contradiction. One direction towards the desired harmony - the intervention of a third force, the state. Empty talk about the need to implement targeted programs to support small businesses, about creating favorable conditions for its regulation, has become sore. Quite a few funds have been safely embezzled under the pretext of achieving these lofty goals. Something, of course, is changing, but desperately slowly. Another way is to simply leave this very small business alone, not to destroy the “chicken nests”, not to do bureaucratic and bandit evil, since there is no desire to do good. In this case, the formation of a vitally active and successful entrepreneurial class will occur due to internal human strengths and aspirations, to the description of which we will now turn.

Internal human forces, as you know, are not unlimited, but no one knows our psychological and volitional reserves. But they try to belittle. All the same psychologists came up with all sorts of smart and upsetting terms for self-esteem. For example, they invented the "fundamental attribution error". This concept reflects an unfortunate human weakness: to attribute the causes of one's failures to external circumstances, and the sources of victories to one's own abilities only. The simple moral of this book is this: believe in hidden abilities and do not be afraid to overcome the most monstrous circumstances.

Unfortunately, there are "influential circles" (I just don't know what else to call these people) who are interested in spreading the myth that "entrepreneurship is available to a few." Now we will convincingly debunk this audience. First, so say the losers, the captives of the fundamental attribution error. External circumstances and, in particular, the difficulties of the process itself, you see, they were especially hindered.

Secondly, a large tribe of consultants is interested in their own income. The income of consultants is derived from their work activities. And labor activity consists in hanging noodles on the ears of those being consulted, passing off the simple for the complex and the ordinary for the outlandish.

Finally, oddly enough, successful entrepreneurs themselves are not eager to share the secrets of their success. In words, they all welcome fair competition, but we know that there is nothing sweeter than a healthy and long-term monopoly. So barriers for beginners are lining up various, including psychological ones. Like, do not poke your head, brothers, in this disastrous business. Get lost for nothing.

Well, what now to do for those hesitant, who is in thought? On the one hand, these figures convince us that there are clearly not enough small and medium-sized entrepreneurs for the prosperity of the economy. On the other hand, the chorus of voices of "well-wishers" does not stop, warning about the dangers of the businessman's thorny path. Finally, the state, to put it mildly, does not contribute to the conscription of recruits into the army of business workers.

But what to do! Don't care and forget. Forget about all the warnings, barriers and obstacles, envious glances and other little things in life. Take risks, pull yourself out of the swamp by the hair, grab your trump cards when dealing history cards. There will be something to tell wealthy grandchildren.

READ BEFORE YOU GO
I hope that, having torn this book to holes and inspired by the stories set forth in it, you will infect yourself and your loved ones with a positive attitude and a healthy desire to outdo our heroes. And to help you in your noble undertaking, we decided not only to collect here sixty testimonials of personal success, but also to provide these testimonies with generalizing comments. For our purposes, the material in the book is divided into two parts. We conditionally called the first part "Installation". This name does not quite correctly reflect our intentions. God forbid someone seriously teach how right and wrong to start their own business. The only thing we claim is a generalization of the experience that we managed to collect and fix on newsprint. As statisticians would semi-contemptuously say, “the sample is not representative” (neither by age, nor by origin, nor by starting conditions, nor by any other significant signs). Nevertheless, even relying on interviews with sixty persons, one can extract curious patterns in the development of the entrepreneurial process.

We have divided the entrepreneurial process into natural stages of development. Starting conditions. Finding and arranging a niche for business. Daily struggle for daily bread. Attempt of philosophical generalization and formulation of principles. Finding a balance between personal and work life. In the first part of the book, each stage has its own small "training" chapter, where we fix the observations and conclusions that we managed to draw on the basis of sixty interviews.

These same "training" chapters serve as a kind of guide to the second part. You're not really going to read all sixty interviews in alphabetical order - although I would welcome such a scrupulous approach. The second part contains the full texts of these sixty interviews.

As already mentioned, all the publications collected here under one cover were originally published in the young, but already popular daily newspaper Business. The section "My business" in this newspaper is almost daily. So I sincerely advise you to continue your acquaintance with virtual portraits of new business heroes on the pages of the newspaper. In the meantime, do not hesitate to start studying this book.

PART ONE. Installation
Chapter first. THEIR UNIVERSITIES

Here is my formula for success: Get up early, work late and pump oil from your wells.

Paul Getty, billionaire

Suppose that you are desperately tired of your neighbor's new Mercedes, and somehow you don't want to scratch his hood at night with a carnation - you have already grown out of such pranks. The only sensible alternative is to join the restless tribe of entrepreneurs yourself. Inwardly, you decided to take this, undoubtedly, a responsible step in your life “from next Monday”, but here is the problem: what should be the algorithm? where to get a brilliant idea and start-up capital "for promotion"? should you start alone or still look for associates? questions, questions.

To test your plans, you should, of course, write a sound business plan - but with this to the consultants. We agreed that on these pages we will try to rely on the accumulated practical experience hidden in sixty interviews. Let's start extracting the regularities of the starting Phase of development.

GREAT IDEA
In my experience, it is the lack of an inspiring "castle in the air" that is the most common excuse (or compelling reason, depending on how you look at it) to justify the fact that you are still not an entrepreneur. I have a friend who is the commercial director of a very large plant. So, it has been “starting” for several years now. He tirelessly searches for a bright idea, does not want to "exchange for trifles." That is, for many It's really hard to pinpoint anything in particular. Often there is a so-called cognitive dissonance, popularly expressed by the saying "it's good where we are not." The problem of choosing from a large number of options. What if a discarded idea contains more potential for enrichment than an accepted one? In fact, there are three promising areas for your search: the conversion of accumulated professional knowledge, a lucky chance that turned up, insight (“Eureka!”).

Let us begin our analysis in the most natural and reliable way. Each of us has "intangible assets" in the form of accumulated positive and negative experience, acquaintances and connections, and rare knowledge. Think: what do you know how to do differently than others? What can you do better than others? And try to build your original business model based on these intangible assets (“core competencies”).

Sergei Fursov, who treats with homeopathy according to the Voll method, was actually “recruited” in 1989 by a German homeopathic firm that paid for his studies in Munich and a computer. In the early 1990s, homeopaths in Moscow were a rarity, as was professional knowledge of this method of treatment. The knowledge gained and a free niche allowed Sergey to open his own clinic and give credit to the Germans. Vitaly Styshnev, under socialism, carried out defense orders at the Institute of Chemical Plant Protection. Together with his colleagues, he succeeded in the conversion of unique secret defense technologies. Today he successfully fights crop pests.

Yevgeny Volkov became a system administrator at the age of 15, and decided to engage in programming at the age of eight, when his parents brought him to the Kasparov club, where the boy saw a computer for the first time. Today, he runs a dynamic database and e-commerce website programming firm. Now let's move on to His Majesty the Case, to which I personally treat with great reverence. The case in its purest form happened in the life of Natalia Mushtakova. At one time she was the director of the elite women's clothing store of the Hermes foreign economic association. Then somehow tired, and she just sat at home. Suddenly, one of her old friends called and asked on a voluntary basis to help in the management of the Fishing World trading company. Natalia accepted and agreed. This is how it started her bright path to the male world of fishing - now she is organizing it in different parts of our vast country.

Physicist Alexei Krivenkov was initially known as the founding father of several popular Internet portals. But he did not sit still. And during the next trip, in Italy, he came across a sheet of noble handmade paper. Got it by accident, by the way. So, since then, after years of intense searches and chemical experiments, his wife began to manage