was to frame the pursuit of quality as an interesting, noble, and worthwhile goal. If you are to truly improve quality at your business, whether you manufacture products, distribute goods, or perform a service for your clients, your first step (and also the hardest) is to resist the temptation to dwell on your company\'s flaws and instead rally your team around the cause of rooting them out.

Dig Deeper: Zero-Defect Management

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Business - International Organization for Standardization - Quality management - W. Edwards Deming - United States

What the Apple Announcement Means
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Steve Jobs just wrapped up another keynote–Chris Martin from Coldplay is playing a little send-off right now. As far as Apple announcements go, the keynote might have felt like a bit of a letdown, but there were three important reveals:

1. Apple TV

The scuttlebutt: An iTunes-connected TV box–Kevin Rose guessed it would be renamed the iTV–that would run iPhone apps, thus creating an opportunity for app entrepreneurs to invade the living rooms of millions of Apple fanboys.

The reality: The device is still called the Apple TV. It\'s cheap, it looks sweet, and there are cut rate prices for video rentals. But no app store.

The upshot: A big letdown for entrepreneurs, who would have had a shot at reaching consumers in yet another place. I expect that apps will eventually come.

2. New iPods

The scuttlebutt: Apple would launch a new version of the iPod touch to keep pace with the iPhone 4.

The reality: Delivered! The new touch is basically an iPhone 4 without the phone. It includes the same display and processor, plus two cameras for video calls and the ability to record videos in high definition. Plus there\'s a new line of the smaller iPods. Jobs called this \"the strongest lineup of iPods we\'ve ever had.\"

The upshot: Great news for app developers, especially those making games and communications applications. During the keynote, Jobs pointed out that the iPod touch is the most popular portable game player in the world, with more than 1.5 billion entertainment apps downloaded. The improved iPod Touch should make the device even more attractive–and further broaden the market for game companies.

3. Wardrobe

The scuttlebutt: Black mock turtleneck, of course.

The reality: Crew neck!

The upshot: Bad news for high neckline holdouts. Your icon has left you.

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Apple - IPhone - Steve Jobs - IPod Touch - IPod

New Sony E-Readers
$\'\'$

On the heels of Amazon’s new lower-cost Kindle, Sony has announced the launch of three e-readers that are slimmer and lighter than the company’s previous models, with improved touchscreen technology. All three devices have E Ink Pearl paper-like displays that are readable in direct sunlight. Here are the details on each model:

The Pocket Edition has a 5-inch touchscreen and 2 GB of memory, enough to store up to 1,200 books. It comes in silver and pink. Cost: $179

The Reader Touch Edition has a 6-inch touchscreen and 2 GB of memory, along with dual expansion slots for adding up to 32 GB of additional memory. You can also play MP3 files and AAC audio files on the device, which is available in black or red. Cost: $229

The Reader Daily Edition, which has a 7-inch touchscreen, provides a wireless connection to Sony’s Reader Store using AT&T’s 3G network. It also has WiFi and basic Web browsing capability. Like the Touch Edition, it has 2 GB of memory with the ability to add up to 32 GB. It comes in silver. Cost: $299

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Sony - E Ink - Wi-Fi - Amazon Kindle - Touchscreen

Do You Love Your Business as Much as Hef Loves Playboy?
$\'Hugh$

Last year, a New York Times reporter quoted 84-year-old Hugh Hefner as saying, “If I sold it (Playboy Enterprises), my life would be over.”

If your workday entailed lounging around in a robe at the Playboy mansion, most guys could see why you might not want to give it up.

But assuming your business is a little less—ahem—sexy, could you imagine life without it? Some psychologists have likened the sale of a business to the loss of a child in terms of its psychological impact and sense of loss for the founder. I think there are some steps you can take now to lessen the letdown.

When I started Warrillow & Co., my name was literally on the door. In the beginning, I was so desperate for it to succeed that I poured all of my waking hours into the business. My hobbies and relationships started to wither from lack of attention. I rationalized my schedule, saying that once I got the business going, I could get back to “my life.”

