When Guy Lawson was laid off, he was not by himself; his whole department was laid off also. He saw this as an opportunity to grab employees for his new business. He started what is called a virtual agency, which is a small company made up of freelance employees. They create brochures, corporate catalogs, packaging, websites, tradeshow graphics, and do tradeshow consulting to mostly technology-based firms. Current estimates suggest that nearly ninety percent of new high-potential businesses are created in industries the entrepreneur has previous experience in. That estimate holds true for the cases presented here because both Lawson and Cantley stayed in industries they had previous experience in.The number one reason new businesses don’t get off the ground is lack of capital. The two main types of startup capital are: debt and equity. Guy Lawson considers himself both lucky and unlucky to have received an interest-free loan of 20,000 dollars from his mother. On one hand, he was able to raise enough money to buy all the equipment he needed and since he started a virtual agency he did not have to worry about salaries. He would pay his employees after they finished a job with the money received from the job. On the other hand, there was a lot of extra stress placed on his shoulders because his mother was not rich, and that was most of her savings. In Brenda Cantley’s case, she was able to use money she had saved because her startup costs were so low. She had no employees to worry about (besides herself), and had to guarantee the suppliers that she would pay for the product even if she did not receive the money for it. That added quite a bit of risk to the business but it never became a problem.Any entrepreneur will tell you that the first customer is always the hardest one to get. Brenda Cantley was able to start from the customer base that she had acquired from working with the man in Dallas. She also had conta...
