The NanoConglomerate(TM): Proven Strategies for Creating Your Own Profitable & Scalable Startup Business Enterprise

By Greta N. Anderson, Ph.D.

Is a NanoConglomerate™ right for you?

Are you looking for a proven system to build your own business?

Are you eager to identify reliable ways to increase your earnings?

Are you interested in learning how successful entrepreneurs create unique small business enterprises?

Are you ready to begin creating a successful and sustainable small business enterprise, for less than $300?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then The NanoConglomerate™: Proven Strategies for Creating Your Own Profitable & Scalable Startup Business Enterprise is the book for you! Complete with real world case studies and actionable strategies for you to use immediately, this primer will put you on the right course to starting and growing your NanoConglomerate™.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pitchmark Publishing
• Release date: Mar 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732115415

Greta N. Anderson, Ph.D.

Dr. Greta Anderson is a seasoned researcher, business builder, and educator. With more than two decades of experience as a highly successful serial entrepreneur, Dr. Greta has expertly-built and managed her own NanoConglomerate™ for nearly 15 years. With no other part-time or full-time employees, Dr. Greta has single-handedly generated over $9 million in revenue in the last decade alone. As a renowned and proven business coach, she has leveraged her expertise in research, business evaluation, and strategic positioning to create innovative and profitable business growth strategies for her clients. Dr. Greta has collaborated on numerous projects focused on nano-businesses, and currently co-hosts the bimonthly podcast, The Path Less Traveled.

Book preview

Introduction - My NanoConglomerate™ Story

Before you read this book, it is only fair that I introduce myself and share my story with you.

I am Dr. Greta Anderson and for as long as I can remember, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset that has lead me to create small, yet well-designed and profitable businesses. Most of these businesses have been related to something of significance to me or a problem I wanted to solve. Whether it was a subscription-based lunchroom snack exchange program[1] or reservation-only movie nights[2], I’ve always seemed to identify opportunities for building simple yet effective and profitable lines of business that required neither little-to-no startup capital nor employees. The key for me was to imagine a better way of doing something and then executing that new and improved experience.

During graduate school, I observed an array of really cool nano-business opportunities, but between class attendance, studying, my role as a graduate research assistant, etc. there were simply not enough hours in the day to pursue any of them. The years went by and later I earned a Ph.D., with all aspirations of pursuing a career as a university professor and researcher. But, as always happens, I soon realized that my keen interest in the application of social scientific research for business growth would be better put to use outside of the academic world.

With some solid years of professional research experience under my belt, I became a Research Director for an amazing organization that’s globally renowned for its analytically-rooted business consulting services.  My time there was invaluable, as I was able to learn so much about the elements essential to business sustainability and growth. I developed expertise in the luxury travel and hospitality vertical, and eventually moved on to serve as a senior researcher for one of the top global hotel brands. 

My corporate career was going great - I was moving up the organizational chart and building a great reputation as a business research leader, making good money, and traveling the world on the company dime. I was living on cloud nine - what’s not to love?  But, something was missing for me. Just like how you may feel, as you read this, I wanted more. I found myself increasingly drawn to creating and building new nano-businesses. 

In order to pursue this passion while also managing a rather demanding corporate career, I determined that I would need to focus on some areas that I could operate and manage rather seamlessly from my Blackberry™.  After all, most of my days were spent on my day job - either in my office, or away on business travel.  Instead of forcing it, I committed to letting the right ideas about the type of nano-business I’d create just come to me.  Although this wait and see approach worked for me, in the beginning, I quickly realized that this approach lacked both structure and strategy. I needed a more formulaic system to help me strategically narrow down the best nano-businesses to pursue - ones that aligned with my interests and ones that could be profitable on day one. So, I began to brainstorm how I could create product and/or service offerings utilizing a combination of my interests, skills, and experiences. Over time, I developed a host of helpful skills that helped me to create many potential business ideas on a regular basis - we’ll discuss that later!

