reverb off the wall: bootstrapping with e-bay

Here is the second installment from our student entrepreneurs:
After deciding on a name and color scheme for reverbmedia, we turned our attention to one of the most important aspects of any business?the equipment to run it. The kinds of equipment we would require could easily eat up our startup budget, so we began brainstorming ways to acquire it cheaper. We thought of contacting various warehouses and CD stores that had recently gone out of business, but pinpointing those proved to be harder than we expected. Several members suggested scouring the internet for equipment. One that was mentioned was E-bay.

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Do not rush the exits

Although exit planning is important for all entrepreneurs (every good thing eventually must end), too many entrepreneurs view their business like a publicly traded stock. Jeremy Wright offers an example that is so common among many entrepreneurs: get in, get out, move on. Not only is this often financially unwise for the entrepreneur, the impact extends well beyond personal finances. Free enterprise involves a social contract that requires some level of responsibility by entrepreneurs to their communities. The quickest road to increased regulation of business is to ignore the role of stewardship that all entrepreneurs have in our economic system. And quick exits that focus only on short term financial gains move regulation and government scrutiny into the fast lane.

Business Formation hits record level in Tennessee

HobbsOnline offers more evidence for our current entrepreneurial recovery. He reports on data showing that the formation of LLC’s (one of the most popular type of business entity for new ventures these days) hit an all time record in 2003 in Tennessee. This is not some statistic that has been steadily going up year after year. After peaking in 1998, the formation of LLC’s in Tennessee plunged as a result of the Clinton recession in 1999 and did not really begin a robust recovery until 2002 under the current entrepreneurial economic recovery. We must be very careful not to become as myopic in our interpretation of the current economic conditions as most in Washington and Wall Street seem to be. This is a main street recovery, and is creating true economic empowerment for many new entrants into our free enterprise system.