FROM THE EDITOR
Dear
Friends
Colleagues:
&
Greetings! One of the hardest pursuits in the world is being an entrepreneur. It’s not a day job. Health insurance is scarce. The salary can be low or non-existent. Your hours are not set. You might find yourself working every spare minute of the day, and every day of the week. When you’re not working, you will be thinking about work. You have no choice. This is your business.
Even with all of your hard work, you can fail. There are many reasons. Lack of funding. Wrong idea at the wrong time. Lack of experience. Inability to learn from failure, either your own or the failure of others. Wrong people on board. Lack of talent. Lack of perseverance. Lack of discipline.
Many more businesses fail than succeed. This applies to large businesses as much as it applies to small businesses and startups. In the last year, we’ve been seeing the death throes of some mighty fine companies: Sears & Roebuck, Radio Shack and Toys ‘R’ Us, just to name a few. Subway, Rite Aid and J.C. Penney are struggling. The downtown Seattle Macy’s has reduced its flagship store from seven floors to three. The upper floors are now being rented by Amazon.
If so many large businesses are struggling, how can the small business owner succeed? The truth is businesses come and go. Who knows? You might be one of the lucky ones who can surmount the odds that are stacked against you.
No matter how tough it is to pursue your own business, being an entrepreneur is a unique way of defining your own place in the world. An entrepreneur has the drive, talent, creativity and to make something out of nothing. It takes true grit and courage to be an entrepreneur. This August, we hear from the true visionaries behind startups in health & wellness, the arts, design, law, technology, and business.
Patricia Vaccarino