Research Tips
for Budding Entrepreneurs:

Update August 2014
Without question an ironic, tragic and complex turn of a case
On May 13, nine days after a lawsuit was filed over the royalties in Searching for Sugarman, the director of the documentary reportedly stepped in front of a speeding train in Stockholm. Weeks later, Rodriquez was sued for breaching his songwriting contract back in the 1970’s…for the music he never knew was selling in South Africa.

Sources
Scribed.com
http://www.scribd.com/doc/221603763/Sugarman

Freep.com
http://www.freep.com/article/20130517/COL18/305170139/rodriguez-pursues-royalties-sugar-man

Hollywood Reporter.com
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/searching-sugar-man-stars-amazing-700729

Evaluating Material from Reliable Sources
Government, academic, and other authoritative sources rank high on the list of resource providers that offer credible information, but consider the following examples:1. Rodriguez: The rock star who didn’t know it 60 minutes reported on a 70-year-old laborer living in poverty in Detroit last Sunday, except this wasn’t your typical day laborer… an informative segment that takes a strange twist: Consider:

Several years earlier, a cash-poor Swedish independent filmmaker becomes fascinated by the folklore of a deceased Latino musician with a cultlike following in South Africa. He bootstraps an independent project using an Apple app to create a film that costs a few dollars.

The filmmaker discovers that the musician, long thought dead, is alive and living in Detroit… a musician more popular than the Beatles in South Africa during the apartheid revolution, according to 60 minutes.

An amazing story, but with a gaping hole: Who exactly profited from the musicians talent, and who was responsible for his overall marketing while he sold half a million records in South Africa? 60 minutes failed to explore this topic, merely noting that Rodriguez didn’t receive any royalties for his early work…

2. U.S. Small Business Book on home-based business published by the U.S. Government: Excerpt:

“Do you close deals with a handshake rather than insisting on written contracts and guarantees?” Good entrepreneurs are often comfortable with something less binding than written contracts….”
The paragraph also noted that, for many entrepreneurs, honoring a handshake is a matter of honor… Really?

3. Excerpt from a business book published by a leading Publisher:
“Get, borrow or steal your startup idea, it doesn’t have to be original…” Really?

4. Entrepreneur Magazine published a print edition last year entitled Bootstrap Your Business. It was then placed online with a different title: How to Bootstrap Your Business.

An informative article, if you didn’t mind learning how the CEO of an online babysitting co-op freelanced as a management consultant while waiting for her startup to become profitable. Two other companies were mentioned in the article with descriptions of their progress, but the overall content would not inform readers how-to bootstrap a venture.

Conclusion: content from highly credible sources doesn’t necessarily mean the content is 100 percent complete or reliable; sometimes, content from a highly reliable source misses the mark completely.

60 minutes has a reputation for investigative, expose journalism, but that slant was not included in their segment on Rodriguez.

The paragraphs listed in the government publication and the business book are recipes for disaster. And, although Entrepreneur Magazine offers a lot of good content, the article mentioned based on the misleading title is lemonade.

References
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57526420/rodriguez-the-rock-icon-who-didnt-know-it/?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

http://www.cbsnews.com/8334-504803_162-57527446-10391709/rodriguez-unplugged/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220733

Goodman, M. (November 2011). How to bootstrap your business. Entrepreneur Magazine.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220733

How Much Do You Know?
1. When you upload your artistic content to YouTube, you lose the copyright.
True or False?

2. During the 1940’s, widespread use of lard as cooking oil decreased, and lard was adopted for use in another industry. Can you guess how?

a. Cosmetic formulas

b. Pharmaceutical drugs

c. Munitions manufacturing

3. President Obama’s Job Creation act of 2012 expands the Self-Employment Assistance program (SEA) enabling people who receive unemployment benefits to start a business. Approximately how many job-hunters take advantage of this program each year?

a. 9,000
b. 15,250
c. 2,000
d. 34,000

Three seemingly simple questions that contain insightful answers.
                                                 
Answers 

1. True.  

2. C; an example of how a product commonly used in one industry can be adapted for use in a new way. 

3.  2,000 (C); a seemingly attractive government program that upon close examination may still require applicants to engage in a lot of hoop jumping.