After a while, the business did get off the ground, but I never changed my work schedule. The source of my drive evolved from necessity to the adrenalin rush I got from building a successful company.

It all started to come undone in 2004, when the departure of an employee made me feel personally rejected. This employee was an important part of our team and managed one of our key relationships. She was going to a great job with a big multinational firm, but I felt betrayed.

The loss of this popular employee triggered the departure of a number of other workers soon afterward. I was left with a skeleton staff, a troubled business and a bruised ego.

The whole experience made me realize just how much a part of my personality my business had become—and just how personally I was taking things associated with it.

Eventually, I picked up the pieces and rebuilt the company. But, like a person who had been betrayed in a relationship, I became more hardened and started to look at my business as an inanimate economic engine instead of a defining aspect of who I was.

Rather than continuing to give all my time to my business, I vowed to get back in touch with the people and things that were important to me.

I stopped putting “life” off and started to get one. I taught myself how to windsurf again. I bought a mountain bike and competed (that’s a charitable way of describing my performance) in a three-day stage race. I started running; I bought skis and a snowboard and organized an annual trip with old friends. In short, I got back in touch with the things I like to do.

Now that I am no longer working in my company day to day, I do miss the people. However, for the most part, I don’t miss the business itself because the void has been filled with other relationships, hobbies, interests and investments that I started nurturing long before selling my company.

When I look back, I’m glad I had a near-death experience in my business as it forced me to nurture outside interests and investments in my life before I actually attempted to sell.

As for Hef, my guess is that all of his interests can still be found at the office.

John Warrillow is a writer, speaker and angel investor in a number of start-up companies. He writes a blog about building a sellable company at http://www.BuiltToSell.com/blog. You can also follow him on Twitter at @JohnWarrillow.

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Business - Playboy Enterprises - Hugh Hefner - New York Times - Company

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Why Greenpeace Isn\'t Facebook\'s Friend

Each day, Inc.\'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here\'s what we found today:

Facebook makes a new enemy. Yesterday we told you a bit about the brewing social media war between Google and Facebook, but now the 500-million-strong social network has a new enemy, and its name is Greenpeace (via TechCrunch). The feisty environmental non-profit is criticizing Facebook for running its new Oregon data center on “dirty coal-fired electricity,” and given the activists’ track record, it wouldn’t be surprising if they pulled a high-profile prank on Zuckerberg if he doesn’t mend his polluting ways. If you’re worried about your business’ footprint, check out our guide on encouraging employees to bike to work.

Advice for Digg\'s new CEO. Digg founder Kevin Rose recently told AllThingsD that being the company\'s head honcho is \"a pain in the ass and something I would never wish on my worst enemy.\" That\'s too bad for Matt Williams. He\'s the guy who\'s been chosen to fill Rose\'s shoes as CEO following a massive overhaul of the site that has Digg users up in arms. Though Williams has plenty of experience as a former Amazon manager, the LA Times has some advice for him on how to handle the user backlash that most social media outlets know oh-so well. Following Twitter\'s example, the Times writes, Williams could learn one simple rule: \"don\'t ignore the negativity.\" And at Facebook, the company with perhaps the most experience in the complaint department, the dominant strategy is to let things \"stew for a bit\" before addressing the major issues in a blog post penned by the CEO, himself. Rose, it seems, has taken the Zuckerberg approach, but it\'ll be up to Williams to decide where to go from here.

Technology gets all touchy feely. If you haven\'t gotten your hands on one already, it\'s time to get to know \"touchable\" gadgets. The New York Times reports this week that natural interfaces like the iPad\'s are part of the \"general trajectory\" in the computing industry, making machines more open to human gestures and intentions. Evidence comes from computer and tech companies across the board, including Amazon, which is already planning its first Kindle with a nonglare touch screen. Industry leaders believe the natural movements of such devices open up the market to even people who aren\'t so tech savvy.

