The kicker here is how we let lesser ideas inhabit this space when we should in fact be focusing on the most important thing we need to work on. His example is the entrepreneur who is trying to raise money and how that act of raising money supercedes the act of making their business work to the point where the business becomes secondary. They have lost focus. Money is often one of these distracting ideas as are emotional situations, stress, etc.

When you are able to make your passion your top idea you are telling your subconscious to let loose and run with all kinds of related ideas. I think that if you are doing a start-up or starting anything new, one test of your passion is whether that idea can stick as your top idea. If it can’t or you are constantly fighting off reasons why it won’t work then maybe it is not your passion.

I like going through mental what-ifs and problem-solving with 24PageBooks. It is literally a pleasure to have time to think through aspects of the project (it’s a ‘project’ until we launch in September- only then do we find out if it is a ‘business’).

Garages are out- we’re either experiencing winter cold (less so lately) or summer heat (hottest year on record this year) and in between it can be 40 one day and 75 the next. A lot of start-ups seem to be done by older white males working in office parks. I work in a company (day job) that is located in an ‘incubator’ space even though we’re far past the start-up stage. This is probably the least inspiring place for a start-up I can imagine: Cubes, bad coffee, a two mile drive to any amenity, sterile environment and a lot of white middle-aged guys with phones on their belts. To be fair, most of the companies in here are hard technology companies: materials, optics, energy, etc. A lot of them seem to be one guy in an office.

Comparing this to the Valley is patently unfair but I really think that our area needs to think differentlty about creating a true start-up environment, one that inspires young entrepreneurs with co-locations that are affordable and filled with other similar companies. My first company was in an old loft building downtown in 2001 and we saw and made friends in the hallways and at the nearby coffee shops and bars. We sent each other business and there was a community feel. Around that same time this ‘official’ incubator opened way out in the suburbs (I can see a tractor plowing from my window) and the start-up scene turned into something depressingly unappealing.

Since I have a virtual start-up (no employees, no office, no equipment, etc.) with 24PageBooks and I work in an established software company, I have been contemplating these two polar opposites. Frankly, I’d rather be in the garage with a fan and a space heater.

Part Two of this is going to deal with raising money Upstate- it’s practically impossible for the same reasons we have incubators in suburban office parks.

Why don’t they tell us, in a clearly understandable manner, what all these goofily named companies actually do? And why can’t the companies themselves do the same?

I know why.

Most can’t do a good, compelling, simple description because they do something no one wants or cares about except a very few nerds in their niche interest area. And they’re so close to their subject that they can’t pull back and question what they’re doing, why anyone would care or how they can make money from it.

On top of this they pick a name that is impossible to remember or associate with what they do even if a reader thinks it has value. Here’s some random names from today’s stories: Okta, CloudCrowd, Nixty, Zendesk, Involver (I can sort of see this one), Reddit, We7 and on and on. Some of these are successful, some may become successful, most will or have raised a lot of money and most will not exist in a few years or even months.

Can you tell an average person on the street what your start-up does in a way that captures their interest?

I don’t think so. Once you hire someone to hold the reins and keep everyone on mission you have just turned your passion into a job. Why would any self-respecting entrepreneur want to do that?

I’ve been musing about this since I took my current job,musing about the differences between ‘real’ jobs and unconventional jobs like freelancing or consulting. I am fortunate to be a creative, that is I write and make things. There is almost no reason to treat creatives, salespeople or other self-directed employees like traditional workers, parking us in a cube and keeping us there for 40 hours a week. It is not the best way to utilize this kind of worker. Instead of hours worked the operative metric should be jobs done well. Companies like Best Buy, at its corporate headquarters, have started down this route with there being almost no required hours, policies, etc. You simply do your job well and keep others aware of what you’re doing while keeping up with what they are doing. This helps turn a conventional job into a ‘passion job’. Their experience has been that there was no loss in productivity even though many employees only come into the office for the occasional meeting. And meetings are far more efficient.

Obviously this doesn’t work for jobs that are tied to a location like retail workers, construction, etc.. But many of those jobs are entry level or skilled labor and working remotely will increasingly be a perk of moving up the ladder.

This is all driven by the ability to communicate with anyone from any place and the ability to access information from anywhere.

I think the move from jobs, to passion jobs to passions is a major spark for innovation. The smartest, most competent and creative people are the ones who thrive in an unstructured situation and those are the kind of people who turn ideas into passions. That’s a pretty good description of innovation.

The reasons it stood out include:

• I could see the entire structure in front of me, made clear by the changes in the eBook world, driven by Apple and Amazon, in particular their generous terms for indie publishers.
• It leverages my core faculty- the ability to explain things succinctly in a compelling way, in writing
• I could partner with someone I’ve done a lot of projects with whose skills are a great fit with mine, Mike Johnson.
• The company could be run from anywhere with no employees, no distribution or inventory and no need for any infrastructure
• It has the potential of being very profitable while remaining manageable
• The products I’m making add value to people’s lives

The last bullet goes to Chris’s point. Whether I’m helping people make new connections, learn business skills, understand emerging networks or use a charcoal grill like a master, in each case I’m adding value to their lives and I’m not requiring a lot of their valuable time to do it. Knowing this makes building the business a completely exciting non-job, which what any start-up should be.

This, understandably, set off a lightbulb moment. Bulk sales of eBooks could be pretty profitable even at low prices. Later that same day I was getting motivated by looking at the Dummies’ book site (I am fascinated by the success they’ve had selling 400 page books on practically anything whether the subject requires 400 pages or not- 200 million copies sold!) and noticed they prominently feature the fact they they sell white-labeled or privately branded versions of their books in bulk. Yikes! I’m all over that.

This whole thing has a lot of potential…

I have to ask myself who has the time or interest to buy and read a 408 page book on GPS. And who has the time or interest to write one (it’s my understanding that the Dummies series pays a flat fee without royalties to their writers)? I know I don’t.

However, there may be an audience for a brief, concise book on the subject that gets you up to speed quickly without too much commitment of time and money. And I know that price would not be a factor in my decision to choose the short, concise book over the gargantuan tome. My time is the real cost here. That’s a considerable factor in the planning of my new venture.

More when our site launches.

I’ve been looking for a start-up to get involved with in 2010. I’ve also been working on a book proposal. It dawned on me that the book proposal is my start-up. The proposal is a business plan. The literary agent is a business development person. The publisher is both an investor and the distributor. I am the founder, developer and chief marketing officer.

The book is called The Experience Architects: How Social Media Visionaries Are Redesigning the Way We Do Business. It is about people and companies that understand the positive potential of social media and are using that potential to completely revamp the way their businesses operate- on all levels. It is not about companies stumbling into social media because of some PR catastrophe nor is it about self-described social media gurus who have never actually changed a company with their knowledge.

Because the book is about entrepreneurs, it made sense to me to treat it and its related ‘products and services’ as a business. Once this concept clarified in my mind it made putting the proposal together a much more intuitive process. It also made me realize that my marketing plan consisted of a simple concept: Drink The Koolaid. In other words, use the Experience Architecture concept to build buzz about the book, to research resources and people to talk to, and to virally get others excited. So you’ll be seeing a lot of social media activity around this subject.

In addition to the proposal (business plan) I have written a social media ‘blueprint’ consisting of a set of 30 action items that will build a fully integrated social engagement for the ‘business’. I’ll be sharing that plan, open source style, here over the next month.

If you know someone who has redesigned their business (any size, any type, any location) because of social media please connect with me via MartinEdic.com.