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Why should a liberal arts major start a business? After all, you're a lowly humanities type in an increasingly STEM-centered world. You’d be lucky to get a job at all, right? Shouldn’t you just wait tables and go to auditions? Or work at a government job and write your novel at night? It was good enough for Kafka, even for Chaucer. Talk about a time-honored tradition. Why not you?
If you were living in Prague, like Kafka, or London, like Chaucer, or even Paris, like Hemingway, I might recommend the “real job” route before you get started. You probably have student loans to repay. You certainly have skeptical peers and anxious parents. Why not just get them off your back by picking up full-time work and deferring your dream until you’re in a better financial position to make it happen? Lots of people—most people—do this. But you know what? Most people never achieve, heck, they never even try to achieve, their dream.
If this column encourages you to do anything, it’s to try. Trying is everything. Because you never know. You never know what acting role might open up for you. Or what publisher might be looking for just your idea. Or what macroeconomic trend might be happening that will turn your little podcast into a media empire. You try because your first obligation is to maximize the development of your talent. Your main goal should be to figure out a way to display that talent full-time.
I’ve started seven businesses over the years. I’ve gotten funding for them several different ways. My first venture, a publishing company that produced my first book, How to College, was financed by raising $10,000 from friends and family in $500 increments. Two of my classmates even kicked in, though the bulk of the money came from my partner’s generous grandmother. We promised to pay everyone back within 2 years at 10% interest. The book became a hit, and despite a massive number of unforeseen obstacles and lessons learned, we were able to meet our goal.
I funded my second business, a book production company called TVbooks, with a book contract from a publisher. I hit on the idea of launching a company that would create book tie-ins with television shows. Fewer people were reading, I reasoned, but everyone watched TV. My very first phone call to a publisher resulted in a $20,000 contract. It turned out the editorial team had seen our first book and liked the layout. They were looking to do a companion book for a Saturday morning TV show called Beakman's World. Since the show skewed young, they wanted to work with a company with a youth focus. At the time, we didn't have much else, but we had plenty of youth. Our timing couldn't have been better. It was pure luck.
We would never again have a deal come together that easily. But we would have never made that phone call if we hadn't believed that success was possible, even likely.
There are lots of steps between getting a deal and running a business, and those steps are what this column will often focus on. But the most important first step is to make sure that in the algebraic equation of your career, you make using your talent the fixed item–and how, and how much you get paid, the variable. Most people do things the other way around. Money is fixed; what they do to make the money is the variable.
Society reinforces this equation. And why not? Why would an employer want to encourage their employees to start something up that might compete against them? Far better to romanticize their journey and convey the sense that only some special sort of guru can start and succeed in business, that business is full of risk, and failure is far more likely than success.
You’ve heard of “return on investment”? Your career should be your “return on dreams.” You start a business because you’re unique and you will have a unique solution to a problem that several, or hundreds, or millions of people will value. But you can only get there if you start. So start. And don’t let them tell you not to just because you're a lowly liberal arts major.
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