The great lending myth. John Paglia of Pepperdine Capital Markets Project spoke to Business Week\'s Karen E. Klein about research that shows banks\' recent hesitation to lend. While revenues have increased and expenses have decreased over the past six months, access to capital remains the number one concern for private companies. Banks have said that they aren\'t lending because demand for loans are down, but Paglia\'s research shows loan applications have in fact increased significantly over the past six months. Banks, it seems, are simply more risk-averse than they were two or three years ago, scrutinizing applications \"in the manner they should have been doing all along,\" Paglia says. To evaluate your company\'s financial positions and ensure your access to loans, click here.

What smart phones can teach you about pricing. Think about it: no matter how buzzed-up or badly reviewed a smart phone is, it costs about the same, $199 (with the obligatory two-year contract). CNN asked some pricing and telecom experts why. There are several reasons. Sure, $199 might be a perfect price point for smart phone sales volume, but it\'s also not the whole cost of the phone. While you\'ll pay $199 for an HTC Tilt 2, which runs on an operating system \"so out of date that Microsoft is set to completely abandon it\" in months, that amount could also buy you an iPhone 4. Basically, wireless carriers charge as much as they think you\'ll pay for a phone, and themselves pay the rest of the cost of the device (really, that\'s $599 for a 16 GB iPhone). Adding to a carrier\'s overhead are phones that eat up more bandwidth, and phones that are difficult to service.

Meet the Trojan horse of office technology. Oh, it\'s just an iPad. Think Equities\' Rajesh Ghai sent a note to clients yesterday mostly avoiding speculation about what Apple is set to announce this afternoon (via Fortune). He instead focused on why he believes the iPad is the magic device that\'s found a way to make it past companies\' IT department gates. \"Considering the iPad\'s early lead and traction in the tablet form factor, we believe it could be the product that finally makes Apple a broader IT hardware supplier into the enterprise,\" he writes, adding new - much higher - sales estimates for the iPad.

Renowned start-up accelerator comes to New York City. Just a few weeks after SeedStart became the first New York City start-up incubator to graduate a class of young companies, Boulder-based TechStars is entering the New York tech scene, writes Silicon Alley Insider. Foursquare co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, VC Fred Wilson, and Thrillist.com CEO Ben Lerer are just some of the local names who have signed on as mentors. You can apply for the inaugural 2011 class here.

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Kevin Rose - Twitter - Digg - Apple - Microsoft

Solving the Pricing Riddle

Dear Norm,
In October, I parted ways with my former employer. I have decided to start my own business creating mobile websites and apps for businesses. The trouble is, I have no idea how to set pricing. My overhead is $7,044 a month, and it takes me about two weeks to develop each website or app. I have one client, a friend of the family, whom I charged $500 for a huge website, which I know was too little, but I\'m worried about losing customers by setting my rates too high. Then again, I need to eat! What do you advise?

Kate McGinley, founder, McGinley Media
Pittsburgh

Everything has a price, as the saying goes, but a lot of people struggle with figuring out what the right price is. I get more inquiries about pricing than about any other subject. The classic mistake is the one Kate was about to make: setting a price based on what she feels she needs to earn rather than on how the market values her service. Competition generally determines the price you can charge. So the first step should always be to find out what competitors are charging. There are many ways to do that. You can call up other providers and -- posing as a customer -- get estimates. Local, state, or national trade associations may also provide the information you\'re looking for. If all else fails, you can follow my father\'s advice, which he gave me in the form of a humorous story:

A brand-new optician opens up a store and isn\'t sure what to charge. On the first day, he gets his first customer, who looks at some glasses and asks how much they cost. \"Uh, $20,\" the optician says. \"$20?\" the customer responds. \"That\'s all?\" \"Well, that\'s just the frames,\" the optician says. \"The lenses are extra.\" \"How much?\" the customer asks. \"Uh, $15,\" the optician says. \"Only $15?\" says the customer. \"Per lens,\" says the optician. \"Oh,\" says the customer. \"So that\'s $50 altogether.\" \"Well, the case is $5 extra,\" says the optician. \"Hmm, $55,\" says the customer. \"That\'s a little high, but I\'ll take it.\"

