Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship, My Work

Starting Over in Waltham

I enjoyedthe great privilege of writing a ten-part series of columns for the Waltham News Tribune, our local newspaper. Part 1 was published on June 6, 2014, and Part 10 on November 28th.

One of the things I learned in the process is that telling one’s story is hard!

The series is called “Starting Over in Waltham,” and it chronicles my  personal journey of emotional and professional recovery, beginning with the end of my last business, The Elephant Walk restaurant, and ending with the beginning of my next one, a small grocery store I’m calling Hundred Mile Market.

No need to say more about it now; the articles tell the story.

Part 1: Beginning at the end

Part 2: Desperation and breakdown

Part 3: This too shall pass

Part 4: Reconnecting and reengaging

Part 5: Laying a new foundation

PART 6: Back to work

Part 7: Hundred Mile Market

Part 8: Devils in Details

Part 9: Relapse

Part 10: Ending at the Beginning

Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Opinion, Politics

I know it’s complicated, but…

Why is it that elected officials often pay lip service to the importance of small business to the economy, but  they make so many choices governing that hurt small business? We need to call them on it.

This just in: Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s economic development proposal included no money for a very helpful, 20-year-old small business loan guarantee program. And it looks like he won’t say why.

CLICK HERE to read a Boston Business Journal article about this matter.

I have a lot more to say about what I feel is unconscionably weak government support of small business in America. Stay tuned.

Business, Entrepreneurship, My Work

Founder Alchemists

“The Strange Secret Behind Founding a Business” is an interesting article by Kevin Ready on Forbes.com about the invisible forces founder/entrepreneurs bring to bear on the world around them as they create.

I found it particularly inspiring as I’ve begun readying an attempt to start a new business later this year. The process is Methodical/Mechanical, Technical, sure… but at some point, when a venture really takes off, it feels like an alchemical miracle occurs.

That’s what I created and experienced in the 90s with The Elephant Walk. Time to do it again! :-)