75 Reasons to Be Glad You're an American Entrepreneur Right Now

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Number 49

Because the paper isn't blank--and copying is encouraged. This is Todd Harff, president of Creating Results Strategic Marketing in Occoquan, Va.:

"I don't have time to make all the mistakes myself, and I'm too impatient not to capitalize on other people's ideas. That's all good, though, because of how it's gotten so much easier to learn from the history and mistakes and proven ideas of others. That's why I like being in TEC [The Executive Committee, a peer group and counseling organization]. And the Internet, too, has enormously altered how easy it is to research articles, case studies, and management ideas. When you're hitting your head against the wall, you almost always can find out about someone else who hit his or her head against the same wall and figured out an answer. It gains you a lot of ground fast."

Number 50

Because once it was unions that looked out for workers. And now, if you're good, it's you.

Number 51

Because once it was schools that effectively ushered outsiders into U.S. economic life--preparing immigrants and the unfortunate. And now, if you're smart, it's you.

Number 52

Because so many of the changes that bring opportunity also pose threats. Vanishing borders, technological enfranchisement, the ascendancy of ideas over resources--trends that enable everyone to compete with everyone--are the kinds of developments that will benefit those who capitalize on them, but will swamp those who don't. Entrepreneurs are positioned to do the capitalizing.

Number 53

Because Kathy Ireland (who sells a billion dollars' worth of clothing and home furnishings a year) and Christy Turlington (who has started three businesses) can be your role models. Used to be, it was plenty for better-seen-than-heard fashion models to claim aspirations to acting. Now even wanting to direct isn't enough. Today it's about launching a business.

Number 54

Or George Clooney, if that's more your style. He and three partners have announced plans to open a Las Vegas casino.

Number 55

The Small Business Administration, which despite whatever politics surround it continues to lend business owners increasing amounts of money. Through the third quarter of 2005, lending through the SBA's 7A program was up 19.5% over 2004. And 2004 was a record year. As were 2003 and 2002 before it.

Number 56

Because nowadays even companies that aren't entrepreneurial want to appear to be. Big beer producers label fake microbrews and airlines invent brands that look "independent." Why the dissembling? Seems consumers don't trust the big guys so much. Consumers trust you. (Again we say: Don't blow it.)

Number 57

Martha Stewart. Seriously. Remember when she was merely the doyenne of taste, content to help us put style into our lives? Now comes (to your local bookstore soon) Martha's Rules, not an autobiography but "a handbook for developing a business from scratch utilizing advice and expertise from the woman who built a billion-dollar brand by turning a great idea into a well-organized, well-run, creative, and debt-free company in just a few years." Now Martha wants to help us put entrepreneurship into our lives. Call it the mega-mainstreaming of entrepreneurship.

Number 58

Any or all of the ever-multiplying websites that can put us into hotels, airplanes, theaters, or rental cars in seconds--and cheaply.

Number 59

Your iPod--Steve Jobs's personal object lesson in the market-moving power of design, the kind of design that any daring entrepreneur (unbridled by committees, convention, or consensus) has the freedom and authority to attempt.

Number 60

Because it's still the likeliest, fastest, and best way to get rich.

Number 61

Because you can decide, if you want, that getting rich is beside the point and focus instead on accomplishing something else entirely.

Number 62

The BlackBerry

Number 63

Because fortune favors the brave--more than ever. In the words of serial company founder and strategic planning consultant Lanny Goodman, of Management Technologies in Albuquerque:

"The risk of making bold moves is less than it's ever been. The traditional risk-reward equation has flipped. It's maintaining the status quo that's dangerous now. Strategy, products, services, organization design, whatever--it's not breaking the mold, not adapting to new opportunities, that will hurt you. Think about it: We've been running our companies with a set of assumptions and tools that are a hundred years old. They were developed by some very bright and capable people, but it was a time when capital was scarce and expensive and talent was plentiful and cheap. Today just the opposite is true--and the old tools don't work anymore. Doing almost anything that breaks the legacy of 'check your brain at the door and do what we tell you to do' is likely to be an improvement. And is there anyone better positioned to break that legacy than an entrepreneur?"

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