Roadside MBA will be back on the road June 12 through 16! We'll hit two countries, two states, two provinces (and our windshield will probably hit many thousands of bugs!) Yes, we're flying to our neighbor to the north, starting our trip in Thunder Bay, Ontario. From there, we'll hit Duluth, Minnesota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Follow along on twitter or our blog! … [Read more...]
Roadside on the Road in October
It has been very enjoyable to get out and speak to people about the insights from Roadside MBA – over the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to participate in a few nice events and tell some of our best stories. Several of these events have been organized through the Kellogg Alumni Association. The school had a great program in downtown Chicago and I sat on a panel discussing growth opportunities and strategy. My two fellow panelists were Kellogg grads with impressive entrepreneurial resumes: Scott Dorsey, who co-founded the digital marketing company ExactTarget after graduation, … [Read more...]
Roadside MBA Returns to Dothan
I had a wonderful time last week in Dothan, Alabama! Dothan is one of our ATF Roadside MBA towns, and we featured Key Fire Hose and Panhandle Converter Recycling in the book. The occasion was the Dothan Area Chamber's General Membership Luncheon, and I was honored to be invited to deliver the keynote address. I talked Roadside MBA, tried to tell a few funny stories from the road, and generally had a great time. Some highlights from the day: Breakfast at Cracker Barrel with Lyle Peluso Jr. Lyle gave me a great update on the remarkable growth at Panhandle Converter, and then we … [Read more...]
Small Business In South Africa
Along with some of my colleagues at the Stanford Business School, I spent last week traveling to South Africa to meet with local businesspeople and politicians. While not exactly the crazy Spring Break involving beer and bikinis that some people crave, it was an extremely interesting week. When Mike, Scott, and I go around the U.S. talking to small business people, we hear the challenges the little guy faces from regulations, the lack of available skilled employees, and large competitors. Those issues are multiplied in South Africa where the pro-labor government has put in place a set of … [Read more...]
Mountains, Nut Graphs, and Leitmotif
Instead of giving you any insight into how a small business can operate effectively, today we give you a look inside the process of creating a book about small business. The Roadside MBA team (Mike, Scott, Paul, and Paul’s retriever Josie) is currently sequestered in a scenic cabin near Lake Tahoe. Over the last few months, we’ve made considerable progress on our book (and by “we”, I mean Mike --- Scott has also been busy, but post-season Little League assistant coaching is not doing much to help small business people). So we came together to edit, brainstorm, and try to hit our upcoming … [Read more...]
Delivering some Roadside insights
Along with our book (update: more than half the chapters have been drafted and we are closing in!) Scott, Paul and I are hoping to convey business insights to our audience through lectures, seminars, fireside chats – basically anyone who is willing to listen! I got the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to introduce the Roadside MBA project to a couple of interesting groups of small and medium-sized companies.The first was through an organization called Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), which according to its website (www.icic.org) is a “nonprofit research and strategy … [Read more...]
Roadside MBA Goes to Russia
I’m traveling in Russia this week. The relationship between this trip and the Roadside MBA can be summarized in this picture.First, note that it is snowing and [expletive deleted] freezing, just like a few days in Kansas I remember well as we drove around talking to local small business people. But more importantly, you can see the incredible reach of the big American multi-national. In addition to many retail options from the U.S. (and I was glad to see we are successfully exporting clogged arteries, as there are plenty of Cinnabons, McDonalds, and Sbarros to go with the Dunkin Donuts), I was … [Read more...]