Recently, I read a post on Facebook from a mother seeking advice and resources to support her daughter’s entrepreneurship.  Here’s my two cents: There are some support programs (like Junior Achievement) that may be in your community or web resources, but more often with entrepreneurs, it comes down to seeing an opportunity and having the courage to jump in.  It’s an adventure.  Entrepreneurship is really about problem solving and planning – so you not only survive the venture but thrive in it.

My parents ran a corner grocery for over 20 years though neither of them had more than a high school education, their operation was successful enough to put five kids through college.  Their example gave me hope when I ventured into self-employment.  Though entrepreneurs follow different paths, here’s five tips that entrepreneurs at any age and stage may find useful.

1) Save money in a separate account for your venture, even if you don’t know what exactly it is yet or how much you’ll need.  The simple act of putting aside money, hopefully regularly, and considering various savings plans and interest rates is a useful exercise on deferred compensation. [As a side note for parents, studies like the Marshmallow experiment show that children who are able to wait for a reward do better in many aspects later in life.]

2) Figure out what you have to offer.  This means you have to believe in yourself and your work enough to put it out there and stand by it.  Whether it is a product or a service, the start-up entrepreneur has to love it enough to spend a lot of time perfecting their skill, craft, and deliverables – often without immediate payback.  A little self-confidence goes a long way.  When I started consulting as an associate in a firm, I was told outright that I couldn’t be a consultant without some real world experience.  Many of the consultants were 20 or more years into their careers and I was not.  But I did have real world experience – and a unique perspective that didn’t readily fit into the current market definition.  Turn’s out, it was the beginning of my market niche.  I just had to get over the doubt they planted in me that I wasn’t going to be able to do it on my own.  Whether you are 9 or 39, if you are female and/or a person of color, you have had that doubt planted in you. Let it go.  Having confidence in yourself will help others have confidence in your product, too. 

3) Understand your values, both financial and priceless.  Itemize necessary resources (your time and supplies) and how you will make, supply and market your product or service.  Make a list of what you have, what you need, and how much it will cost.  Then separate the start-up costs from the on-going or per-unit product/service costs; this will help you figure out how to price your product or service.  It is important to do the math to see how much you are putting in and getting back from each deliverable.  At this point, you will also need to talk about your values, what you are contributing to the market, consumer, and community.  The non-quantifiable part of entrepreneurship is the impact – what added value have you put in or will your customer get?  What is new or different because of your product or service, and how much is that worth to you and to your target customer? 

4) Build relationships with integrity.  Business too often focuses on transactions, but successful businesses are built on a series of small conversations, interactions, negotiations, and partnerships between people.  Build trust.  [Remember the delayed gratification reference above, a key component in making that work is trust that a reward would follow.]  Develop a sounding board of trustees.  Don’t be afraid to market to your friends and family, if for nothing else but a practice pitch and some feedback.  And don’t be afraid to make new friends and colleagues.  Remember what you figured out about your values and value-added, here’s where you put your values to action.  Give people something to think about, talk about, and try out.  The best marketing comes from seeing the difference you’ve made.

5) Learn and grow.  It seems all entrepreneurs have a drive to keep finding better ways of doing things, new products or processes.  With daily effort (some of that in the form of practicing patience), I saw my independent business grow a little more each year for almost four years.    I learned tremendously about my field of work and my values.  I grew; my business changed.  Success isn’t an end – it is a process of continual improvement.  Even as I am in an adventure, I am always wondering and preparing – what’s the next venture?


Perspective by Sida Ly-Xiong

Perspective written by Yer Chang

Let’s talk Hmong!

No I didn’t mean, “Nyob zoo.”  I meant let’s have a candid conversation about the Hmong people. 
It amazes me to ponder how far Hmong people have come, yet still so far behind.  Let’s start with the
positive things first, Hmong owned businesses, Hmong charter schools, Hmong studies, Hmong newspapers, radio, magazines, Hmong this and Hmong that – you get the picture.  This is particularly true for Hmong people living within the Twin Cities area.  Also, let’s not forget the Hmong politicians elected to public
office.  Plenty of growth and opportunities for Hmong people, that’s exciting and invigorating to see and
witness – I may also add, claim! You see within the life span of 30 plus years, Hmong people have
accomplished many great things yet there is always room for improvement. So it’s 2013, where do we go from here?

