EnTrends [ahn-trends]

Taking a Look at How Modern Entrepreneurs Work & Live!

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."