OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | Ten Tiny Things Every Small Business Owner Should Do in 2009
http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/12/31/ten-tiny-things-every-small-business-owner-should-do-in-2009/

Need to pop these on my list

Down economy?  Perfect time to start it up. Chris Brogan posted a great post on if he started in social media today, what he would do. It got me

Andrew Hyde's tips for starting a company today.

Gotta love these lists

999 free business ideas for possible brainstorming, journaling, etc. Possible crew activities?

Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution. Need proof? For Seth Godin's Alternative MBA program, this week the nine of us came up with 111 business ideas each. But ideas are only valuable when someone (like you) makes something happen. What follows are our 999 business ideas, free for the taking. 1. Prepackaged school supplies based on the lists from the school districts 2. Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded. 3. In-grocery store prep service (buy vegetables first and drop them off to be chopped to your specs - pick them up on the way to checkout) 4. A website that you can submit your design and work with vendors to manufacture your own clothes line. 5. Online discount brokerage that has no closing hours and provides access to all exchanges throughout the world and handles currency and legal issues automatically.

website

Stuck for ideas? Here's 999 new ones: http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html

twitter history

Sitting in the Flickr archives is a nearly 10-year-old document uploaded a couple of years ago by its author, Jack Dorsey (@jack), who started Twitter in 2006 along with co-founders Evan Williams (@ev) and Biz Stone (@biz).

Twitter creator Jack Dorsey illuminates the site's founding document. Part I

The business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. Times

Simple and free online bookkeeping software

Online accounting for small business

Simple online bookkeeping software

Online bookkeeping software for small businesses - track sales and expenses, pay estimated taxes on time at Outright.com

One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy. I was saying recently to a reporter that if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be?

There are three types of amateur entrepreneurs out there, and in my young life, I’ve been every single one of them. By coming to terms with my failures, I’m more prepared to classify which type of amateur entrepreneur I am, and thus preventing myself from failing in the same way again.

Type 1 Amateur Entrepreneur: All ideas, no implementation. Type 2 Amateur Entrepreneur: Lots of ideas and half assed implementations.

great article here! Google, twitter, social networking, and of course my favorite topic- entrepreneurship

1. Launch a scaled-back version 2. Notice sluggish competitors 3. You don’t need virality if your product is good 4. Follow your passion 5. Sometimes you have to go off on your own

The problem is that trying to copy one company's model is a fool's errand. It's hard to figure out which part of the Starbucks formula made the business a smash hit while so many of its rivals failed. Starbucks's success is the product of a combination of factors that came together in precisely the right way at precisely the right time. It's nearly impossible to isolate which one was the most important. You would probably have to look at the hundreds of small coffee chains that didn't make it big before you stood a chance of seeing what really distinguished Starbucks.

probably

A start-up requires patience: As in tuning a shortwave radio, you have to make a number of adjustments to get it just right.

Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance and resources to setup their company.

resources for entrepreneurs

save

"It seems like a fool-proof plan: start up with a close friend. You’ll get along (obviously), and you’ll get to share the exciting, fantastic, scary experience of starting up with someone you care about. It’s not a bad idea, but there are a few caveats that you should be aware of before you proceed..."

Good advice on the early stages. This is targeted at friends starting up but also good for anybody starting with somebody else.

Interesting article about how to found a startup with friends.

lmost cost us our friendship. We got through this thanks to the help and mediation of anot

When we sold our startup in 1998 I thought one day I'd do some angel investing. Seven years later I still hadn't started. I put it off because it seemed mysterious and complicated. It turns out to be easier than I expected, and also more interesting. The part I thought was hard, the mechanics of investing, really isn't. You give a startup money and they give you stock. You'll probably get either preferred stock, which means stock with extra rights like getting your money back first in a sale, or convertible debt, which means (on paper) you're lending the company money, and the debt converts to stock at the next sufficiently big funding round.

nor tactical advantages to using one or the other. The paperwork for convertible debt is simpler. But really it doesn't matter much which you use. Don't spend much time worrying about the details of deal terms, especially when you first start angel investing. That's not how you win at this game. When you hear people talking about a successful angel investor, they're not saying "He got a 4x liquidation preference." They're saying "He invested in Google."

How to Be an Angel Investor

Notes from Paul Graham on angel investing. Actually pretty interesting. The key, as he describes it, is to pick the right companies... the terms you get when investing don't matter much and can even hurt your chances of success if you're strict enough.

tutorial works great for any company to explain any product or service. Think about all the crappy, long-winded, take-forever-to-load, seemingly-last-forever start videos you’ve seen a

The Art of the Tutorial

Examples of effective video product descriptions.