Before we think about the future, let’s remember our history and how or what has brought us to this great place, America!  We, the Hmong, fled from the mountainous juggle of Laos, crossed the Mekong River, and lived in the refugee camps in Thailand for many years before arriving to the United States. My father and uncles fought alongside with the U.S. CIA during the Vietnam War and so did many of my Hmong friends’ father and uncles.  We had escaped the war to come to America for prosperity and a better life for ourselves and for our children’s future.  The war forever altered us a group of people.

The first wave of Hmong immigrants came to the U.S. in the mid to late 1970’s.  My family arrived to
California in 1980.  With the kind hearts of White Christian Americans who gave us basic necessities such as
kitchen ware and clothes, they were the first impression of what we knew of this place called America.  Stories of not knowing how to turn on the kitchen faucet and getting water out of the toilet were common and laughable memories shared years later from parents who first settled in the U.S.  After seeing so many of our family members dying from gun shots, babies being over dosed with opium to keep the silence from being found by the enemies and countless bodies drowning in the Mekong River, we remain a strong and dignified group of people who sacrificed so much.  You see the majority of Hmong people were agriculturist in the mountains, only the privileged few received an education.  Learning English was tough; I remember
being in ESL class with the rest of the Hmong kids studying the language.  It was hard to imagine but by fourth grade I was already interpreting for parents and community members as a senseless act of volunteerism in my early adolescence years. Little did I know language was part of survival, if you know the language you can communicate – ask for food, shelter, health care benefits and all the other basic necessities to live. I was too busy surviving rather than thriving in school, which may have contributed to how far I had come or not come in reaching my full potential – only to add that many of my peers had similar experiences as I did growing up Hmong.   

So what happened to the Hmong after the hardship of the war and transition to the hard life in America? 
Not much has changed.  Hmong children continue to fall behind in academics as compared to their white
peers. There are still very few Hmong people in white collar jobs, mostly working in blue collar, manufacturing or agriculture jobs.  Most families are trying to make ends meet, living in poverty.  Many elders in the community speak little or no English. Gangs continue to be prevalent in the community.  Early marriages are quiet static.  Boys are valued more than girls, and yes, patriarchy is still very prevalent.  
 
So what does this ALL mean to us?  
 
There is no clear answer to a complex story cloth of the Hmong.  However, I do think that we, as a community, Hmong and non-Hmong, can work together to improve the state of the Hmong people. 
Don’t let our rich history be our weakness rather let it be our strength.   Let us not forget where we come from and the journey that it has taken us through to get to where we are today.  There is much needed
work to be done, if we bond together, create a vision and plan for the future – we can work together to make the next 30 years even better than the last 30 years.  We can influence and shape it by starting with our own family, our community and at the institutions that already serve the vast majority of Hmong people. Change starts with you and me.

Oh brother, 

This past election year, our family dinners were pretty quiet; we aren’t
content to fill the silence with small talk. So we don’t agree on politics. Is
it just me, or do you feel the blue/red national divide drawing its line across
the dining table, too? 

We both studied art – spent time painting and creating, together. Enough to
agree that beauty, like truth, is subjective. It’s art if you frame it right and
put it on a pedestal. And the truth is that the facts don’t mean anything
without the frame. So how did we grow up together and end up with such different
political frames? 

Our parent’s lives were full of surprises. They lived in three countries by
the time they were in their thirties, and raised kids who spoke their native
language like foreign exchange students. They invested in the promise of
America: being able to choose our own adventure – remember those books? Only for
us, there’s no pre-written happy ending. And in this world, working hard and
being good simply isn’t enough. 

Our refugee parents, and this nation of immigrants, built their lives on the
promise of success through perseverance, effort, and a little luck. A path was
laid out: education, hard work, rewards. You have only to make your way forward.
Be good at what you do. Get what you deserve. But that isn’t how the story has
played out. 

Our path was not easy and not made easier by pretending that it was the same
path as everyone else’s. Even now, inexplicably, our boys are struggling in
school – just as you did – even with completed homework and good grades. Are
they getting what they deserve – did you? Their story is like so many other
boys’ of color; they aren’t just failing out of school, school is failing them. 
 
We grew up learning to give thanks every Sunday and call it charity for what
was given. We lined up for food that arrived in packages like rat poison (and
sent our brother to the hospital). We dressed in clothes no longer fit for other
children. We went to school with friends who laughed- sometimes with us,
sometimes at us. They helped in so many ways it hurt. And though we weren’t
always sure what we were being cured of, we offered them a token of gratitude.
That’s what they needed. That was what they knew to do. We were refugee kids in
a place where the only other reference to fleeing from war was Julie Andrews
singing in the mountains.


