Have you ever watched the Randy Pausch video called “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”?

Pausch was a 45-year old father of three and professor at Carnegie Mellon University when he discovered he had terminal pancreatic cancer.

Instead of wallowing in his misfortune, he decided to sign up for “The Last Lecture” which challenges professors to imagine they are going to die; then give their last talk to their students in which they must impart their most important life lessons.

Unfortunately for Pausch, his wife and three kids, it was not a hypothetical scenario. Somebody taped the lecture and posted it to YouTube where upon it gained a life of its own generating more than eleven million unique views by the time I stumbled on it yesterday.

At the end of the video Pausch surprises everyone by revealing that the primary audience for the speech was not those in the room, but that he was giving the lecture so that one day his kids could hear their father’s most important life lessons first hand. I was in tears as he revealed this twist in the last seconds of the video.

I was so moved that I starting Googling “Pausch and The Last Lecture” and discovered Pausch had become quite a celebrity as a result of his YouTube video. There were interviews with Diane Sawyer on ABC NEWS, The Wall Street Journal and Katie Couric.

In one of the final interviews before his death on July 25, 2008, Pausch commented on how some detractors were accusing him of profiteering from his diagnosis. Pausch responded by explaining that the reason he gave the lecture was that he is fundamentally a teacher and he thought is was the highest and best use of his time left to teach his most import students: his kids first and secondly the rest of his students.

You may be asking what all this has to do with building a sellable company. The answer is, not much. Pausch inspired me this week to want to keep writing and sharing my business experiences with you.  I thought I should pass on the video in case it helps you to get in touch with why you wanted to start your own business in the first place and why you want to grow it into a valuable — sellable — company.

Hope you enjoy the video and my latest articles on selling a business below.

Thinking of investing in commercial real estate?

~ published July 6, 2010 the Globe and Mail

Early in my career, I owned a small marketing services business. Beyond a few computers and desks, we didn’t have any assets to speak of.

I feared I wasn’t building any equity in my business but, rather, just peddling hours. I decided I would look into buying a piece of commercial property to operate from as a hedge in case my business turned out to be worthless. I reasoned that at least I could sell the property when it was time to move on.  »more

Bright ideas need not rest on deep pockets

~ published July 7, 2010 the Globe and Mail

Last week I met with Scott Armstrong, one of the three co-founders of Brainrider, a new business in Toronto designed to help companies like Yellow Pages and Pitney Bowes use their online content to attract more customers.

Brainrider was founded in January, and I think Armstrong and his partners, John Kewley and Nolin LeChasseur, are well on their way to building a valuable, sellable business. »more

The Secret to Making Your Business Saleable

~ published July 8, 2010 BNET

If you’re a business owner and you’re still doing all of the selling yourself, your company may not be worth as much as you think.

Let me explain.

I used to own a five-person advertising agency. I did the selling, and my employees did the work. We squeezed out $150,000 in pre-tax profit from $750,000 in revenue designing brochures and websites. »more