I\'ve used this method, and it works. But whatever approach you take, the rule is the same: You don\'t set the price; the market does. Your job is to determine what the market will pay. Then you can decide whether it\'s enough to cover your costs and fund your lifestyle. If you do it the other way -- starting with your own financial needs -- you\'re likely to wind up charging too much or too little. And charging too little is even more dangerous than charging too much. If you set your prices too high, you can always just reduce them. But if you undercharge, you develop the wrong kind of reputation. I told Kate, \"You don\'t want people saying, \'Let\'s use Kate McGinley. She\'s cheap.\' It\'s a lot better if they say, \'Yes, she\'s a little expensive, but her quality is worth paying for.\' \"

Please send all questions to AskNorm@inc.com. Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur. His co-author is editor-at-large Bo Burlingham. Their book, The Knack, is now available in paperback under the title Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs.

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Business - Optician - Website - Customer - Customer Service

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Norm Brodsky on Keeping Your Business Concept Simple

The final query this month comes from Meri West, who asked about choosing a name for her home-cleaning business in the July/August issue:

Dear Norm,
Can I ask you a follow-up question? How many add-ons can I have before I start looking desperate and willing to do anything? For example, I\'d like to offer swimming pool maintenance -- balancing chemicals, scrubbing walls, cleaning skimmers, and such. And I could also do light pet care, such as walking or brushing a dog or taking pets to a vet. I could offer basic plant care as well, and light home maintenance such as cleaning lint filters, dealing with air and water filters, and replacing toilet seats. How much can I offer without appearing to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none?

Meri West, founder, A Well Kept Home
Jacksonville, Florida

At least Meri understands the risk she runs by offering to do too much. I shudder to think what her business card would look like if she tried to include every little thing she\'s willing to do. Here\'s a better idea: Meri should say simply, \"I take care of your home.\" Period. If people ask whether she changes filters or scrubs swimming pool walls and walks dogs, she can say, \"Of course. That\'s part of taking care of a home.\"

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Business - Shopping - Home and Garden - Swimming pool - Swimming Pools and Spas

My Husband\'s Next Business
$\'\'$

As a resident of New Hampshire, I do not fear earthquakes. But I live in terror of four little words: \"I have an idea.\" When my husband utters them, the ground beneath me trembles.

We were hiking a local mountain when Gary revealed his brainstorm for a chain of healthy fast-food restaurants. This was in 2000; his first venture, Stonyfield Yogurt, had been profitable and stable for several years. Gary saw this new business as a logical extension of the mission of our organic yogurt company. My husband sometimes refers to himself as a \"pathological optimist.\" To me, this plan was just pathological.

When you live with a serial entrepreneur, you are never safe from the siren song of new ideas. As one repeat offender told me, \"The personality of a serial entrepreneur is almost like a curse. You see opportunities every day.\" Danny Meyer cites a practical reason for populating much of Manhattan with his eclectic restaurants and food businesses: The new ventures provide development opportunities for his 1,500-plus employees. But as fundamentally, \"I can\'t stop thinking of ideas that excite me,\" he says.

That creativity and independence are what attract people like me to entrepreneurs in the first place. As Gary points out, I knew what I was getting into when I married him. \"While you didn\'t sign on for multiple rounds of pain, you signed on with me,\" he says. \"You were drawn to the upsides of entrepreneurial business -- the excitement, the fascination, and the fun.\" All true. It had never crossed my mind to request a one-company-only prenup.

But when Gary broached the restaurant idea, I had not recovered -- in fact I have still not recovered -- from the extended trauma of the yogurt company\'s start-up. Stonyfield took nine agonizing years to reach profitability. Even though Gary said he intended to hire a CEO to run the restaurants, I anticipated a return to the grueling hours and constant distractions I thought we had finally put behind us. Serial entrepreneurs are like women who suppress the recollection of labor in order to marshal the stamina to give birth again. For their families, such selective memory is not so easy to muster.

