RazShafer.com

Ever since I was a young kid, I’ve always had my hands busy with some kind of entrepreneurial venture. To be honest I’m pretty sure that I always will. They haven’t been glamorous and I haven’t taken any company public but I’ve learned an incredible amount and made pretty good money. Here’s a narrative of that process:

I grew up in a small town in rural Texas. My dad was a family practice physician. Mom was a stay-at-home-mom/home-schooling hero. I’m the oldest of three boys and we spent most of my formative years living on a few hundred acres across the road from my grandparents and great granddad. As far as family situations go I was obviously very blessed. Few kids are raised hanging out with their great-granddad, listening to his stories of growing up in the great depression and picking cotton in West-Texas. I did.

My Dad’s side of the family came from the metropolis of Muleshoe, Texas (in case you don’t believe that place exists, here is a mapquest link to prove it). Going back a few generations, most of his family had been cotton farmers in the panhandle. As it turns out, my mom’s family had come from a similarly agrarian heritage in Ohio.  The common denominator in all the things my family taught me was that there is no substitute for hard work and no excuse for quitting.

Every kid at some point figures out that money is what you use to buy stuff. Legos, video games and toys don’t just show up. I guess that some parents give their kids allowances but mine gave me a job. Working on the farm, mowing the lawn, building fences and hauling hay were some of the ways I earned money (that’s still how I earn money when I’m at home!.)

My first business venture was raising rabbits. During one the trips my grandparents and I took to the local Flea Market I decided that I wanted to buy a rabbit. The only way that I could think of to justify the purchase was to say that I was going to buy a pregnant one and sell the offspring. Over the next few months I raised quite a few rabbits and was able to make a bit of money. I can’t characterize it as a high-profit venture but I learned quite a bit and was able to  bank a few dollars when all was said and done.

For a short time after the rabbit venture I became the local arms dealer: selling hand-made rubber-band guns (and later paintball equipment) to friends and kids in my church. Once all the church kids were well armed (and their mothers sufficiently distraught) I closed up shop and started looking for a parent-sanctioned enterprise.

When I was about 14 I started working for my Uncle (PizzaForADream), updating prices on the books he was reselling online. After working for him for a few months, he helped me get my own online book resale business started. I took $300 to Half-Price Books in Houston, TX and bought three hundred books. Over the next several years I sold over ten thousand books, bought out my uncle’s operation and eventually brought both of my younger brothers in as partners in the business. This experience of being my own boss, operating a multi-thousand volume inventory, multi-venue online book resale business opened my eyes to the satisfaction (and cash) that can be enjoyed through entrepreneurship. On the downside, I also learned that the government likes taking part of that hard earned money through taxes.

During high-school my brothers and I put our several years of classical music training to work. We played music for weddings. We started out small, doing favors for friends and family that were tying the knot but eventually word spread around our small town and people started calling for paid gigs. Over twenty wedding performances later we still take requests and play weddings during our breaks from school. It’s fun, well paid and you get free cake (The moral of this anecdote is: get your kids violin lessons!)

After my first semester of college it became clear that in my absence the passion to keep the business running had waned in my brothers eyes. By that time it was also clear that the whole business was changing, as a result of many more vendors entering the market. In general, the timing was right for an exit. We liquidated our inventory, closed out the accounts and called it a day. That said, I missed the activity of running a business and wanted to put my money back to work.

Somewhere along the way, every entrepreneur has a mentor: somebody that takes the time to share experience and ideas, successes and failures. For me there’s no doubt who that’s been. Once again I ended up using knowledge and assistance from my Uncle to get a venture going. Just about two years ago I bought some bulk vending machines and placed them around Hillsdale College’s campus. Since then I’ve done quite well, learned about another market sector and have come to more fully appreciate less glamorous job titles.

All these experience have taught me a great deal about success and failure in business. I haven’t run a Fortune 500 company but I have learned how to work hard, take calculated risk and not be paralyzed by fear of failure.

Even if I spend most of my life working for somebody else, I plan to maintain some kind of private income stream. It may not be big, it may not be flashy but at the very least it will keep my mind searching for opportunities and I’m convinced that the activity helps build good financial habits.

Everybody can find examples in their own life of individual entrepreneurship. What is one in your life?