Try a Lemonade Stand First
Entrepreneurship rewards the faithful well. For those who build a relevant business that satisfies customer wants, the business owner gains a bountiful income and satisfaction of control that escapes most who punch a clock for a living. Many people try entrepreneurship for different reasons, that's not as important to me for this post as how people go about it.
Used to be, people would apprentice to learn a craft. A system that took root in the Middle Ages in Europe, many European countries continue with some formal forms of apprenticeships designed to place young people into gainful employment. In the US, other than internships and certain union programs, apprenticeships have disappeared other than perhaps medical professionals. Internships and residencies for MDs may be the last bastion of professional craft training.
Today, entrepreneurs dive into a startup, with little preparation, no idea, and no practice. Same entrepreneurs are baffled why they don't gain support, earn investment, and ultimately fail. If there's a lack of opportunity to apprentice, then create your own opportunities to practice. Open a lemonade stand.
This is an ad absurdum example to a certain extent, though I really believe that opening a lemonade stand would teach a nascent entrepreneur a lot. An entrepreneur would learn about setup -- for example test different creative for signs and messages, learn how to build or hire a contractor to build a lemonade stand, figure out if a license is required or can you dodge the authorities long enough to meet your goals. The biggest lesson should be how to make customers happy.
I confess, I lucked into my apprenticeships. To begin with, my parents and the other adults I was around had no choice but to run businesses. I am part of a community of Chinese from Korea. In Korea, we had no status. There were laws enacted to prevent our prosperity, and hiring practices kept us from employment in companies or businesses owned by Koreans.
One business we were allowed to run were restaurants. During the 1970s, when Park Chung-hee started vigorously enforcing discriminatory laws that already existed, most all the Chinese left Korea. Our status was supposed to be Republic of China citizens, but there we also faced discrimination. Other than government jobs and teaching jobs that were allocated as a form of affirmative action for us, in Taiwan we were unemployable as well. Most of us came to America, a large majority of us settled in Los Angeles and Atlanta, operating restaurants.
My uncle Ching Fang Hsu was an early Chinese emigrant out of Korea. He settled with his family in Seattle in 1958, sponsored by a local church. His family was the first Chinese from Korea to settle in the US. He would go on the found the first Mandarin Chinese speaking church, and the first restaurant serving Northern Chinese cuisine in Seattle. It all happened because he couldn't work otherwise.
He started working at Frederick and Nelson then the most prestigious department store in Seattle. On the custodial crew, he worked hard, too hard. His coworkers complained that he made them look bad and that he should just fit in. Undeterred, my uncle did not compromise his values and continued applying himself to his job, for the sake of his family, which was growing even after his arrival in America. Two daughters were born in Seattle, joining his three sons born in Korea.
Eventually his coworkers schemed to get him fired, and successfully fulfilled their plan. Without a job, and dispirited that perhaps he'd be dogged by the same discrimination he'd faced in Korea again in Seattle, Ching Fang Hsu decided to take control of his fate by opening a business. He opened a tiny place with a few tables and my aunt cooking. But he had a problem, people unfamiliar with the menu kept leaving when they couldn't find dishes they were accustomed to ordering in a Chinese restaurant. That's when my uncle started challenging his customers. He'd offer to order for his customers and if the customer disliked the food, he offered that the customer could eat for free.
With that little bit of bravado, my uncle went on to build one of the most successful restaurants in Seattle history. He moved out of the Yesler Terrace projects, and became a homeowner and eventually a landlord. His oldest son Ron would continue onto a successful career as a pulp and fiber executive and contestant on Amazing Race twice, his second son became an internist and later a medical director, his youngest son a fiber optics expert, his oldest daughter graduated from Yale and later one of Yale's few Asian American deans, and his youngest daughter an educator in Seattle (My Uncle's Seattle Times Front Page Obituary).
What prepared him for success in Seattle though was preparation, apprenticeships he had served before in Harbin, China and in Korea, working for business owners, and running his own businesses. His success with his restaurant Harbin didn't come out of a vacuum. Practice helps.
My father before we landed in Seattle never worked in a kitchen in his life. He had previously owned restaurants where he hired chefs, but barely walked into a kitchen is what a family friend told me. But out of necessity, as an entrepreneur, he became in my opinion one of the greatest chefs ever (Obituary I wrote for my father).
We came to Seattle in 1974, invited by my uncle Ching Fang Hsu. After a year of searching for jobs, the best job he was able to land was dishwashing at a Greek owned diner on Pill Hill. Based on a promise by a friend in San Francisco that my father could take over his restaurant if my father learned how to cook, my father traveled to San Francisco and lived for a year in 1975, leaving us in Seattle.