Weil Papageien teure Geheimnisse haben.

Une banque de liens incroyables classés proprement au sujet de l'entreprenariat ... à garder sous le coude

Business tips on how to stop wasting time. Create efficiencies.

Here are one hundred characteristics and attributes of people who start companies—some born of experience, education or birth. Most can be learned by study and practice.

Surprise: there's never been a better moment to bootstrap your own Internet business. All you need is a laptop, a broadband connection and a great idea. Inside the new start-up boom

seneca

You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Whether you’re enrolled in a business school degree program or desperate for a review of b-school basics as you start your own company, it’s hard to pass up free study materials. These 100 ebooks on marketing, management, ecommerce, and finance are all free and worth checking out.

"take as much risk as you can as early as you can"

+ excellent quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” —Jim Rohn.

The Entrepreneurs Handbook – 54 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs

"tagged startup business tips"

No time for pri-twos. In project parlance, a "pri-one" is a work item that is essential to the success of the project. Bootstrapped companies don't have any pri-twos. Once you determine that a task is a pri-two, forget about it forever. Sadly, this is why Urbanspoon still doesn't have "hours of operation" for our restaurants.

A reminder to use to the good old A/B split testing with a control group to not be fooled so easily by numbers and variation.

"The only metrics that entrepreneurs should invest energy in collecting are those that help them make decisions."

Interesting look at the different elements of a web startup.

rate products; be a focus group;get paid (not much)

Learn how to construct a lean startup that focuses on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. Through case studies, exercises, and discussions, instructor Eric Ries guides entrepreneurs of all stripes through the key areas of startup success: product, engineering, QA, marketing, and business strategy. You'll emerge with a clear plan to bring lean-startup thinking back to your company. Multiple Events: San Francisco, CA

Thirteen key characteristics of a great startup culture

Thirteen key characteristics of a great startup culture - TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News Source

The place to find the hottest entrepreneurial work experience and full time roles.

"The place to find the hottest entrepreneurial work experience and full time roles."

could be a great place for Mindbox to find talent and cheap labor

There is such a thing as “Social-Business Protocol.” Not all of us in the startup universe are born with it, we can all learn it. So, here are my 10 tips for founders en route to the power-party circuit.

So you’ve got your engineering degree, and your marquee MBA, and a business-plan. You’re on your way. But at some point you’re going to have to ‘grace’ your way through an important networking or social event. How you handle this matters—probably more than you care to admit.

"Startup 101" is a serialized book about the thrills and spills of starting a Web technology venture. It will be a regular feature in our new channel ReadWriteStart, dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. Startup 101 is for first-time entrepreneurs who want to go through the whole startup life cycle - including raising money, building a valuable business, and making a lot of money by selling the venture or taking it public.

Matt Mullenweg, founder of Word Press and Automattic, manages a successful Internet business where everyone is working from home

Excellent looking list of books to read

Stumbling on Happiness

Luknąć

risk management in business

The most common question entrepreneurs ask me, is “how can I improve my marketing with no or little money?” With this in mind, I asked for help from the TPE community and here is what I got… 115 ideas. Skim them or read them in detail, but whatever you do make sure you go through the list. Just one of these ideas may trigger a marketing opportunity that you never considered before. Just one of these ideas may take your business to a whole new level!

Most advice to entrepreneurs focuses on what they should do: build a great product, assemble a great team, provide great service. All are “duhisms.” Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t realize that there are things they should specifically avoid doing too. These are also duhisms, but somehow no one ever talks about them. Here is my list of the twelve most important things that entrepreneurs should not do.

HT: Chuck Smith

Six Month Alternative MBA

The 6months MBA diary from the students of Seth Godin

Blog of Seth Godin's 'Six Month Alternative MBA' - some interesting thoughts on entrepreneurship and marketing.

Would you like to be more creative in your copy and blogging? It’s really not as hard or mysterious as you might think.

Awesome

copyblogger

Are willing to TEST new ideas and compete with others based on results. Isn’t that what they mean by the “market of ideas”? Isn’t that what business competition is about? If you’re afraid of being wrong or losing, your creativity will suffer.

Think of creativity as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. To increase your creativity, you simply need to “act” like a creative person. Not surprisingly, people recognized as creative tend to share common traits.

