I'm Game What hot, new pastime is inspiring entrepreneurs to launch businesses?
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A business-based board game is actually inspiringentrepreneurial startups. Ed Patisso is just one of many who havelaunched businesses after playing Cashflow 101, which was createdby Robert Kiyosaki, author of the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Some entrepreneursare finding the board game, which teaches financial principles foraccounting and investing, can create wealth-and not only in aMonopoly-money kind of way, but in real-world dollars.
Patisso, for instance, founded American Real Estate Equities in Mineola, NewYork, after playing the Cashflow game. The company, started in2002, offers solutions for homeowners in pre-foreclosure, mortgagefinancing and real estate services. "[Cashflow 101] suppliedthe missing link," Patisso, 30, says. "I'd takenaccounting courses in college, but there's nothing like how theCashflow 101 game is structured-it helped me learn to managerisk. [Before I played], I didn't really understand a balancesheet or income statement." Patisso, who still plays the gameoften with gaming and business community group NYC Cashflow,expects his sales to hit $250,000.
New York City isn't the only Cashflow mecca. Many groupsmeet around the world to play the game. People can go to www.richdad.com forinformation and to http://cash flow.meetup.com members to meet otherinterested Cashflow 101 players. Several local groups meet throughYahoo! Groups online as well.
"I created the board game because accounting, when I wentto business school, was the single most boring subject on earth,and investing is the most frightening," says Kiyosaki."[But] to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be bothentrepreneur and investor. You have to know the world ofinvesting."
Kiyosaki adds he came up with Cashflow 101 first and then wroteRich Dad to promote the board game as well as a whole Rich Dadlifestyle, with games (Cashflow 202 is the more advanced follow-upto 101), books and articles that have inspired a devoted following.As far as Cashflow 101's following, Kiyosaki explains theappeal to startup entrepreneurs: "All of a sudden, [people]can see the next dimension-a world of freedom where theynever have to have a job again. It becomes the most addictive,compelling drive."