My father got a job at a Korean lounge called Arirang, cooking for customers who occasionally wanted food to accompany their drinking. How my father worked it was he'd call his friend on the phone to get instructions on recipes and technique. In one of the earliest examples of online education, my father learned over the phone how to debone a chicken (I suggest you watch a video of Martin Yan deboning a chicken, it's great theater). After a year, when it became apparent that his friend wouldn't come through on his promise, my father returned to Seattle.
After working at another Korean lounge in Tacoma for about a year, my father decided he'd open his own restaurant. I was only 6 years old at the time, and only vaguely remember the details. My father bought a former burger joint in West Seattle with hopes to turn it into a Chinese restaurant. However the equipment needing replacing with appropriate stoves like wok ranges. He bought the equipment from a dealer in Everett with a family friend translating for him. Turned out the equipment was useless, and my father gave up on the location and sold the building to start again on a new location.
He got lucky on his second try. A landmark, the Teapot Cafe on Capitol Hill on East John Street across from the original Group Health hospital was for sale. The professional children of the original owners wanted to sell the restaurant after their parent's passing. My father paid $10,000 for the business, the rent was $425 a month. The restaurant also came with a nice bonus, a waitress named Mary Ann, of Swedish stock originally from Minnesota. Mary Ann waited patiently as my father put together his minimum viable product by painting the walls, replacing the carpets, recovering the seats and booths, and modifying the wok range with concrete and a stainless steel pot with the bottom reamed out. We even kept the porcelain tea pots left over by the prior owners. Only after we were about ready to open, Mary Ann marched in, I remember this vividly. She camped out in the first booth near the door, ordered a pot of tea, and then demanded my father hire her and that she belonged with the restaurant.
I remember my sister getting flustered trying to translate, unsettled by what was going on. My father laughed and said ok. He admired Mary Ann's strength. Guess he knew anybody who could standup for herself like that would be able to handle negotiating a non-English speaking chef while handling a dining room full of customers.
With this my father had a business that prospered long as we owned it. When my father sold it to other Chinese from Korea, that family continued on with success, putting all of their children through school thanks to the restaurant. Watching all of this starting at the age of 6, I began my apprenticeship.
I'll continue with another post about my direct apprenticeships.
Used to be, people would apprentice to learn a craft. A system that took root in the Middle Ages in Europe, many European countries continue with some formal forms of apprenticeships designed to place young people into gainful employment. In the US, other than internships and certain union programs, apprenticeships have disappeared other than perhaps medical professionals. Internships and residencies for MDs may be the last bastion of professional craft training.
Today, entrepreneurs dive into a startup, with little preparation, no idea, and no practice. Same entrepreneurs are baffled why they don't gain support, earn investment, and ultimately fail. If there's a lack of opportunity to apprentice, then create your own opportunities to practice. Open a lemonade stand.
This is an ad absurdum example to a certain extent, though I really believe that opening a lemonade stand would teach a nascent entrepreneur a lot. An entrepreneur would learn about setup -- for example test different creative for signs and messages, learn how to build or hire a contractor to build a lemonade stand, figure out if a license is required or can you dodge the authorities long enough to meet your goals. The biggest lesson should be how to make customers happy.
I confess, I lucked into my apprenticeships. To begin with, my parents and the other adults I was around had no choice but to run businesses. I am part of a community of Chinese from Korea. In Korea, we had no status. There were laws enacted to prevent our prosperity, and hiring practices kept us from employment in companies or businesses owned by Koreans.
One business we were allowed to run were restaurants. During the 1970s, when Park Chung-hee started vigorously enforcing discriminatory laws that already existed, most all the Chinese left Korea. Our status was supposed to be Republic of China citizens, but there we also faced discrimination. Other than government jobs and teaching jobs that were allocated as a form of affirmative action for us, in Taiwan we were unemployable as well. Most of us came to America, a large majority of us settled in Los Angeles and Atlanta, operating restaurants.
My uncle Ching Fang Hsu was an early Chinese emigrant out of Korea. He settled with his family in Seattle in 1958, sponsored by a local church. His family was the first Chinese from Korea to settle in the US. He would go on the found the first Mandarin Chinese speaking church, and the first restaurant serving Northern Chinese cuisine in Seattle. It all happened because he couldn't work otherwise.