References
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479290365370782.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ETA20121073.htm

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/02/21/Unemployment-Pay-Deters-Would-Be-Entrepreneurs.aspx#page1

http://www.oregon.gov/EMPLOY/ES/SEEKER/pages/self_employment_assistance.aspx

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/24/job-seekers-job-creators

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/in-some-states-the-unemployed-can-now-use-benefits-to-start-a-business/2012/05/24/gJQATfd3nU_blog.html

Selected Notes: 2012 How American Educational System Fails Students Countless numbers of young people and adults receive virtually no useful guidance in assessing their skills and talents in the current American educational system. In middle grades and high school, the ratio of 1 counselor for 500 students is not uncommon.

Furthermore, many of the counselors lack the training to provide expert career guidance, according to a report by the Harvard School of Education. In community colleges, the student counselor ratio is even worse; estimated at 1000 to 1. Many students are frustrated by an educational system that they find irrelevant…with barriers that include weak or nonexistent career counseling. Consider: not only do nearly half of all high school students drop out of school in the U.S., but of those who go to college, nearly half leave without a degree,” according to the Harvard School of Education in their 2011 report.

“In good school districts, usually suburban ones…there will be a small percentage of very talented students at the top and a small percentage of the bottom showing little academic talent. But most of the students will be clustered toward the middle. Those in the middle will be a product not of talent, but of training, they will become solid citizens, and their educational abilities…no matter how limited will be enough for them to survive.

On the other hand, if you look at the worst schools in our …system…where no teaching or learning goes on, you will find a surprising 20 percent of the students score well on tests, that they progress fairly well in the educational system, and that they succeed at a level comparable to the 80 percent in the suburban schools. Teaching takes place in neither system…. Those with natural talent will survive while others are thrown to the wolves. The [educational] system ruins the lives of 80 percent of the people who go through them,” according to John T. Malloy in Live for Success.

Malloy based his research on the book using interviews, conversations, and observations of more than 10,000 American businessmen and women in the 1980s. However, the findings are as accurate in the 21st century as several decades earlier. Today, dedicated teachers, professors, and others in the field of education are working to improve and bring innovation to the system. But, overall the institution is antiquated, biased, and improving at glacial speed. Self-employment is an attractive alternative for many people with dreams and aspirations, but a lack of knowledge about how to think critically during the self-evaluation process hampers the ability to choose wisely, whether it’s a traditional or entrepreneurial career goal.

In many other countries like Japan, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, they place considerable importance on career counseling. Career counseling is formally scheduled into the school day in nearly all secondary schools. Those countries focus not only on preparing students for four-year colleges but for vocational school as well, based on their skills, aptitudes, and interests.

References

Harvard Pathways to Prosperity Pdf
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Pathways_to_Prosperity_Feb2011-1.pdf

John Molloy Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Molloys-Live-Success-John-Molloy/dp/0688004121

Rural schools need career counselors, too

What Would You Do? 
You open a pizza parlor in a small college town, and business is great. However, the following summer, 20,000 students, your customers, leave town for several months. It’s vacation time.

 *You overlooked this detail when you bought the restaurant. What will you do for income?

The scenario points out two common mistakes that start-ups make. Can you spot them?

                                                           Answer
First: There is not enough information provided to answer the question “what will you do for income?” However, many potential entrepreneurs brainstorm business decisions without making sure they know all of the facts.

Second: The scenario outlined above is a failure to research the industry, including the patterns and lifestyle of customers.  

 *Note: Based on a real-life newspaper story that took place in the late 1990s when a husband and wife sold their home and moved to an unfamiliar state to start a new life.