Then, of course, any new business entails risk. Here I thought we were on terra firma, only to find Gary gazing longingly at rough seas. Entrepreneurs, as I knew from experience, are masters at defining risk down. So in my brain: \"Gary knows nothing about the restaurant business.\" In Gary\'s brain: \"I\'ll bring in smart people and figure out the rest.\" For many spouses, life stages enhance that sense of risk. Entrepreneurs launching second, third, and fourth companies are by definition older than when they started out: If they fail, there are fewer years to rebound. No wonder when the adrenaline kicks in for the serial entrepreneur, the cortisol spikes for the spouse.

Yet who would want to quash a loved one\'s dream? That way, unhappiness and resentment lie. \"It\'s a crappy part for the spouse to play,\" says a friend whose husband started a second company. \"To say \'no\' or \'have you thought of this or that problem?\' The way I dealt with it -- and I\'m not proud of this fact -- is, I said, \'You want to go through this again? Fine, but I don\'t want anything to do with it.\' We agreed on a certain amount of money he\'d sink into it -- but we passed that number long ago.\"

Inc. reader Mallary Tytel, an entrepreneur married to a serial entrepreneur, tries to be realistic. \"You have two choices: fighting it or going along with it,\" says Tytel, founder of the consultancy Healthy Workplaces. \"As an entrepreneur myself, I know there\'s no percentage in going against the grain.\"

Nor could I go against the grain with Gary. Painful as the prospect of this new business was, I kept my mouth shut. As long as he wasn\'t jeopardizing the roof over our heads or our children\'s college funds, I figured he was entitled to his next dream. I comforted myself with the fact that he\'d succeeded once. This time the learning curve should be less steep. Would be less steep. Had to be less steep.

At what point, though, does the spouse get to say enough? Let\'s assume that the first business was successful, and financial need is no longer a compelling motive. When does a spouse\'s desire for calm and security outweigh the entrepreneur\'s desire to be \"who I am\"? The answer, of course, is different for each couple and set of circumstances. Is it selfish to discourage a loved one from doing something he or she desperately wants to do because it makes you uncomfortable? Or more selfish for him or her to persist in spite of your discomfort?

Among other things, the spouse should consider whether the entrepreneur is truly succumbing to an irresistible opportunity or driven by a darker motivation. He or she may be depressed or bored, or seeking to fill a psychic or emotional void. One man told me that he kept creating businesses to escape his marital woes. Unfortunately, he didn\'t have that insight until after his divorce. At that point, he realized other ways that starting multiple businesses had made him less fit as a mate. \"Entrepreneurs feel they have to have all the answers,\" he told me. \"Starting several businesses only reinforced that. The control issues became habit forming, a way of being. When you apply that trait to your personal life, it doesn\'t go over very well.\"

Fortunately, there are less risky ways, both personally and professionally, for an entrepreneur to flex those creative muscles. Passive or active investing and mentoring can be like methadone for the entrepreneur, providing some of the thrill without all of the risk. Gary loves to mentor because, he says, \"what I remember most about Stonyfield\'s dark days was the loneliness. I\'m rewarded by the idea that with a little of my extra time and money, I might be able to help others avoid some pain.\"

And running an existing company -- even a mature one -- offers some of the charge of a start-up. \"In my work at Stonyfield, I\'m inventing new enterprises all the time,\" Gary says. \"I take huge risks every day.\"

Not that that stopped him. Gary launched the first O\'Naturals -- recently renamed Stonyfield Caf -- in Falmouth, Maine, in 2001. As I\'d feared, the business has consumed considerable time and energy. Also cash: Gary has put in much more than either of us expected. (We have since agreed on a total amount that he can risk on entrepreneurial ventures, including this one.) The caf is now in two locations and is still finding its way as a business. I avoid discussing it with Gary and try not to think about it too much.

Recently, Gary assured me that he wouldn\'t start another company unless I was fully behind it. If this is true, he won\'t be starting another company anytime soon. Or, actually, ever. But somehow I suspect that our lives will continue to be rocked by seismic activity. I hope Gary\'s next idea will score lower on the Richter scale.

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg (mhirshberg@inc.com) is married to Gary Hirshberg, president and CEO of Stonyfield Yogurt. She writes a regular column about the impact of entrepreneurial businesses on families.

