Eric Rice is the creator of the Founders Den
Times are tough in this economy and through tough economic times entrepreneurs lead the way out. However, I can say with 100% certainty that I am worried about our future entrepreneurs in this country. As it sits today they are nothing more than prey. Prey for those that pretend to be “guru’s” and “experts” of entrepreneurialism. First of all is that even possible? Being an entrepreneur changes every 5 seconds as is. I am concerned for the people out there that have the intelligence and possess the work ethic to be successful (not necessarily always rich) being taken for a ride by people that have never made 6 figures in one fiscal year. When you look up the word entrepreneur online all you seem to come across are some slick writing MLM salespeople, Public Speakers that “teach you” to be an entrepreneur (most of which cannot afford to buy you lunch) and someone trying to sell you some sort of startup package. If these people were such great entrepreneurs wouldn’t they be on the news with the press be speaking about them and not house Mom’s that just made $300 selling a potion or lotion to their neighbor giving testimonials? If they were truly successful they would have zero time to “teach” entrepreneurs anything. I myself have no time to “teach” anything and I am nowhere near the level of success they claim to be at. I am not interested in someone paying me money to tell them some information, at all. I am always interested in a new, well qualified, ambitious new business partner with “good greed”. “Good Greed” is not Gordon Gecko it is not stabbing people in the back to make a buck. It is a simple saying for normal people that want to be a success in life, but not at the expense of sacrificing their integrity. You see there is too much bad greed out there and that is really killing our economy. This plague will not take up any more of the space on my blog form here out.
This is why we started this incubator program as a free service to keep good minds away from bad business people, to create innovation from the ashes and to help build win-win situations for us and our candidates. We make Lions! Lions feed themselves, they don’t wait for others. Lions hunt as a team and are loyal to each other for the greater good of the pride. We have so many business ideas as a group already, we don’t need you to have one of your own, just the want to create, just the want to captain a ship and become a REAL CEO. Let me explain this saying, REAL CEO. How many times have you seen somebody’s business card that just opened a business with no employees, revenue or product last week and have the title of CEO on their card? This is bullshit and we all know it, so do they. To let you know how much this means to me, I am not even the CEO of my own company, I am the President. There is a huge difference in the two. This is because I know what makes a business work, having the right people in place. Knowing your role is the first step to success. David Turner is the right man for that job, not me. I am a growth man and love to innovate, not run a company. The time of the fake CEO is coming to an end in this coming year of 2010, period. We will make real CEO’s, who run real companies, which make real money, that have real numbers, employees and products. Being a CEO is a big deal if you do it right. It can also be the biggest self fulfilling lie you ever tell yourself. The mirror will let you know where you really stand, if you have the courage to listen to it. The premise of this program is making CEO’s, not entrepreneurs. I am an entrepreneur, to its very finest, and I don’t want to see more of me. I want to see qualified CEO’s that know what I know and can work the hours I work with the skill and precision of a David Turner (a true executive). Our Den will have all kinds of people in it, CFO’s, COO’s, CMO’s, CIO’s, Presidents, Sales Directors and the whole nine yards. This is due to design; we want all to be able to work together along side of us. Our candidates will literally be working for us and watching us run our companies every single day. Learning will occur late night after the day is done.
The word Entrepreneur is so whored out it makes me sick. Please stop being prey, stop listening to guys that advertise how smart and successful they are, it is a fools dream to think you will find your Yoda on a late night infomercial. Stop being preyed on by an industry that doesn’t have your track record, yet alone a better one. They will continue to prey on you as long as you keep paying their fee and stroking their ego. You don’t need to pay money; you need to give your time to someone that has actually been there recently. It does not come overnight; it takes lots of time, energy and pain. I will guarantee you do not get rich overnight, because you will start this program making minimum wage and learning. That is correct; we actually pay our candidates to start. You will first learn to make markets, and then sell the product to those markets. Then you will be given equity in real businesses that have real problems, turn them around and get paid. All the while we will be working with you and the rest of our self made community to create, fund and start your own business. Your incremental learning will be paid for, nicely. Your time will not be wasted, unless you let it be. We are creating our own CEO’s in our image, period. If you have an idea, a business or just a dream it matters not to me. Send me a note on Facebook only if you are ready to become a Lion. If you aren’t ready yet please don’t waste either of our time.
The entrepreneurs that go through our program will have to start their journey by taking an IQ and proprietary personality evaluation to see if they have the basic make up we require for an interview. We aren’t looking for Harvard kids here, unless their name is Will Hunting! We are looking for people that have the capacity to learn and the talent to forgo their ego and work long hours. I can tell you from experience that being a success means one thing, just one thing. YOU MUST BE WILLING AND ABLE TO DO WHAT OTHERS WON’T AND CAN’T. You must be willing to work while everyone else plays and you must have the ability to learn from the fire, not the books. I will say that books count and if I were starting over I would read, Good to Great by Jim Collins and Mastering Business Operations by Joerg Sieber, along with sales book after sales book. We make sure all candidates know that this is the basics of business first, build a great team, create a company, sell as much product as possible and make sure it operates smoothly so customers get what they pay for. It is that simple in the beginning. The first thing entrepreneurs need to learn, in my opinion, is to sell and work as long as their body can handle. I see it all too often, “I believe in balance which is why I don’t work past 6 or on weekends”. This really translates to “I am too lazy to achieve my dreams” in my language. After passing the tests we give out th
ey are then thrown into a group interview and then meet with David Turner, John Montieth, Adam Blejski and I. We will decide who we take in and then find out if they have a current business idea or if they just have passion and need an idea to work on; both way we don’t care and can work with both. We just want other Lions in our Den. We want those people that want to work their guts out to get what they want so they can take care of their families forever. All entitled people need not apply!!!!! In the group that will be running the program, day in and day out, there are 2 IPO’s, 21 companies (non-mlm) started from scratch, millions of dollars a year in provable income, experts in every field from personal finance to social media and a panel of well vetted educators to pick up the slack when we are too busy to be there. The Founders Den is a place for ideas to harvest and become reality. It is a place that doesn’t judge and doesn’t hold back. We want all the folks involved to spawn as many ideas as humanly possible to make this world a better place. The stages, which will be explained publically over the next 3 weeks, are in increments of 45, 180 and 90 days if done right. We will use our own money to fund our candidates’ ideas!!! In the end this will be the largest organization of Business Founders in the world. …………more to come this week.
