Mike Michalowicz - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Michael Michalowicz is an American entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

, lecturer,
author and television personality. He writes for CNBC Small Business and is a small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

.

He is the author of the book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
(published Sept. 2008), is an advocate of a business philosophy by the
same name,
manages a behavioral e-marketing firm called Obsidian Launch
and is the "business rescue" segment host for MSNBC's Your Business.
He also hosted the reality television program called Bailout!.

Michalowicz is a monthly columnist for The Wall Street Journal's small business section, and writes the "Small Business Shortcuts" series. He is a regular contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine and is also a columnist for American Express's "Open Forum" series.

He was a recurring entrepreneurship expert for CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch was a talk show on CNBC hosted by Donny Deutsch. The show offered success stories that outlined a "roadmap to the American Dream." Every weeknight at 10pm, Donny Deutsch, the CEO of advertising and media business Deutsch Inc., introduced the audience to successful...

. He had over ten appearances, including the CES Roadshow series.
Michalowicz has also appeared on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

, Fox News, ABC News Now

ABC News Now

ABC News Now is an American 24-hour news channel offered via digital television, broadband and streaming video at ABCNews.com and on mobile phones. It delivers breaking news, headline news each half hour, and wide range of entertainment and lifestyle programs. The channel is currently available in...

, CNBC's On the Money

On the Money

CNBC's On the Money, hosted by Carmen Wong Ulrich, is a television program that focuses primarily on personal finance, a programming departure from CNBC's "investor focused" weekday programming....

and Pat Croce

Pat Croce

Pasquale "Pat" Croce is an American entrepreneur, sports team executive and owner, author, and TV personality....

's Down To Business.

He is a lecturer on the subjects of entrepreneurship, sales, and behavioral marketing techniques
at universities, corporations and organizations throughout the United States and Europe.

He authored the book and hosted the reality program as "Mike"
Michalowicz as opposed to under his given name, Michael. According to the author's biography on the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur website, his last name, Michalowicz, is pronounced mi-CAL-o-witz.

Philosophy

Michalowicz has lectured at US and international universities, keynoted corporate gatherings,
authored a book, published articles for national periodicals, and made national television and
radio appearances as an expert discussing entrepreneurial concepts and
approaches he terms as a Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

This name is derived from the following analogy paraphrased from Michalowicz's book:

Have you ever been in the bathroom only to realize there are a mere three sheets of toilet paper left...but
somehow, often with the help of the trashcan remnants, manage to make
it work? This is how a Toilet Paper Entrepreneur runs their
business... they make do with what they have, pull "miracles" out of
the trash and make more and more with less and less.

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur philosophy is based on the notion that
not only can one start a business with fewer resources
, but that
having fewer resources can actually work to your benefit
. For
example, having fewer resources can force the business to address an issue in highly innovative ways versus simply spending money blindly to solve it.
Michalowicz's writing and interview style is blunt honesty, speckled with humor. In an interview with Inc. Magazine, Michalowicz was asked "how to balance work and family life". His response was "You don't. And the fact that you are asking this before you have even put in your first five years with a new business, means that you probably are not cut out to be an entrepreneur."

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (Book)

In September 2008, Obsidian Launch released Michalowicz's book The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. The book has subsequently been translated into multiple foreign languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. The irreverent book is an entertaining hard-edged read mixed with valuable business lessons from an experienced entrepreneur.
The author argues a successful entrepreneur embodies the flexibility and vision many large companies lack. Michalowicz states that hard-line traditional business planning is ineffective and often detrimental; and that successful growth of a business requires a dynamic planning method, called a 3 Sheet Strategy.

Among other growth techniques, Michalowicz argues the leap frogging strategy of significantly pushing ahead in one "area of innovation", either Price, Convenience or Quality. Michalowicz shows examples of this, including the rise and fall of Blockbuster, Netflix and Redbox.

In The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Michalowicz argues that the General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), while a standard practice for measuring a company's P&L, is in fact detrimental to an entrepreneur's money management. He argues the use of a method he calls Profit First Accounting (PFA) instead of GAAP alone.

In the book, Michalowicz occasionally pulls from his own entrepreneurial background, explaining how funding actually hampered his company's growth. Ultimately it was the lack of invest funds that helped his businesses grow quickly and healthily.

Michalowicz manages a website, also called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, with a large volume of resources for entrepreneurs.

Obsidian Launch

Michalowicz is Founder and President of Obsidian Launch, a firm specializing in behavioral web optimization.

Bailout! (Reality Television Program)

Michalowicz is was the host of the reality television program Bailout! The executive producer for Bailout! is Wil Surratt, the former executive producer of The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

. Bailout! highlights struggling entrepreneurs and Michalowicz is given 24 hours to fix their businesses. Bailout! was subsequently canceled and now airs on "webisodes" through BBE distribution.

Select television appearances

Michalowicz is a recurring, small business expert, guest on CNBC (over 10 appearances), ABC (over 3 appearances), MSNBC (over 7 appearances), including:

Dec 19, 2007 CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

- Thinking Big Segment

Dec 27, 2007 CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

- Alienating Your Base Segment

May 28, 2010 MSNBC's Your Business (TV series) - Men & Women In Business Segment

Aug 27, 2010 MSNBC's Your Business (TV series) - Getting Your First Client

Apr 3, 2011 MSNBC's (Michalowicz Hosting) Your Business (TV series) - Makeover On Main

July 18, 2011 MSNBC's Your Business (TV series) - Protecting Your Brand

September 9, 2011 MSNBC's (Michalowicz Hosting) Your Business (TV series) - Saving Swing Sets

Early career

Michalowicz is a native of Boonton, NJ. He graduated from Virginia Tech with two degrees, one in finance and one in management science. He launched his first company,
Olmec Systems, at the age of 24, in August 1996
.
During his
tenure at Olmec, he was recognized by the Small Business Administration

Small Business Administration

The Small Business Administration is a United States government agency that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and strengthen the nation's economy by enabling the establishment and viability of small businesses...

as The Young
Entrepreneur of the Year
. Michalowicz completed MIT's 'Birthing of Giants' entrepreneurial program in 2003. The program is sponsored by YEO (Young Entrepreneurs Organization) and Inc. Magazine, and is facilitated at MIT facilities by professors, lecturers & entrepreneurs.
He sold the company through a private transaction on December 31,
2002. On January 1, 2003, he launched his second company, PG Lewis &
Associates (PGLA), which grew to national prominence by 2005, by completing
large data forensics projects for historically significant court cases
including the Enron collapse

. PGLA was acquired by Protiviti, a division of Robert Half International (NYSE: RHI) on March 1, 2006. Terms were not disclosed.

His current company, Obsidian Launch, is a behavioral web design and web optimization company, that employs monitoring techniques to dynamically adjust web sites to capture visitors' natural behaviors.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.