Barnes of Fox Business covers, and lives, business

Thomas Heath of The Washington Post profiles Fox Business Network senior Washington correspondent Peter Barnes, who in addition to covering business has also invested and started businesses.

Heath writes, “Barnes is not just any working journalist. He is a resilient risk-taker, qualities that I envy.

“The entrepreneur has actually put his cash, time and reputation into three start-ups. He has written business plans, raised money, met a payroll, paid taxes, hired and fired and — when it didn’t work — figured out the next thing. He can read a balance sheet and knows that ‘discount rate’ is not the price of something at Wal-Mart.

“‘I really understand how hard it is to be an entrepreneur,’ Barnes said. ‘Every person who is successful and is a gazillionaire, a lot of them have failed.’

“Then he sent me the above quote from Samuel Smiles, which hung on the wall of one of his ventures.

“Barnes, who lives in Alexandria, knows risk: He raised $300,000 — including the proceeds from the sale of a cherished childhood coin collection — to fund his first start-up.”

Read more here.