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Business - Gary Hirshberg - Entrepreneur - Small business - New Hampshire

The Truth About Real Estate
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My software company, 37signals, is nearly 11 years old. But until now, it\'s never really had a place to call its own. For much of that time, we\'ve been positively nomadic.

Our first headquarters was in the office of one of our original partners, a Chicago-based graphic designer named Carlos Segura. Carlos\'s office also housed his design firm, as well as the T26 Digital Type Foundry and Thickface Records. 37signals lived on a corner of a big desk in a room upstairs. It wasn\'t glamorous, but we didn\'t need much space. It kept our costs down, too.

After we had been there a year, Carlos left the company, so it was time for us to move on as well. By this time, 37signals was three people -- Ernest Kim, Matt Linderman, and me. We were making money and doing well and didn\'t require much in the way of an office. So when some friends/clients at a company called Data Harbor invited us to sublease some of their extra space, we said, \"Sure.\"

A year after that, Data Harbor moved, and we took over the remainder of its lease for a few months. Then we decided to finally get a place of our own. We found it across the street (we could see it from the window of the space we were still occupying). It was too big -- 3,500 square feet for just three Chicago-based employees -- but the location was good, the rent was fair, and the landlord was a nice guy. Still, it never really felt like home. Rather than investing in the space, we just put some cheap tables together and got DSL. We worked that way for three years. During this time, we brought on a couple more people, but they were working remotely from other cities.

I suppose we were thinking about office space the way most businesses do -- as a cost center. After all, between rent, furniture, technology, and the like, it adds up fast, especially for a young company. We were doing fairly well, so $2,500 a month wasn\'t much of a burden. At the same time, it was $30,000 a year out the door when we could all have just worked from home, which might have explained our ambivalence.

But over the course of three years in that Spartan space, we learned an important lesson: An office could make you money, not just cost you money. We had a lot of empty space. Our three desks, conference room, and personal space took up only about 25 percent of the office. Perhaps we could turn that empty space into a revenue stream. Not by subleasing it but by using it to host our own workshops and conferences.

For a few years, we\'d been sharing our ideas on software design, marketing, and business on our blog, Signal vs. Noise. We\'d begun to build a loyal and passionate following. So why not take advantage of that and hold a workshop about the things we were writing about on the blog? We could host it in the spare space in our empty office. And charge for it.

We put together a one-day agenda, charged about $300 a person, and sold about 30 seats. Suddenly, we found ourselves with $9,000 in additional revenue. Our monthly rent at the time was $2,500. In one day, we just paid more than three months\' rent. That was a light-bulb moment. An office can be free -- and even a profit center -- if you start thinking about your company\'s byproducts.

What do I mean by byproducts? Just like the lumber industry can sell its sawdust (a byproduct of milling trees), we discovered that we could sell our knowledge (a byproduct of running a business). And we could sell it in our spare space. Eventually, we packaged this knowledge in book form. All told, the combination of the book and the workshops has brought in revenue of more than $1 million.

But back to our real estate saga. When our lease was up, we decided not to renew. But instead of getting another space of our own, we hooked up with another friendly company we knew: Coudal Partners. I knew Jim Coudal, owner of the advertising and design firm, through a mutual friend. Jim had some extra space, I mentioned that we were looking, and he offered it at a fair price. This was in 2003. For the past seven years, we\'ve been working out of that office.

It\'s been a wonderful experience. The folks at Coudal Partners are wildly creative. We\'ve hired them to shoot and produce some video for us, and we even started a side company together called The Deck, a targeted ad network that helps companies reach graphic designers, Web designers, and other creative professionals.

However, since we\'re sharing the space, it\'s not ours to do whatever we want with. Holding workshops there has been a logistical challenge, because those events mean that the people at Coudal Partners can\'t work at their own office for a day. That doesn\'t scale well. We\'d like to be able to do a workshop every six weeks. Or maybe host a spontaneous gathering of all our nearby customers. We needed more flexibility.

