Even though I've graduated from Sauder back in 2007, I'm still pretty involved with the school's activities relating to entrepreneurship.

It's interesting since I've been asked to speak at 3 different events in the next couple months. They all want to know how it's like to build a business. I can probably summarize it with one word: HARD (for all the other entrepreneurs out there I know you feel like adding "descriptive" words in front of that word).

I'm playing over a couple ideas in my head right now as to what I want to say for my speaker session - I want to give them a dose of reality and at the same time encourage them to keep trying. Building a business really does require determination and persistence; if you thought revenues come within the first month for this great business plan you have, chances are you can multiply that timeline out by 5 times at least.

Here are the ideas that I have so far for the speaker session topic:

- bootstrapping your business in tough economic times
- two sides of the coin: investors vs. entrepreneurs
- the entrepreneurial curve: expect things to go downhill for the first little while

Given that I will be speaking to budding entrepreneurs I think the above topics will be suitable. Thoughts?