Would-Be Entrepreneurs Seek Help With Right Business Ideas

Tired of working for the man? But not sure what business you should start?

You’re not alone. Many people feel strong entrepreneurial urges but don’t know where to direct all that energy. "I
don’t want to salute anybody," says Don Loeffler, 60 years old, of St. Louis. He has worked either as
employee, consultant or outside sales representative for more than 20 companies in a wide range of industries.

By JEFF BAILEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

He has a little money and believes he could raise some more. He is willing to relocate. But Mr. Loeffler, a
sales-and-marketing man, says that beyond wanting to manufacture something, he doesn’t know what to do.

"What I need badly is to know how to find out what I should manufacture," he says.

Roger Liu, 35, and of Brooklyn, N.Y., is in the same boat. Moving from China 11 years ago, Mr. Liu waited
tables and managed restaurants, attended college and worked in sales for computer and garment companies.

"I am looking for business ideas," he says. "I read some books on the subject but I haven’t found the idea I can
make a full commitment on."

Finding the right business idea, of course, can be as difficult as finding the right spouse. But if you have the
urge but lack the idea, interviews with experts on entrepreneurship suggest the following steps:

Make absolutely sure you want to be an entrepreneur.

Simply being tired of working for someone else isn’t reason enough to start your own business. Likely you’ll
work longer hours, do more scut work, not less, and, for a good while anyway, earn less money. What’s more,
most successful entrepreneurs have a burning desire to do something quite specific.

"They’re passionate about the doing of whatever it is," says Jana Matthews, a former official at the Kauffman
Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Kansas City, who now runs her own small company advisory firm,
Boulder Quantum Ventures, in Colorado.

Determine your strengths and weaknesses.

Don’t just trust yourself on this one. Ask former bosses, co-workers, customers and other business associates
and tell them to be blunt. You might take an aptitude or personality test, such as the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (www1.cpp.com/products/mbti/index.asp).

If you do start a business, you’ll need partners or employees with complementary skills.

Recognizing your strengths could require you to let go of a dream. "All I ever wanted to be was a singing
cowboy," says Arnie Deckwa. To that end, Mr. Deckwa moved to Nashville in 1987, at age 45, hoping to become a successful country singer,
dreaming of an appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.

He did sing there once, he now says with a chuckle, to 4,400 empty seats after the place had emptied out one night. But it was backstage that
he received his entrepreneurial inspiration.

Mr. Deckwa had brought some smoked salmon to offer the performers and one took a bite and said to him: "I know you want to sing, cowboy, but
you need to do something with this."

Mr. Deckwa replied: "Do what with it?" And the friend said: "Sell it!"

Today, back in his native Northwest, Mr. Deckwa’s Cornet Bay Co. sells about $1 million a year of smoked salmon dips and other food items. He
and his wife, Joanne, travel the country in their recreational vehicle, setting out tasting tables at Sam’s Clubs and other big retailers. The food
business, based in Oak Harbor, Wash., grew slowly, but Mr. Deckwa was patient. "I approach this thing like the music business," he says. "If
you can’t take rejection, get out."

Go work for someone else in a field you’re interested in.

This is a low-risk way to learn about an industry and perhaps spot an underserved niche or a product or service that isn’t, but should be, available.
But think of it as going to school, so don’t hold out for top pay or an important job. Just find a position from which you can learn as much as
possible.

"Let somebody else pay for your mistakes," says Mark P. Rice, dean of Babson College’s graduate school of business in Babson Park, Mass.

Find someone who does have an idea, but lacks your particular skills, and become his or her partner. You don’t have to be the idea person to be a
success. And expecting to be the dominant person in your first venture might be unrealistic.

Make use of the resources available, many of them free.

The Service Corps of Retired Executives (www.score.org), or SCORE, in your area, has a roster of experienced businesspeople willing to offer free
advice and counseling to entrepreneurs. The federal Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov) through its Web site and local offices can help,
especially with financing advice and technical assistance.

Conventions and seminars offer quick exposure to an industry you’re curious about.

That’s where Doug Shankwiler found an unlikely vehicle for his success. For 21 years, he did marketing and sales work at General Motors Corp.’s
Oldsmobile division, hoping to become an executive.

He grew discouraged in the early 1990s, amid cost cuts and layoffs, and began attending franchise exhibitions on weekends to see if a
small-business concept might excite him.

A computer tinkerer, he stopped by the booth of New Horizons Worldwide Inc., a Santa Ana, Calif., computer-training franchise operation, and
was introduced to his future partner, Larry Hall.

They bought the Atlanta franchise and boosted its sales to a monthly $1.8 million before the Sept. 11 attacks dampened the economy and
corporate spending on training. By then, however, they had sold the franchise back to New Horizons for about $18 million.

The surprise: "The interest I had in computers had nothing to do with the company’s success," Mr. Shankwiler says.

"It was the sales and marketing" experience he brought from GM that helped the operation recruit corporate trainees in a fiercely competitive
environment.

"If you’re going into this business because you love computers and you’re a computer geek, you’re going to fail."

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