Taking inspiration from a podcast about starting a podcast business
For the longest time, I never considered myself as having the traits of an entrepreneur. Of course, I'm not going to start my own company, nor do I plan to any time soon.
But, after having listened recently to Startup, a podcast that is literally about starting a podcast business, I became inspired and started rethinking my own abilities as a professional, which ultimately led to some thoughts about entrepreneurship in the workplace and how existing companies can benefit.
To back up just a little, I'll give you a rundown of what Startup is all about. The podcast follows Alex Blumberg, a journalist and former producer for NPR's “This American Life,” as he tries to start a business that produces podcasts focused on storytelling.
You get to hear him pitch to investors, hunt for a business partner, negotiate equity with that partner, express uncertainties with his wife, win over some investors and sponsors, experience his first big misstep — and eventually, you get a sense that, with $1.5 million raised, he is on his way to something lucrative.
The podcast is captivating because it provides a rare glimpse into an entrepreneur's earliest days, on a sometimes microscopic level. What's even more exciting and inspiring for me personally is the idea that a journalist with little-to-no business experience could start his own company and attract a slate of investors, including Groupon Inc. founder Andrew Mason.
So if I were to start my own company, or if I were to help someone else start their own company, what would I have to offer? Before I answer that question, I asked Don Gooding, executive director of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development, how he defines an entrepreneur. It's pretty easy to do a web search on the “traits of an entrepreneur,” which yields results like “passion,” “vision” and “rule-breaking.” But what does a local expert think?
For Gooding, he defines an entrepreneur “as someone who makes new things happen with initially limited resources.” Elaborating upon that, he says that entrepreneurs tend to favor new ideas as opposed to improving upon existing processes.
Do I fit within that definition? Not fully, and I definitely would not want to call myself an entrepreneur so as to honor those who are truly taking chances and trying to start something new.
But I'd like to think my own work at Mainebiz has demonstrated some of those traits Gooding mentioned. While I have mainly been improving upon existing products as the company's online editor, I realize I have taken some risks in doing so and with limited resources — things like pushing for more originally reported stories (which have been the foundation of our print publication) in our daily newsletter. I also created an experimental breaking news alert with the quick approval from my editor one morning when we realized that we had a scoop on our hands. Even right now, I am leading research for a new Mainebiz product, which would give us an exciting and fresh way to engage our audience.
I feel lucky that I work in a small company environment that encourages me to think of ways to improve our existing products or create brand new ones, because the results have already been positive, with increases in monthly web traffic and in story pitches for our daily newsletter.
Perhaps that's why some companies push for the idea of the “intrapreneur,” an entrepreneur who works within an existing company environment. I'm not a big fan of the term itself, which has been covered in publications like Forbes, but I am a big fan of the idea — the idea that existing companies can leverage talent to innovate from within. Because if Apple and Google can do it, why can't we?
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