Main Street Entrepreneur ― Build Your Dream Company Doing What You Love Where You Live

Main Street Startup presents nine powerful keys to help you build your own successful business. These keys were gleaned from interviews conducted with 100 small-town entrepreneurs during a remarkable bicycle ride from the west coast of Oregon to the east coast of Virginia. The author rode 4,000 miles in 45 days, spent 246 hours on a bike seat, climbed 155,000 vertical feet, and visited more than 100 cities across the country. Although he weathered hail and snow in Montana, unrelenting head winds in Kansas, a hard crash in Kentucky, and torrential rains in Virginia, his journey was mostly delightful sunny days, nights with stars as bright as diamonds, and a glorious homage to American ingenuity. The best part of his bizarre and beautiful escapade was the remarkable entrepreneurs he met along the way. These innovative business builders are living in attractive places they want to live and flying under the radar of the media. For example: Benny and Julie Benson design, build, and operate biomass power plants all over the country from their corporate office in Sisters, Oregon, a beautiful town of just over 2,000 people. Gail and Will Williams have built a thriving sewing company on a gorgeous ridge in northern Idaho that manufactures seat cushions for 600 ski resorts world-wide. Jason Kintzler has developed a disruptive technology in his hometown of Lander, Wyoming that has transformed the public relations industry his clients include Pepsico, Walmart, Budweiser and 50,000 other businesses. And Hank Viccellio creates and ships his elegant wearable art” around the world from his shop on the vibrant waterfront of Yorktown, Virginia.

These extraordinary role models have a great deal to teach us about building a purpose-driven business, meeting important community needs, developing a supporting cast, utilizing a host of resources other than money, working with a zealous tenacity, giving mind-boggling customer service, diversifying revenue streams, giving back to the broader community, and living life joyfully. The important lessons taught by these entrepreneurs will benefit readers who want to:
Start and operate their own new company
Keep their job but diversify income
Make their current business more sustainable
Grow an existing company to a higher level
Do what they love for the long term
Create the lifestyle of their dreams

The nine keys to success presented in this book are the very foundation of grass-roots business building; they are the differences that make the difference” between success and failure when starting, operating, and growing a company. Not everyone can build a Facebook, Google or eBay, but anyone with passion and tenacity can do what these entrepreneurs all across America are doing. Readers will learn how to achieve their own dreams and won’t need a 30-page business plan, venture capital, or an exit strategy. All they need to do is implement nine keys to success.

Michael Glauser, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Jeffrey D. Clark Center for Entrepreneurship at Utah State University. He is the founder and former chairman of Golden Swirl Management Company, and a founder of Northern Lights. Both companies were sold to CoolBrands International, a world leader in the frozen dessert industry. Mike has consulted with numerous corporations in the areas of business strategy, market research, organizational effectiveness and leadership development. His clients have included Associated Food Stores, The Boeing Company, Clinical Innovations, Department of Workforce Services, Esso of Inter-America, Harmon Music Group, Saudi Consolidated Services and USANA Health Sciences.

Glauser has held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina, the University of Petroleum & Minerals, and Westminster College. He has designed and taught courses in business strategy, entrepreneurship, management and organizational behavior. Mike has published numerous articles in professional journals and magazines, and published two books on entrepreneurship: Glorious Accidents and The Business of Heart. He has appeared on Great Day America, First Business from Washington, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, Voice of America, Good Morning Chicago and Associated Press Radio. He lives in Logan, UT.