Entrepreneurs tap into their collective mind
January 20, 2010
Source: Business First of Columbus (11-27-2009)
Author: Craig Lovelace
Bill Treciak owns a credit-card processing business in New Philadelphia, about 120 miles northeast of Columbus, but since May he has been making a monthly drive to the capital city to spend a few hours at TechColumbus on Kinnear Road.
He comes for the same reasons other people assembled in this nondescript classroom show up: To glean information from each other about how to stretch capital at their businesses.
The president of Electronic Data Payment Systems, Treciak and the others are part of the International Bootstrapping Association, an organization begun by Bill Troy and Kim Troy earlier this year.
Part support group, part cheerleader, the association’s primary goals are to get the entrepreneur to think about his or her business in a different light using the collective brainpower of the others. It is also an attempt to let individuals – people who often work by themselves or with few employees – use the others as a sounding board to bounce ideas off of or seek advice from.
On a mid-November night, about 10 people are split into two working groups. Veteran businesspeople and association members comprise the first group, and everyone else the second.
Just as in athletics, there is a warm-up exercise where each person relates his or her business and offers the group a tip.
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
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Good HBR bootstrapping blog post.
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Comments on the HBR blog from Kim Troy:
Reading through the post, I was reminded that the toughest economic times are when we bootstrappers really shine. We’ll be talking about that scrappy bootstrapper mentality at our Members’ meeting in February. Here are the details for your calendar…
- Wednesday, February 10th from 7pm to 9pm at TechColumbus, 1275 Kinnear Road, Columbus, Ohio
- Thursday, February 11th from 7am to 9am at the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, 7003 Post Road, Dublin, Ohio
Non-Members of the IBA can attend their first peer meeting as our Guest, free of charge. Just register here to let us know you’re coming.
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