Archive for July 2004
Benjamin Franklin and the 12 Rules Of Management
Finish better than your beginnings All education is self-education Seek first to manage yourself, then to manage others Influence is more important than victory Work hard and watch your costs Everybody wants to appear reasonable Create your own set of values to guide your actions Incentive is everything! Create solutions for seemingly impossible problems Become [...]
More From The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
In his recent Newbiz column, Samuel Fromartz examines some of the findings in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. On totally original ideas: [Only] 27 percent of [startups] were pursuing an idea that was “not new to any customer.” Start-ups considered most innovative — pursuing an idea “new to all” in a market with “no competitors” — [...]
NY Times: Soon after David Riedel lost his job two years ago as an equity analyst at Salomon Smith Barney in a wave of layoffs on Wall Street, his entrepreneurial juices kicked in. He knew that more investors, in the wake of a research scandal, were looking for advice at small, independent research firms with [...]
Google’s IPO information page is now live, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Mark Cuban: “My name is Mark Cuban. I am the Benefactor.” ABC: “What would you do for a million dollars? Billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is about to find out because he is “The Benefactor,” and he’s set to give away a million bucks to a complete stranger. Why has he agreed [...]
Scientists Find Cheaper Way to Make World’s Most Expensive Coffee
Nature: A food scientist has cracked the secrets of the world’s most expensive coffee, Kopi Luwak, whose beans pass through the intestinal tract of an Indonesian civet before being roasted and savoured. But the elusive blend looks unlikely to be copied any time soon. The beans, which cost over US$1,000 a kilogram, are eaten and [...]
Start Small, Remarkable, and Cheap
Seth Godin: In the old days, there was pretty much only one way to grow a business. Start small, make some money, get a little bigger, repeat. Over time, you could fund your way to bigness. VCs can help you jumpstart, sure, but raising 100 or 400 million dollars to skip all the steps on [...]
Training your Non-Salespeople Salespeople?
An Entrepreneur’s Life: “If you run a business with employees, every single one of ‘em who interacts with clients/customers/end-users needs to understand what is and what is not acceptable. We raise people defiant nowadays, so you have to explain why and what’s in it for them. Oh, and let’s face it… bribes work.”
Estimating the Value of a Small Business
Inc: “Buying a business, it turns out, isn’t all that different from buying a house. If we’re shopping for a house, we can easily find out such helpful information as what the median sales price is in the neighborhood, what houses are going for on a square-foot basis, and what comparable homes cost. This table [...]
Creating Value Outside the Box
Dan Sherman: “Don’t restrict yourself to creating value for your customer directly related to your service or product.”
Starting a Business: Advice from the Trenches
A List Apart: “If you’re like thousands of other designers, programmers and other creative professionals out there, at one point in time you’ve considered starting your own business. Unlike most, you’ve gone against common sense and decided to open shop for yourself. And not just freelance full-time, mind you, but file for the company name, [...]
Start a Business and Escape Your Boss
Startup Journal: “Mr. Smith feels he owes his former boss a debt of gratitude because the tempestuous relationship spurred him to actively pursue his longtime dream of self-employment. ‘I have to give him credit for pushing me into my destiny. I probably would still be working there today waiting for conditions to be perfect before [...]
ABC News: “Some blogs have become start-up businesses devoid of traditional business plans or venture capital finances. Because of relatively low start-up and maintenance costs, bloggers have found they need not market a longer lasting light bulb or build a better mousetrap — they can simply sell themselves, and they can do it through their [...]
Suzi Bonk: “Five Things I Would Tell Someone Who Wanted to Be An Entrepreneur… Before they became an entrepreneur (aka… The Five Things No One Told Me… Before I became an Entrepreneur)”
Karon Thackston on Insider Reports: Let me tell you right up front, there is no shame in being a small or home-based business. There is no reason to believe you have less to offer if you are the sole employee of that business. As a matter of fact, being small has some very distinct advantages. [...]
SFGate: “It’s one of the great ironies of the digital age. Ink, a substance that has been around some 5,000 years, has become an enormous cash cow for computer companies. They sell the printers dirt cheap and, just like razor manufacturers, rake in the big bucks on the disposable component. ” The article gives some [...]
Dan Sherman: “What you’ll be doing is providing/making grave markers for the lower income families the funeral home may be talking to. Markers can cost well over $500. You can make one for about $10-$15 in materials out of material called Hydrastone. That’s a substance kind of like plaster, but very, very hard after setting. [...]
Financial Fitness for Entrepreneurs
Brad Feld: What follows are some fundamental financial tenets that all early-stage entrepreneurs should be aware of, understand, and heed. Cash is king: No matter what, don’t run out of money. Nothing else in this article matters if you run out of money. This means know your burn rate (the net cash that is flowing [...]
