A great book, The MouseDriver Chronicles

My good friend Alan, a very successful online store entrepreneur, recommended a book this weekend after we shared our experiences of starting our own businesses, The MouseDriver Chronicles.

After graduating from the Wharton Business School, the authors gave up high paying job offers in 1999 (when dot com was the hottest topic in town) and started the business of making and selling....eh...computer mouses. Ya, it might be a fun business to do and talk about, but it just doesn't have the potential to grow significantly and change people's life, unlike all the other dot comers with millions to promise.

As I went through the book, I could absolutely connect with the ups and downs that authors went through. Starting a business without venture capital investments relies heavily on a different set of skills that anyone ever knew. Take me, for example, without the leverage of the capital, I had to become manufacturing, R&D, sales and marketing all in one. Decisions were made on the dollar-to-dollar basis, and no CC-ed emails could prevent me from a trouble anymore, since every single mistake I make comes out of my bottom line. Nevertheless, Experience is a great teacher: it gives you a test first, and a lesson afterwards... Amazingly, I started to learn sales techniques, marketing analysis, and customer service on the first hand basis.

I thought I was well prepared before I made the leap because I read so many marketing and business strategy books. But DOING business is quite different from READING about it! :) It took me quite some time to figure out how to convert the big-book knowledge into the small-business world, but the result was definitely worth it!

Reading the authors' recorded day-by-day activities, I realized that they went through exactly the same processes, and I am not alone... Building a business is a constant work in progress, and every day seems to be more challenging, but DEFINITELY even more exciting than the previous one!...