He started working at Frederick and Nelson then the most prestigious department store in Seattle. On the custodial crew, he worked hard, too hard. His coworkers complained that he made them look bad and that he should just fit in. Undeterred, my uncle did not compromise his values and continued applying himself to his job, for the sake of his family, which was growing even after his arrival in America. Two daughters were born in Seattle, joining his three sons born in Korea.
Eventually his coworkers schemed to get him fired, and successfully fulfilled their plan. Without a job, and dispirited that perhaps he'd be dogged by the same discrimination he'd faced in Korea again in Seattle, Ching Fang Hsu decided to take control of his fate by opening a business. He opened a tiny place with a few tables and my aunt cooking. But he had a problem, people unfamiliar with the menu kept leaving when they couldn't find dishes they were accustomed to ordering in a Chinese restaurant. That's when my uncle started challenging his customers. He'd offer to order for his customers and if the customer disliked the food, he offered that the customer could eat for free.
With that little bit of bravado, my uncle went on to build one of the most successful restaurants in Seattle history. He moved out of the Yesler Terrace projects, and became a homeowner and eventually a landlord. His oldest son Ron would continue onto a successful career as a pulp and fiber executive and contestant on Amazing Race twice, his second son became an internist and later a medical director, his youngest son a fiber optics expert, his oldest daughter graduated from Yale and later one of Yale's few Asian American deans, and his youngest daughter an educator in Seattle (My Uncle's Seattle Times Front Page Obituary).
What prepared him for success in Seattle though was preparation, apprenticeships he had served before in Harbin, China and in Korea, working for business owners, and running his own businesses. His success with his restaurant Harbin didn't come out of a vacuum. Practice helps.
My father before we landed in Seattle never worked in a kitchen in his life. He had previously owned restaurants where he hired chefs, but barely walked into a kitchen is what a family friend told me. But out of necessity, as an entrepreneur, he became in my opinion one of the greatest chefs ever (Obituary I wrote for my father).
We came to Seattle in 1974, invited by my uncle Ching Fang Hsu. After a year of searching for jobs, the best job he was able to land was dishwashing at a Greek owned diner on Pill Hill. Based on a promise by a friend in San Francisco that my father could take over his restaurant if my father learned how to cook, my father traveled to San Francisco and lived for a year in 1975, leaving us in Seattle.
My father got a job at a Korean lounge called Arirang, cooking for customers who occasionally wanted food to accompany their drinking. How my father worked it was he'd call his friend on the phone to get instructions on recipes and technique. In one of the earliest examples of online education, my father learned over the phone how to debone a chicken (I suggest you watch a video of Martin Yan deboning a chicken, it's great theater). After a year, when it became apparent that his friend wouldn't come through on his promise, my father returned to Seattle.
After working at another Korean lounge in Tacoma for about a year, my father decided he'd open his own restaurant. I was only 6 years old at the time, and only vaguely remember the details. My father bought a former burger joint in West Seattle with hopes to turn it into a Chinese restaurant. However the equipment needing replacing with appropriate stoves like wok ranges. He bought the equipment from a dealer in Everett with a family friend translating for him. Turned out the equipment was useless, and my father gave up on the location and sold the building to start again on a new location.
He got lucky on his second try. A landmark, the Teapot Cafe on Capitol Hill on East John Street across from the original Group Health hospital was for sale. The professional children of the original owners wanted to sell the restaurant after their parent's passing. My father paid $10,000 for the business, the rent was $425 a month. The restaurant also came with a nice bonus, a waitress named Mary Ann, of Swedish stock originally from Minnesota. Mary Ann waited patiently as my father put together his minimum viable product by painting the walls, replacing the carpets, recovering the seats and booths, and modifying the wok range with concrete and a stainless steel pot with the bottom reamed out. We even kept the porcelain tea pots left over by the prior owners. Only after we were about ready to open, Mary Ann marched in, I remember this vividly. She camped out in the first booth near the door, ordered a pot of tea, and then demanded my father hire her and that she belonged with the restaurant.
I remember my sister getting flustered trying to translate, unsettled by what was going on. My father laughed and said ok. He admired Mary Ann's strength. Guess he knew anybody who could standup for herself like that would be able to handle negotiating a non-English speaking chef while handling a dining room full of customers.
With this my father had a business that prospered long as we owned it. When my father sold it to other Chinese from Korea, that family continued on with success, putting all of their children through school thanks to the restaurant. Watching all of this starting at the age of 6, I began my apprenticeship.
I'll continue with another post about my direct apprenticeships.
posted by Don Sheu @ 10:49 AM
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