What\'s more, since we\'ve expanded from just a few people to 20 (nine of whom are in Chicago), we\'ve outgrown the six desks we had been renting. Privacy is another thing you don\'t have much of when you share an office with another company. It wasn\'t an issue early on, but it is now. Our friends at Coudal Partners have been fair and accommodating, but we decided it was time to move on.

So last year, we began looking for a place of our own. From the outset, we decided to recall what we had learned years before: We weren\'t just going to spend money on the space; we were actually going to make money on it. That requirement became the driving force for finding the right space.

We looked at a bunch of places -- houses, lofts, offices that already had been built out, raw traditional office spaces. We almost had a lease done on a large factory that had been turned into a six-bedroom residence (we\'d use the bedrooms for private offices). But the deal fell through because of zoning and parking issues.

Eventually, we found a beautiful raw space just six blocks from our current office. It\'s a corner space with two enormous walls of windows. Natural light pours in. We hired architects to review the space and draw up plans. We negotiated the lease, paid the lawyers, paid the lawyers some more, and signed the papers.

The design process took a few months, and the build-out took about four months. We finally moved in July. True to our vision, about a third of the 10,000 square feet is dedicated to teaching. We built a theater-style classroom, with 37 seats, in which we can give presentations, hold workshops, and offer training and support classes for our customers. We plan on holding the first of many regular workshops this fall.

For the past few years, we\'ve rented out different venues for our workshops. It cost us a few grand for the space, another few grand for the overpriced catering (we had to use each facility\'s sanctioned caterer), and another few grand for audio-visual requirements and other logistical considerations. Though we were able to charge about $750 per seat for a one-day event and sell about 50 seats per workshop, renting still took a good chunk of profit out of the equation.

With our own space, we\'ll not only save money on the costs side; we can make more money on the profit side. We also believe we\'ll be able to charge closer to $1,000 a seat. At 37 seats, that\'s $37,000 in revenue. All we\'ll have to pay for is catering. All the AV requirements and Internet connectivity are built into the space. And it\'s much more attractive than the venues we were renting out before. Just a few of these workshops will cover our rent for the year.

The lesson here is less about real estate than it is about business itself. Whenever you make something, you make something else. Your byproducts may not be as obvious as sawdust, but they\'re there. Maybe it\'s the knowledge you\'ve acquired by running a business. Maybe it\'s a piece of software you wound up making when you made another piece of software. It\'s there; you just have to look for it. You may even find a business you never knew you had.

Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of the book Rework.

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Coudal Partners - Business - 37signals - Chicago - Real estate

Why I Stepped Down
$\'<strong$ Letting Go Steve Savage wondered if the family business would be better off without him.\'>

During a summer hike with his son, Steve, in 1990, Kent Savage proposed they start a business that would distribute products made from recycled content. Over the next decade, they built Boulder, Colorado–based Eco-Products into a profitable distributor of items such as earth-friendly disposable cups and cutlery. After Kent died, Steve oversaw an ambitious shift in the business model. The change spurred phenomenal growth. But with that growth came a startling realization for Steve: Perhaps the best thing for the business would be for him to step aside.

My dad retired in 1999. That\'s when I became president and CEO. For 15 years, we were a retail distributor for other manufacturers. We started to have abnormal success in restaurant supplies and realized if we ever really wanted to grow the brand, we needed to start manufacturing the products ourselves.

In 2005, we began a two-year process of transforming into a manufacturing wholesaler. We wanted to expand into new sales channels, such as office supplies and retail, but I didn\'t have any experience in those areas. We also wanted to start making acquisitions.

At first, we tried to hire a CFO who had the experience we needed. It was during that process that I thought, You know, I don\'t think having a CFO is going to solve our problem. I realized that we needed to look at my position. The company is very special to me. It\'s a family business, so I wanted what was best for it, and I thought it may be best to hire a more experienced CEO.

I mulled over the decision for three or four weeks. My siblings and mom own stock in the company, but they aren\'t involved in business decisions. My wife was supportive, though she was more nervous than I was about the move. I also had lunch with Aaron Kennedy, the founder of Noodles & Company. He told me that going from CEO to executive chairman of his business was the best decision he ever made. That helped.

