Gaining knowledge from professors, mentors and peers and starting passion projects now, is the advice of successful entrepreneurs and BYU–Hawaii alumni Richie and Natalie Norton.
“It’s okay not to have all the answers,” said Natalie Norton, who is also a photographer. “As long as we’re in it all the way, we’re going to find what we need and build what we feel compelled to build.” Knowledge is a tool chest students can use to help build their path, choice by choice, she said.
Richie Norton, also a best-selling author, said every good thing he has done and is doing now has come as a direct result of going to BYUH. “It all started from a crazy idea when I was at BYUH, and it later turned into something big and good.”
Richie Norton has started several companies and has mentored managers and entrepreneurs on how to start, grow and optimize their own businesses. He wrote a book about the experience, called, “The Power of Starting Something Stupid,” which was endorsed by author Brené Brown, publisher Steve Forbes, and business consultant and author, Stephen M.R. Covey.
Richie Norton’s catchphrase in his classes is, “self-reliance through self-employment.” he said. He said while in college, he was hired as a consultant to generate revenue for BYUH through the chair of the Department of Continuing Education (later known as CITO) and SIFE (now Enactus).
Self-reliance through self-employment.
As a social entrepreneur, Richie Norton said he is finding ways to solve social ills with business skills. He said he wants to make a deep and pervasive impact for good and empower others to think and act in the best interest of themselves, their family and society. He shared, “If a business doesn’t create meaning, then it’s not for me.”
With partners Thiefaine Magre and Jase Bennett, he said he started a company called Product to help people create products across dozens of industries. Using the flexibility that entrepreneurship has given him, Richie Norton said he creates companies to help people be successful and get their time back.
Of all his accomplishments, he said he is proud to have co-founded the BYUH Center for Entrepreneurship with Greg Gibson, now called the Willes Center. “The center helps students become employers when they return home,” he said.
Ariunchimeg Tserenjav, a BYUH graduate from Mongolia who majored in accounting, was the first student funded by the Center for Entrepreneurship. “When I entered BYUH, my goal was to get a degree in free market economics and accounting so I could learn what free business is.”
Tserenjav said she wanted to open her own business, manufacturing cashmere products in Mongolia, but didn’t have enough money. “Richie Norton came to help in 2004 with his father because he liked my business plan that I introduced at the BYUH business planning competition,” she said.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t pursue the business for long, recounted Tserenjav, because she didn’t know enough and had to support her family. However, she said, “I am still hoping that someday I will resume and run my own business.”
Her advice to students is to learn and ask questions of their professors, advisors and anyone who can help them. “Learn and apply what you learn and never give up on your dreams and goals,” said Tserenjav.
Baby steps are still steps
Natalie Norton said re-learning to speak after having a stroke taught her not to wait to be settled to do the things she always wanted to do. She said now is the time and not later.
“We always have the capacity to keep moving forward, and we can measure our success by millimeters sometimes. But baby steps are still steps,” she added.
Modeling important principles for their children, Natalie Norton said, is vital to her and Richie. They show what it looks like to follow promptings they feel, she said.
We always have the capacity to keep moving forward, and we can measure our success by millimeters sometimes. But baby steps are still steps.
“We do our very best to always live with purpose and follow through on things we feel compelled to do.”
Richie Norton shared that for him, raising a family is an entrepreneurial experience. He said nothing is more important than his family, uplifting them and finding ways to have peak experiences to shape them into better humans.
Natalie Norton said, “My experiences really taught me that it’s not enough to wait until the perfect time to do the things we feel called to do, both within our homes and also in the world.”
Richie Norton advised, “Start a project like the work you want to do in the future now. What better way to learn and show a future employer what you can do?” He said, “Start now. Serve, thank, ask, receive and trust. Now is your opportunity to make the most of [BYUH].”
Life gets busier, he continued, “so use the time you have now by reaching out to professors and leveraging resources to create projects around your ideas.” He advised students to get experience and help now that will help in their businesses or jobs.
Natalie Norton said students are more capable than they think. “It’s okay if you’re figuring it out as you go,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you’re not capable or ready.” The path of an entrepreneur has no limits, she asserted.
The only limit is the willingness to show up, to do the work and to keep trying, Natalie Norton expressed. One of her favorite things about entrepreneurs, she said, is they constantly learn, reach and gain more and more as they go.