→ pro-techcomputerclean.com Pro-Tech Computer Clean has been providing training to individuals interested in becoming self-employed in this exciting new field, since 1992. They are the only computer cleaning program offering an all-inclusive training in internal and external cleaning of computers and electronic office equipment. Our one-time course fee includes all equipment, supplies, manuals and hands [...]
Entrepreneurial Wisdom from MIT
On the MIT Entrepreneurship Center website, there is a great collection of entrepreneurial advice and tips from friends and alumni of the school. My favorite quip comes from Bart Stuck, now the Managing Director of Signal Lake Venture Fund, L.P.: “Make sure the wire transfer happened; anything less than that is non-binding. “
Starting an Adult Entertainment Company
Nolo: If you want to go into the business of putting naked body parts on display, chances are that you’ll have to deal with local zoning restrictions that govern where adult-oriented businesses may be located. Check with the planning department or other similar office in your city, or in your county if you’re in an [...]
American Entrepreneurial Economy
Jeff Cornwall: “The Kauffman Foundation has released its latest report on entrepreneurship that is part of its Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring project. United States Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2003 Report, by Maria Minitti and William D. Bygrave, offers more evidence of the robust nature of our entrepreneurial economic recovery. ‘Entrepreneurship in the United States continues to thrive [...]
Automate Your Internet Business
Joseph Kowal: “If you’re going into business on the Internet, you MUST automate everything possible – right from the start. Why? I’ll let a little story about my personal experience answer that question… When I first got into the whole online business thing, I had visions of raking in piles of cash while I played [...]
Businesses For Stay At Home Moms
CNN: You’ve opted to stay home to care for the kids. But you wouldn’t mind making some extra income during those hours between sending your charges off to school and picking them up again. You’re certainly not alone. Women own more than 6 million small businesses and 5 million women with children under 18 worked [...]
Fortune: “Chemical Bank’s ad campaign announced the start of the revolution in 1969: ‘On Sept. 2, our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again!’ On that day at the Rockville Centre branch at 10 North Village Avenue on Long Island, customers who possessed plastic cards with magnetic stripes no longer had to wait [...]
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists. We’ve got a big show for you today: In An Alternative View Of Organizations in the Future, Gautam Ghosh speculates that in the future, organizations won’t organize for the long term. Russel Buckley compares Sun CEO Scott McNealy to Louis XIV of France in [...]
→ 1800drycarpet.com 1-800-DRYCARPET is a 13 year old dry organic carpet cleaning service-company that manufactures a dry granular product called Swedry® Carpet Cleaner. Swedry® Carpet Clearner absorbs and traps soil leaving carpet clean, fresh, dry and ready to use immediately. Furthermore, there is no soap and water left to dry in carpet, so carpets stay [...]
Why I Love Doing Business – A Reminder
Jeremy Wright: “Sometimes it’s easy to forget what’s important. Some people will dismiss this essay by my friend Mattias Johansson as trivial, naive and simplistic and it’s likely those people who need to read it the most.” Read Mattias’s essay: Why I love doing business. A reminder to myself why I do what I do.
Duct Tape Marketing: “One of the greatest opportunities open to the small business owner is duplication. Look, you’re an expert a something right, I mean, people pay you for your knowledge, skill, advice, or ability to listen to and solve their problems.”
The International Instant Business Plan Book: 12 Quick-And-Easy Steps to a Profitable Business
Amazon: “For those hoping to start or those who run small businesses, the need to have a business plan has become a given. A written plan attracts potential investors and serves as a road map for the business owner. With their title, the authors of this guide target those who may be intimidated by the [...]
→ tunex.com Tunex is a regional automotive service franchise system with center locations primarily in the state of Utah and the surrounding states for over 30 years. Tunex is unique in that it doesn’t try to provide all car care services but, specializes in the automotive under-the-hood services using a strict diagnostic approach — no [...]
Sydney Johnston: The overwhelming majority of the items sold on eBay and other auction sites are physical goods. There are a small number of exceptions, though, and one possibility that is usually overlooked is that of services. Selling services on eBay may have some great advantages: Depending on what service you are offering, there may [...]
Jeff Cornwall: “Anita Campbell writes about the impact e-Bay is having on small business at Small Business Trends. This same trend was featured in a three part series written by Gerry Blackwell. Part I looks at operating an e-Bay store. Part II examines how to do it right and not get scammed, which is a [...]
→ colbertballtax.com Colbert/Ball Tax Service was founded by Al Colbert and Ja Ja Ball in January 1995 while they were seniors in college. With an unsecured job market, they decided not to try to predict the future. They would create it! Colbert/Ball Tax Service understands that when a customer comes to them for service, they [...]
