Update/Context: Published in July 2021, part one delves into the origins of the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program and the story behind its unique name. The program serves as the cornerstone of the Entrepreneurial Mindset class I launched in August 2012. Since then, nearly 200 people in Montgomery County, Kansas, have participated in the course. Almost all attendees report a shift in their mindset, and around 20% say the class has changed their lives. Part one highlights how the Ice House program has become a key tool for fostering entrepreneurial thinking in the region.

The Origin of Ice House Entrepreneurship - Part 1

Many people within our network of contacts here locally, around Kansas and across the country are familiar with "Ice House Entrepreneurship." We use the term frequently when we speak of "Ice House" concepts or the "Ice House" way. It must sound very strange to people that don't know the origin of the term. For many of us, the "Ice House" way represents not only the way we should be starting new businesses, but the way we should all be thinking in how we solve the problems in our career, academic and personal lives.

Most businesses start small and grow

Most new businesses do not start as have been portrayed by our society. The impression we've had all these years was that businesses are started by people with business degrees from the top business schools with detailed business plans and projections. The plan is pitched and after receiving startup capital from venture capitalists, an all-or-nothing gamble takes place. I've not seen much evidence of those kinds of start-ups in the various areas of Kansas in which I've lived.

Then, in 2011, I learned of a statistic that ninety-eight percent of the Fortune 500 businesses were started with less than $10,000 in start-up capital. Even the mighty Walmart started out as a small store owned and operated by Sam Walton. Amazon was started in a garage with a few computers and doors converted to desks by adding 4 x 4 legs. (When I did my hard time as an area manager at the now defunct Coffeyville Amazon fulfillment center, that's what we still used for desks; a door on 4 x 4 legs.)

Introduction to the "Ice House" way

This revelation came to me at a conference in Oregon in October of 2011 when I heard, for the first time, Ohio business man, Gary Schoeniger and international speaker and Pulitzer nominated author Clifton Taulbert speak of a book titled "Who Owns the Ice House?"

From gutter cleaning to construction management

Schoeniger, without a business degree and with little money, started a small business cleaning roof gutters. He recognized that homeowners had a problem; they knew their gutters needed to be cleaned, but didn't want to do the work themselves. Although he didn't like ladders either, he went door to door offering to clean gutters for a fee. One customer asked if he could fix her garage door opener. He told her he'd have to check and, in the era preceding Google, he went to the library to find a resource to help him figure out how garage door openers work.

One thing led to another as Gary tweaked his business model, always looking for new problems he could solve for his customers. A few years later, he owned and operated a multi-million dollar construction management firm.

From flunk-out to another family business

At the time Gary was a single father with a teenaged son living with him. The son had a friend named Jason whose personal life was a train wreck. Jason was about to flunk out of high school seeing no relevance in the subject matter. Again, one thing led to another and Schoeniger ended up adopting Jason. With no special training in helping a teenager with Jason's background Gary first set about finding something constructive for Jason to do after school. In his construction management business, Gary knew that most contractors don't like to clean up their sites (we all know this too) so the two went to garage sales picking up bargain tools and supplies that could be used in construction site cleanup. They designed some flyers and business cards and Jason became the proprietor of a construction site cleaning business. He became well known for his reliability and ability to use a calendar to do the work for his customers when and where needed without reminders. Jason operated the successful business until he was graduated from high school and enlisted in the Marine Corp. The business made him see the relevance in much of the subject matter in school and his grades improved greatly.

Gary Schoeniger and adopted son, Jason Campbell, both started businesses with no special education and very little money. The businesses flourished as they both learned to solve problems for their customers.

Changing how we grow entrepreneurs

Gary saw the discrepancy between what we've been led to believe is required to start a business and his own experience, along with that of son Jason. He set about to change the way we educate people in starting businesses by studying the way successful entrepreneurs and business owners think in terms of solving problems for others. There was a huge challenge in this undertaking since most successful entrepreneurs can't verbalize how they think, let alone write it down.

Next time; how it became "Ice House"

In the next column, we'll explore how Schoeniger solved this problem and how he met Clifton Taulbert and co-authored the book "Who Owns the Ice House?" with him to become the center of what we now call the "Ice House Entrepreneurship" program.

Published in July of 2017, this article discusses the problem-solving mindset and why everyone needs one in their personal, professional and academic lives.

Have you ever learned how to do something complicated over time and become good at it? This could be a sport, a business process or skill like woodworking. Many times, we say these things become “second nature,” meaning that we’re good enough so as to make what we do look easy and natural. This is common when we see athletes and performers, artisans and craftsmen or women. Almost always, we acquire new knowledge and skills as a solution to a problem. If we play a sport or a musical instrument, it’s usually answering a problem in that we have an innate need for self-improvement. We may not be a professional athlete or musician, but we can feel good about the process of improving our skills over time. In our professional lives, we all need to be life-long learners and improve our professional knowledge and skillset in order to survive and thrive in the ever volatile economy. This process of continuous learning and self-improvement in order to meet the challenges and solve problems in our personal and professional lives becomes a mindset; a mindset of problem solving. 

Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners have this mindset for problem solving. They have learned to view problems as opportunities for innovative solutions. When problems arise, they don’t throw up their hands and give up, but rather they subconsciously search through their minds, extracting bits and pieces of prior experience to go together to  solve the current problem at hand. We call it entrepreneurial mindset and we believe everyone should have it, no matter what age and no matter what walk of life; student, professional or personal. 

Most people that are good at certain tasks or processes find it difficult to explain how they think while performing those tasks or processes. If you ask them how they know to do things a certain way or how they have made certain decisions, they find it difficult to answer. We call this tacit knowledge, “the kind of knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it.” Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners have this tacit knowledge and it is, indeed, difficult for them to articulate how they think. Gary Schoeniger, founder of the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative and the revolutionary Ice House Entrepreneurship program figured out that the way to learn how they think is to listen to them tell the stories of how they got started in business and about the twisted and winding paths they’ve taken to become successful. The Ice House program is centered on video interviews of dozens of entrepreneurs from around the globe. As you listen to each one, you begin to see some common themes. These themes are organized into the eight life’s lessons of entrepreneurial thinking. The eight life’s lessons, that should be practiced by all of us, are: the power to choose, recognizing opportunities, ideas to action, pursuit of knowledge, creating wealth, building your brand, creating community, and the power of persistence. 

At Fab Lab ICC, we have discovered that adding the process of making things to the entrepreneurial mindset greatly accelerates the development of our mindset for problem solving.  

We would like to become the national leader in the combination of entrepreneurship and the Fab Lab making experience. We believe this combination is an essential ingredient in the economic re-development of our small rural communities across the United States. 

In our area, the Entrepreneurial Mindset class will start on August 23; Wednesday nights through Thanksgiving. Class is a collaborative effort by participants to further develop their mindset of problem solving by listening to video as well as live entrepreneurs while practicing their own problem solving skills.