Entrepreneur Power Up! (eBook)

Chapter 1

Unskippable Intro
(My Glomtom origin story)

“Remember why you started.”—Unknown

“Clif, THIS is a scribble! We don’t scribble in this class!” My first-grade teacher looked at me sternly with irritation as she reprimanded me in front of the entire class. I looked down at my one-color-yellow-crayon scribble all over a tiny picture of a bed on a white ditto copy (“ditto” is the ’80s term and tech for a copy machine), and I suddenly felt embarrassed. That really cut into the pride I took of being the first to turn in my homework and the satisfaction from just being done with it. I like to be fast; I like to get things accomplished and I like to be first in my own made-up competitions. Mrs. Anderson sending me back to my seat to redo my work was a setback. Nevertheless, I was undeterred. Even at the age of seven, I wasn’t about to give up on finding the fastest and easiest ways to accomplish things. Yet, it was apparent that I had a problem with quality control. From then on, I decided it would be my goal to do the best work I could, as quickly as possible.

I never had to try too hard at school. From grade school through high school, I worked as fast as possible to be the first student to turn in my assignments. While this resulted in less than stellar results when I was in elementary school, first grade, reeling from the humiliation of the half-assed job I did on my work, I realized this was still a good life lesson for me and got better at it as the years went on. This quirky desire would drive how I structured my company Glomtom and how I leveraged everything to get us much impact with as little wasted time or effort on my side.

Entrepreneurship is such a part of many childhoods. I see my kids think of ways to make money from a young age and try different schemes. It’s almost as if entrepreneurship is part of our inherent nature. I too pursued some typical childhood business schemes. My neighborhood friends and I tried selling lemonade and Christmas wreaths with varying degrees of success or failure, depending on how you look at it. Our success was contingent on the mercy and generosity of our parents and the other grown-ups that drove by. I then went through a couple of other phases as I considered what I wanted to do when I grew up. When I was fifteen, having muscled up by training with weights, I decided that when I grew up, I would teach PE and open my own gym! In college, I wanted to make records (I am also a bassist and love rock music), tour with my band, learn Japanese and move back and forth between Japan and Seattle!

While attending college at Western Washington University, I discovered that if I just attended classes and passed the midterms and finals, that would guarantee me at least a C grade. To get a B, I had to put in a little more effort. Early on I decided that getting As was a waste of time. I was not willing to spend the extra hours studying just for a better grade. My end game was to graduate and earn my bachelor’s degree, period. (I wasn’t thinking of grad school at that point, one admittedly logical reason one might put out the extra effort for better grades.) I did get some As, though, mostly from classes that I found engaging and/or where I had figured out what it was that the professors wanted. For the most part, I settled into a rhythm that got me through college with the minimum amount of effort. I have a twin brother, Richard, who attended the same university with me. We both ended up majoring in Communications. Our study habits, however, could not have been more different. When I was going to bed at 4 AM, after playing video games all night, he was getting up early to study for class. Despite our vastly different habits and approaches to schoolwork, we ended up with the same degree. Is your college GPA important? It is to get into many grad schools, and it might be to some hiring managers. But isn’t that the point? As entrepreneurs, we are our own employers! I would even argue that entrepreneurs do not need a college degree to start a business and pursue their dreams! (The names Steve Jobs and Bill Gates come to mind.) Don’t let whether you went to college or not deter you or intimidate you! In the world of business, being an entrepreneur or solopreneur doesn’t matter. The topic of school and grades never came up when I visited with other business owners.

During my junior year of college, I met my dream girl (a recent business management graduate) kicking her way down the gym in Tae Kwon Do club. We got married six months after I graduated. As you will soon read, she is a key part of this story. We went on to have three children—twin boys and a little girl. Our twin baby boys are a huge part of this story too, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

When I entered the corporate world as a new college graduate, it was a rude awakening. There were office politics and pressures that I had never imagined. I realized that I did not like having a boss, being told what to do and being told how and when to do it. I really hated being told I could not apply for promotion because some stupid metric was off despite my sales performance leading the team. This was when the desire for an entrepreneurial life really started to grow within me.

I constantly dreamed of finding ways to make money. I read several books about entrepreneurship and finance. Many were inspirational with “big picture” ideas and concepts. While they had some value, none of them included any specifics—the “how to’s” of becoming an entrepreneur—at least to my satisfaction. When I mentioned these books or the subject of finance and entrepreneurship to friends and family, most were not very interested. It sometimes amazes me how many people prefer not to discuss their dreams and ideas. It is my belief that some people do not like to discuss abandoned dreams because they may feel like a failure for never pursuing them. Entrepreneurship is a highly emotional topic, so I can understand why some refuse to engage. On the other hand, maybe their dream is to have a great job with a great company—to climb the corporate ladder. While there is nothing wrong with that, entrepreneurs and innovators are not satisfied with that. We want more in life. We crave the exhilaration and adventure of creating and cultivating something of our own, on our own. We want to be independent, make good money to open up more opportunities for business and travel and make our own decisions and call the shots. I always had my ear to the ground for opportunities. With that being said, if you can advance your career and create a successful side hustle, you are crushing it!

One day in my early twenties, I heard an ad on the radio about making money by “trading stocks like the pros.” There was a free seminar at a nice hotel nearby. I brought my wife and we allowed ourselves to be swept away that night. I talked her into registering both of us for a two-day course on trading stock options that cost us about $4000.00. The two-day class was highly complicated. While the concepts seemed somewhat digestible onsite at the session, they were utterly overwhelming when we got home. The internet was still in its infancy, so there was no online community or support system to help us to figure out complicated investment and stock trading maneuvers. We bought a $1000 software package at the workshop, upgraded to broadband internet, and bought a new computer. But it was no good. The software package was a glorified Excel program that required a constant connection to the internet to gather and display stock prices. It was an ugly mess, seemingly impossible and too daunting to figure out. As the months passed, we sadly gave up on the idea of the both of us trading stocks from a white sandy beach in the Caribbean. The company that hosted the workshop disappeared pretty fast too. I continued to develop my career as a pharmaceutical sales rep. It took a lot to break into pharmaceutical sales after college, and I was thankful to be working for a great company. However, I was still determined to become an entrepreneur. Have you dumped a bunch of money into a course just to never act on it? Don’t feel bad. I did too. Don’t let that discourage you!

One book my wife and I both liked was Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. His book has some great high-level concepts about taxes and business entities that I found useful and enlightening. His story of growing up in Hawaii with a rich dad and a poor dad was interesting and fun to read. Kiyosaki went on to form a company around his book series. One of the things that Robert Kiyosaki’s company did well for the time was create a space for an online community. This was before social media, so this was a big deal, as not many companies were doing anything to cultivate an online community. His company sold a board game called “Cashflow.” Kiyosaki asserts the idea that the more you play his game, the richer you become in life! Sounds easy, right? In the game, you move pieces around a board, much like in the “Game of Life.” You have income from a randomly assigned day job and you have the chance to acquire businesses with cash flow as you move around the board. Once the cash flow of your investments exceeds your day-job income, you are out of the rat race! We bought a copy of “Cashflow” and through the community on Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad website, we established contact with other people in our area interested in playing this board game in public libraries. My wife and I met with one guy in our hometown who started his own carpet-cleaning business and was about to go bankrupt. Despite dropping his price far lower...