July 2004

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 […]

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

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

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.”

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

Dan Sherman: “Don’t restrict yourself to creating value for your customer directly related to your service or product.”

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,

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