It was definitely emotional, but by the time I made up my mind, I was 100 percent certain it was time to step down. I led the process to find a replacement, with the help of three board members. We notified our management team, and they interviewed our final two candidates. One of them was Bob King, who had taken Corporate Express from a $50 million business to a $4.5 billion business. It was obvious that he would be a great replacement.

I announced the news to the rest of the company at 8 o\'clock in the morning on Bob\'s first day in July \'09. The team was a little nervous at first, but when Bob stood in front of the group and started to talk about his background and the future of Eco-Products, they responded very well.

As expected, Bob has expanded Eco-Products into new channels with ease. Today, our products are available on the Staples and Costco websites. I\'m chairman of the board. I go to the executive meeting every week, so I know what we\'re doing and why; I\'m just not involved in rolling it out. I spend 10 percent of my time on Eco-Products and the rest on National Eco Wholesale, a distributor of eco-friendly products, and Ellie\'s, a retail store. Eco-Products was my firstborn, but I love what I\'m doing now.

My father passed away in 2003, so he didn\'t witness the transition. But people who know my family often say, \"Your dad would be proud.\" I know he would be.

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Business - Costco - Corporate Express - Retailing - Wholesale

What Politics Taught Me About Business
$\'<strong$ Cable Guy Glen Lang brings Internet and cable to such places as Laguna Woods Village, a California retirement community with 18,000 seniors.\'>

Having launched two tech companies and a consulting business in Cary, North Carolina, Glen Lang decided to take on a different kind of challenge: politics. After Lang was elected mayor of Cary, he got to work easing the city\'s growing pains and tackling its infrastructure problems. But he never stopped thinking like an entrepreneur. Lang\'s political career, which ended in 2003, inspired him to start Connexion Technologies, which installs private fiber-optic networks that deliver Internet, phone, and television services to housing developments and apartment complexes nationwide.

I\'ve been in the tech industry since college. I worked for Sun Microsystems before starting a software development company in 1992. It had about 78 employees when I sold it for $11 million. I started two more companies: a cable modem business and a consulting firm.

When I turned 40, my wife thought it would be best if I quit starting companies and stayed home with the family. So I cut back and just did consulting.

I was home and partially retired when city workers came by to dig up our neighborhood to replace the sewer line. That was a waste of funds; only part of the line needed repair. I led my neighbors in opposing the project at city hall. That\'s what got me thinking about public office.

In 1997, I was elected to town council. I became mayor of Cary in 1999. I ran on a platform of slow growth. Cary\'s population, which is now close to 137,000, had been growing about 9 percent a year, but infrastructure wasn\'t keeping up. As mayor, I got the city to slow approval of new home permits while we built new roads, schools, and water plants.

I also commissioned a study to see what it would cost to wire the city for broadband Internet. I used the findings to nudge Time Warner and Bell South to speed up their deployment of high-speed Internet access in Cary.

I kept thinking about this problem of how to get Internet service without having to rely on big companies. There seemed to be an opportunity for a private company.

I founded my current company in 2002, when I was still mayor. We build private fiber-optic networks and lease them to telephone and cable companies. I pitched my business plan to Jim Goodnight, the founder of SAS, which is based in Cary. He liked my idea. He said I worked hard as mayor and that anyone with my persistence would be successful. He invested a couple million dollars.

Being mayor taught me about the utilities business. With a new development, the city grants rights of way, which allow cable and telephone companies to lay new lines. We go directly to the landowner and get an easement, which lets us install our fiber networks on the property first.

We\'re outfitting apartment complexes across the country. In many areas, there didn\'t used to be a choice of service providers. Now, consumers get more choices and lower costs, and providers don\'t have to invest $1,000 to $2,000 per unit in infrastructure to service that community.

I definitely enjoy private enterprise more than I did public service. But no matter what you do, as long as you keep learning, you evolve as an entrepreneur.

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Business - Glen Lang - Cary North Carolina - Time Warner - Sun Microsystems

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