The Web Has Changed the Nanny Business
Startup Journal: From an initial investment of $120,000, Ms. Robinson and her partners — though she’s now the sole owner — built an agency that today places about 300 nannies a year and charges a flat fee of $3,500 for its services, along with a $395 application fee (both are paid by the families); the [...]
Cafe Hayek: “People talk of ‘jobs’ as if these are ends in themselves — as if jobs are goods, rather than bads. But jobs are bads — or, more precisely, they’re costs. A job is the necessary effort each of us must put forward in order to acquire purchasing power. (Yes, yes, I know that [...]
The Entrepreneurial Mind: “Here is today’s latest marvel of the marketplace: health care kiosks. It is a fast, efficient mini-clinic that specializes in common health problems. These kiosks operate out of Target and other retail stores. People were “sick” of sitting and waiting for hours in doctors’ offices, emergency rooms, or urgent care centers for [...]
I just found a great marketing blog called Marketing Genius from Maple Creative. Its not exactly new, there are posts back to March, but I’m looking forward to exploring the archives and reading new posts. Thanks for the link, Ross.
BusinessLogs: “If a weblog pops up on the first page of Google results, there’s a reason for it.” I’ve been saying this for ages, and someday soon, I’m going to share some of my Google secrets.
Can You Build A Business at Home?
Womens Wall Street: “Many women, particularly mothers of young children, dream of earning a part-time salary and enjoying the flexibility of a freelance lifestyle. But wary of those Spam-mailing con artists peddling bogus work-at-home schemes, they’re also not up for starting a major entrepreneurial venture requiring a million dollars in investment capital. Is it unreasonable, [...]
Martin Tobias writing at AlwaysOn: “Good equity investors should be business partners, not just financial investors. Purely financial investors should be the public markets. Unfortunately, as the mood brightens, many of them will come back into the private equity markets. Look for people who have worked in related businesses to yours. An entrepreneur-turned-investor who has [...]
Using Telecommuters to Expand Your Business
David St Lawrence: Using conventional thinking, the growing company would have to add office space, extra phone lines, computers, and all of the other expenses that are required to support additional staff. This really blows the idea of an incremental increase in expenses right out of the water. As a result, many micro-business owners delay [...]
→ primerestaurants.com RD’s Ribs has searched the south for the best Authentic American Southern Barbeque and brought it back to Canada. Located right in the heart of Toronto’s theatre district, you’ll find great food and a truly southern Barbeque experience at RD’s Ribs. Experience one of their signature platters of smoked ribs or rotisserie chicken, [...]
Advice to Lawyers from Entrepreneurs
Dr. Jeffey R. Cornwall: “Matt Homann asked me to contribute to a feauture called “Five-by-Five” that he uses at his blog the [non]billable hour. He asks five experts to contribute five comments each about a particular topic. This week he asked for advice that we would offer lawyers on how to work effectively with entrepreneurs.”
Russell Roberts’ account of this exchange with a sidewalk artist makes me feel all warm and tingly inside: I gave him a $20. He handed me the change and said, “We’re even.” I smiled and said, on the contrary, we have a beautiful picture and you have our money to enjoy as you wish. We’re [...]
BizStats: “Want to quickly know what the average small business owner keeps from each dollar of revenue? Then, see our summary of industry profitability – sole proprietorships. Get great Retail benchmarks at Sales per Foot & Sales per Store – Retailers and see how national retailers compare. Curious about which businesses have the best (and worst) [...]
Dan Sherman: “What you’re doing is creating a picture database of your town to sell to companies interested in marketing to these houses, based on certain criteria. Once you have a picture catalog of your town, you can create a website allowing authorized (paying) individuals to log in and bring up any address and see [...]
Special Insurance Needs for Home Businesses
National Federation of Independent Business: “Every owner of a home-based business should consult with an agent experienced in insuring small businesses. Normally, your homeowner’s policy will cover some business-equipment coverage costs in the case of losses due to fire or theft, but if you’re not completely familiar with the details of your homeowner’s policy, snags [...]
Marginal Revolution: “Who would have guessed that when taking drive-thru orders at a McDonald’s it’s more efficient to send the order not 25ft into the restaurant but 900 miles away to a call-in center which then relays the order via computer to the workers inside the restaurant making the food. To avoid errors, the system [...]
What Not To Say in a Business Plan
Barry Moltz writing in Angel Investor News has some good sugestions about what to include and what not to say in your business plan when you’re trying to get funding. One of his first suggestions is to not use jargon and cliches. For instance, don’t say: “This business makes mechanical gasoline fueled devices used for [...]
