The Seeds of Success

When you're a small-business owner yearning to be big, it's easy to get discouraged--especially if you compare yourself to the bigger companies that are already successful. But it's useful--for your morale, your sanity and your strategizing--to remember that most big businesses were once small, too.

So in that spirit, we decided to seek out Jim McCann, founder of 1-800Flowers.com, who symbolizes the idea of starting from an acorn and turning into a tree.

McCann attributes his paranoia to Andy Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive. It compelled him and his brother to pay off their debt promptly and splurge on creating a website when the internet started getting popular.

"Staying paranoid is a good thing," asserts McCann, who mentions that recently, he had a meeting cancelled and used that time to rework a list he has of technology projects and plans for the company.

"I'm feeling like we're in a 1990 re-do actually," says McCann, who notes the next step is mobile technology. "We're in the business of helping people express themselves and connect, and we do that with floral and other gifts, by helping them act on their thoughtfulness. So if we can help them with mobile technology act more frequently on those thoughtful ideas, it's better for them, it's better for the people they're giving the gifts to, and it's good for us as a florist."

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