The fact is they needed us too: to sleep better at night, knowing that
something large and terrible happened simply because they allowed it to. And we
survived that terror. How do we move beyond the charity that labels us givers
and receivers? The charity that taught us to first shed ourselves, our culture,
then put it on a shelf for display, and finally, for sale. I read the labels, I
know what they mean. How sad to believe we are only worth as much as someone
else will offer. We must accept that we needed help to get us here – and most of
all we need to stand together to get ourselves out of here.


Your liberation is bound with mine; we all give and receive. The WE is a
beast – an unruly creature of perpetual give and take across the aisle, across
color lines, across gender, religion, and all the things that could divide us.
The big WE cannot go on favoring one over another, valuing one kind of
contribution over the other. Or we will all pay the price. Where’s the hope in
taming the collective beast, when we are still battling our private demons?


So far, the answer has been to divide and conquer the monstrosity of WE made
of tiny little I’s, each with a role so different we question whether they
belong together at all. But we cannot accept that good fences make good
neighbors – it’s what the privileged say to the rest of us to make us accept the
divide. It’s what got us into this mess in the first place.


Hope for something better –something within your power to make better – is
necessary. Equally necessary is recognizing the fact that no matter how hard you
work, there is still a gatekeeper to where the grass really is greener on the
other side. Not because we want grass –chemlawns marketed to the masses – but
because they are watering their fenced-in golf courses while our communities are
in a drought. What we all forget is that the gate swings both ways. A difference
is not a divide. We can be made whole.

Welcome to the new year with a new blog, Around the Table.  This table is a place to gather, tinker, toil- generally ruminate on What is and What is Possible. 

I’ve heard “if you’re not at the table you’re on the table” – well, let’s make a new kind of table.  I’ve spent too much time trying to get to someone else’s table.  When finally seated, I look around and too often still see I am part of a select demographic Fill-in-the-Blank: person of color, woman, refugee, Asian, etc.  I think I am supposed to be honored to have made it to the table, and I do count my blessings for the privileges I have enjoyed.  While doing so, I can’t help but wonder if again I am in the minority – a lesser-established category of those who recognize their white or near-white privilege.

What happens at these tables?  In my experience, not much.  It’s a slow process, this decision-making we call democracy.  But like art, sometimes it’s the negative space that we need to pay attention to – the things that are not happening, but need to be.  So yes, not much is happening – all the more reason to leap into this with gusto!  
 
The first myth I’d like to bust is: you have to get the right people to be at the table.   Ok, the whole assumption that the table is where decisions are made is only one part of the equation.  Yes, we
need more representation, equality, and champions at the table, but we also need them in our businesses, on the airwaves, in our classrooms and living rooms.

Equality isn’t about the right mix of people taking turns to sit at the table, but having everyone’s seat respected where ever they sit.

I was at a summit recently where someone said she was tired of being the only Fill-in-the-Blank at the
table.  Sounds familiar, I thought.  Understandably, she was frustrated at being continually invited to be the almighty Voice of Her People.  This is the curse of the over-achieving, underrepresented; the cycle is perpetuated by that myth that “the right people have to be at the table.” Being modest, she probably
understands that she isn’t the only member of this underrepresented demographic qualified to be there.  Being egalitarian, she might even believe everyone should be at the table.  However, maybe having a flood of invitations herself, she didn’t seem to realize that perhaps not everyone was invited.  

Inevitably, the seat at one table opens doors to other tables, which creates and perpetuates a long list of invitations bottlenecking to the same set of attendees.  Too often, tables are convened by invitation only; and more often than not, these opportunities are closed to the rest of us.  Sister, if you got in, please open the door for the rest of us, because our absence isn’t about us not wanting a seat at the table.  
 
This brings me to the second myth I must take issue with, which is: the demand for more representation, equality, and champions from Fill-in-the-Blank community must give those of us from these communities some advantage, platform, or priority.  Ah, this is just teeming with assumptions about a righteous, if not patronizing, sense of equity and justice at the head of the table. Where is this so-called demand for more representation, equality, and champions? In short, just because we know we should be enlightened, doesn’t mean we are.  Just what about disparity statistics makes people think that somehow their actions and choices aren’t part of what creates or sustains these numbers? Yes, it’s easier to tackle the problem when you know what the problem is, but that doesn’t mean you are part of the solution, yet.  Not enough of us are actually crossing that bridge from knowledge to action. 
 
I want to close this first entry with a couple thoughts: 1) don’t wait for an invitation to the next big thing, be your own Can’t-Miss-Event, and 2) It’s not enough to know better, we must do better.

Perspective written by Sida Ly-Xiong