,

Why there so many sucky blogs and artists.

,

Blogging's not easy. It often feels like you're actually haveing to write something for an audience.

I've been reading a lot of business blogs lately and am struck with the number of posts that suck. (Not like this one.) While I  enjoy blogging I've come to realize that the actual writing is less than exciting. It reminds me of my artist days. As an artist you must be very comfortable being alone. All my paintings (almost all) we're created entirely by myself, in my studio, while I was working late at night and alone. Everyone thinks that the act of creation is exciting and fulfilling, and it is. But the joy of creation comes at the beginning and the end.

478985-277062-thumbnail.jpg
click to enlargeA painting is exciting at conception and fullfilling at completion. The actual act is not usually enjoyable at all. In fact it's rather tedious. The Jackson Pollock style of throwing paint on a canvas is not my experience. As a realist, I've spent countless hours painting and repainting. This is a painting I worked off and on for a year. (Total full time of maybe 3-4 weeks.) It's big. 5 by 6 feet.

Nimble's Long Tail

It's late and I have to drive up to Layton early tomorrow morning but now I'm wide awake. I often take an hour or so before I go to bed and read CNN.com and a number of blogs I've tagged on Del.ic.ious. Bloggers link a lot and I came upon a Long Tail post that led me to a number of other sites/blogs. Now I can't sleep. I've found the terminology that perfectly describes Nimbles business model. A model that I've struggled to be able to explain to small business owners and potential partners.

Nimble is an aggregator. That is, we're looking to become an aggregator...  Taking all small business and building a marketplace that allows them to sell in real time no matter how small they are. Reading these Long Tail posts has really got me motivated.

I'm posting this as a placeholder while I take some time to think about this. Long Tail Baby.

Long Tail Links:
The Long Tail Blog
Wired Magazine Article by Chris Anderson (Coined the term)
The Long Tail on Wikipedia

Welcome to the first post. 'What it means to be an entrepreneur.'

While Nimble is not my first business and this is not my first blog, I came across my first post for this site tonight.

I'm posting a list from a blog I was reading tonight. (Find it here.)

DON LOPER is the blog for MWI's founder, Joshua Steimle. (Another link is down there on the right.)I usually don't post an entire entry from another blog but while I was reading this post a feeling of utter simpatico came over me. Joshua is someone whom I've never met although we share a number of mutual aquaintences.

He's regularly listed among Utah's upward bound entreprenuers and has obviously met with some success. But reading this post I was able to relate to almost every point. That came as something of a wake up call for me. The responsiblity of owning/running a business on which others depend is sometimes heartbreakingly tough. Most start-ups fail. That's a reality. I'm convinced that the reason many start-ups succeed is not that they are inheriently superior as a business but that they have an entreprenure that won't allow them to fail.

A quote from Admiral Jim Stockdale (from a posting on Bnoopy) who was a POW in Viet Nam for eight years.

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”