In my role as a researcher, in the luxury hotel industry, I was frequently given the unique opportunity to garner feedback on an array of topics from individuals (both business and leisure travelers) whose time was regarded as quite valuable - by others and themselves.  As a result, I could see that individuals were willing to pay a significant premium for services that were exquisitely catered to their needs, schedules and desired conveniences. Not surprisingly, many of these people could be viewed as quite successful from a career perspective - corporate executives, senior government officials, and business owners. The more I looked into this niche, the more I could see the possibility. Though diverse in their professional roles, points of view, interests, needs and desires, there was a common thread among them: they all desired to have customized products and services catered to meet their unique needs and circumstances.  For sure, these insights were extremely helpful to my employer in creating unparalleled hospitality experiences for its client base.  But, for me, being immersed in an environment focusing on identifying and addressing customers’ unique service delivery wants and needs was (and has been) an essential element in helping me to create my NanoConglomerate™.

During this time in my life, I had begun taking steps to weave my extensive tennis background into a line of business.  As a certified teaching professional, I had been invited to become a member of a team of teachers that provided instruction at a variety of facilities in my local area. This opportunity was great for many reasons, but mainly because it gave me a bird’s-eye view of this local niche industry. Making use of my skills and experience in quickly identifying customer wants, I was able to brainstorm ways to offer similar services that would create a better customer experience than what was already available. This might sound complicated, but it was really quite straightforward:  I was going to create a tennis instruction and racquet service nano-business that would cater to a very specific niche. While the area had a plethora of qualified tennis instructors, far fewer were (still) actively involved in national level competition, which can often bring with it a different set of attributes, resources, and insights.  As a nationally ranked player, at the time, I realized that this created a wonderful opportunity for me to capitalize on...and I jumped on it!

In a short amount of time, every spare hour I had was booked with either a group instruction clinic or a private lesson.  Because of my extensive background as a competitive player (on a tight budget), and my knowledge of tennis equipment, I had become a very good racquet stringer. I had a professional quality stringing machine at my home, and before long I was stringing upwards of two to three dozen racquets per week. 

In the matter of a few months, I had developed a carousel of nano-businesses from my existing passions, skills, and voids identified in an industry I knew quite well.  As much as I was enjoying the growth of my new endeavor, the demands on me were increasing exponentially by the day.  At this point, my NanoConglomerate™ was comprised of the following:

●  Full-time career position:  50-55 hours/week

●  Tennis instructor: 10-15 hours/week

●  Racquet services business:  7-10 hours/week

At this stage, I was not fully aware of the importance of creating a healthy mix of active and passive income in my NanoConglomerate™, but I was quickly realizing that some adjustments would have to be made.

The more I worked in corporate America, the more I could feel that my entrepreneurial itch would continue to haunt me. Simply put, my corporate success would never fill the void.

Eventually, I made the decision to take the leap and become a full-time entrepreneur.  (But the more conservative part of me always requires multiple revenue streams, so I needed to add to my NanoConglomerate™ now that my primary revenue stream was going away.)  After years of earning a reputation for my analytical capabilities, I was able to quickly build a niche as a research whisperer of sorts - providing technical services for business consultants in need of more sophisticated analytics and reporting. With my speed and efficiency, I was able to garner premium fees for work requiring nearly immediate turnaround. So, this quickly became a lucrative venture that required intense focus during work time, but really only involved the equivalent of 3-4 workdays per month.

With this spare time, I become increasingly involved in a local niche sports retail shop.  The existing owner had great ideas, a small yet loyal customer base, industry contacts and charisma, but limited knowledge or interest in the nuts and bolts of business building and management. The owner invited me to consider coming in as a partner, and after some careful deliberation on my part, I joined the team. I learned so many important lessons about business ownership during my tenure as an owner here that I would need to write another book to cover it all. For sure there are scars, but I’m thankful that I learned many of these lessons when I did because they’ve helped me to now always make data-based decisions and temper expectations about human behavior. You’ll likely learn too, that when it