EnTrends

"We currently outsell all of our
competitors on the newsstands
significantly. Newsstand buyers tend
to be people who are looking to start
something. Also, in economic times
like this, people start more
businesses," says Lesonsky.

Lesonsky says that Entrepreneur is
predominately for people who own
their own business and have already
been in business for five or more
years. She feels that the magazine
today is much more visually arresting
and the writing is better than ever. "I
think we stand out from our
competitors because we try to talk to
people. We don't try to pretend that
we are smarter than anybody else. I
want to keep the tone very
conversational," says Lesonsky.

While she admits that it has been a
tough couple of years for magazines,
she says that the tone Entrepreneur
presents has served [the company]
well.

Lesonsky says her staff has had the
opportunity to interview some very
interesting entrepreneurs over time.
They have also written about people
long before they became successful
and featured in the mainstream media.
"We discovered some people and
their entrepreneurial adventures and
now they're being written about in
Forbes because they sold their
companies for gazillions of dollars.
That's kind of cool."

Entrepreneur has also been ahead of
trends, according to Lesonsky. One of
the things she is most proud of is the
publication's coverage of female
entrepreneurs. "We were writing
about women entrepreneurs long
before anyone realized that women
were even starting businesses," says
Lesonsky. "Entrepreneur was also the
first non-computer magazine to talk
about e-commerce on a regular basis."

In addition to the print copy magazine
and website of the same name,
Entrepreneur Media also has a website
called Bizstartups.com for the under

thirty-five crowd and recently
launched TeenStartups.com. "The
world has changed. You can't just
launch magazines anymore. It's so
expensive. But you can launch online
magazines, particularly when you have
the base that we have at
Entrepreneur," says Lesonsky.

Lesonsky works on other projects as
part of her publication's own
entrepreneurial ventures. She has co-
authored several books and has been
featured on The Oprah Show, Good
Morning America, and CNNfn, as well
as various radio shows. Besides
magazines, Lesonsky says that radio
is her favorite media. She is featured
on various shows about twice a
month.

"I like radio because you're just talking
into a microphone. If you realize that
you are simply addressing people, it's
not scary. I think that's where my
journalism school training really helps.
I am not intimidated by a camera or
microphone. You can also
communicate instantly. You do not
have that five-month lag from
planning to when you see it, as with a
magazine. I also do not have to dress
up or worry about how my hair
looks," says Lesonsky.

One organization that Lesonsky is a
part of, and truly passionate about, is
SIFE, or Students In Free Enterprise, a
mentoring program in which college
students develop programs to teach
children about business. The college
students then present their work to
some of the nations top CEOs.
Lesonsky first went see SIFE's work
five years ago and was hooked from
then on. In college, Lesonsky says
that she was a good student but did
not have the poise or awareness that
she sees in college students today.

"I go to SIFE and I see these
seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen
year old students giving presentations
about how they spend their free time
and it amazes me that, first of all,
students are doing that sort of thing,
but also, that they are so dedicated to

making this work. I feel that the more
we tell people in grade school about
entrepreneurship and about how they
have the opportunity to start their
own businesses, and basically take life
into their own hands, the better off we
will be as a nation, economically.

With regard to the current economic
situation entrepreneurs face,
Lesonsky points to the past decade as
a model for what's to come. She says
that the nineties were the "golden age
of entrepreneurs" for two reasons.
The first was that technological
advances were far greater than before.
The second was that, because people
didn't have jobs, they started
businesses utilizing the new
technology.

She says that right now times are
tough and money is tight, but that
shouldn't discourage entrepreneurs.
"The one thing that we learned from
the dot com crash was that people
were just starting stupid businesses.
They didn't do their homework and
they didn't do their research. They
weren't really entrepreneurs; they were
opportunity seekers. They were just
trying to make money and they didn't
care about the business. They wanted
to spend money on parties. Hopefully
we have learned a lot from that time,
but we can't let that time color us. You
still need to take a risk and see what
you can do. Recessions are always
tough for entrepreneurs because a lot
of people get scared. If you have the
guts to go out and buck the tide, you
will stand out."

Lesonsky points out that many
businesses that are around today were
started in a recession. "We got out of
the recession because people became
entrepreneurs. Their businesses grew,
they hired people, and we got out of it.
We are not seeing that yet, but
hopefully we will. If we are in a
recovery, it is a jobless recovery.
Unless we create jobs, we are only
going to get deeper in the cycle. Jobs
are the key to everything. If people
don't have jobs, they don't spend
money."