Sigh. I think the mindless bookmarking of little lists masking at blog posts is pretty annoying, but I can't help doing it myself. Damnit. Here's one such article that contains some obvious, but practical advice for both start-ups and those seeking to work for them.

Good questions

and that stroke of luck propelled them to the top. Not to take anything away from their hard work, but lots of devs out there are working just as hard on games that are reviewed as well or better.

Please do not take the term literally. Living on instant ramen would be very unhealthy. Rice and beans are a better source of food. Start by investing in a rice cooker, if you don't have one.

Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders' living expenses. This is a different form of profitability than startups have traditionally aimed for. Traditional profitability means a big bet is finally paying off, whereas the main importance of ramen profitability is that it buys you time.

37 comments about having a business/startup

via dst

"So instead of being arrogant, take every opportunity you get to learn new things. Whether it is from an experienced entrepreneur who has been around the block, or a 16-year-old kid, everyone can teach you something. You just have to learn what to take away from a conversation because there are going to be some things that are going to benefit you and others that won’t."

what's not to like about a piece of advice that says you don't have to be perfect to succeed?

Eso

One of the best things I ever did was quit my day job and become self-employed. I’m so happy with it that I’m recommending it to everyone: my kids, my friends, my sisters.

entrepreneurs on twitter

Phew! This article ended up being much longer than I expected (I banged it out in one sitting, as I do most articles). I’m still not sure I ans

ubstantial cost to you. This problem is made even more acute by the fact that in a fair numb

Excellent advice for startups for pricing their Enterprise Software!

In doing so we discovered Customer Development, a product development methodology formulated by veteran entrepreneur Steve Blank. Based on the premise that start-ups tend to fail through lack of customers rather than lack of technology or product features, customer development is a systematic way of identifying who the customer is, what it is they need and whether that need is sufficient to build a business on. One of my co-founders describes it as ‘an algorithm for building products users want and are willing to pay for’.

The crucial question in the survey is “How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?” Sean has benchmarked the results of that survey and found that if less than 40% of respondents say “Very disappointed” then your product doesn’t yet have sufficient traction to scale.

A few months ago I was tipped off to world of Steve Blank and customer development. Simply put, if you’re an entrepreneur understanding these concepts will likely mean the difference between success and failure. Steve personally has taken five companies through this process to IPO. Not a bad track record. While there’s a ton of great stuff about customer development on the Web I wanted to gather up all of the resources and put them together in one place. I’ll update this post over time as I come across stuff (please add any additional resources you find in the comments so I can add them to the post) so bookmark it and check back from time to time (or just subscribe to the RSS feed).

Customer Development: The Definitive Resource w/tons of links

operating

"...the idea that software should be priced low enough to pass the average user's "why not" threshold is a powerful one."

codinghorror application software pricing price discount appstore apple iphone coding horror

What I think isn't well understood here is that low prices can be a force multiplier all out of proportion to the absolute reduction in price. Valve software has been aggressively experimenting in this area; consider the example of the game Left 4 Dead: Valve co-founder Gabe Newell announced during a DICE keynote today that last weekend's half-price sale of Left 4 Dead resulted in a 3000% increase in sales of the game, posting overall sales (in dollar amount) that beat the title's original launch performance. It's sobering to think that cutting the price in half, months later, made more money for Valve in total than launching the game at its original $49.95 price point. (And, incidentally, that's the price I paid for it. No worries, I got my fifty bucks worth of gameplay out of this excellent game months ago.) The experiments didn't end there. Observe the utterly non-linear scale at work as the price of software is experimentally reduced even further on their Steam network: The mass

One of the side effects of using the iPhone App store so much is that it's started to fundamentally alter my perception of software pricing. So many excellent iPhone applications are either free, or no more than a few bucks at most. That's below the threshold of impulse purchase and squarely in no-brainer territory for anything decent that I happen to be interested in.

Silicon Alley Insider has partnered with leading technology law firm Cooley Godward Kronish to explain common legal issues facing start-ups and provide sample legal documents that you can review and download.

“In 18 months I’m going to start my own company,” the problem with that sentence is the 18 months. What you’re really saying is, “I’m afraid.”

Omia tuotteita konsultoinnin sijaan.

> We’ve had a lot of things not work, and that’s OK too. If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into flames, that’s going to be exciting too. People always ask, “What is your greatest failure?” I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome!

Jim Coudal is a truly inspiring character. His company decided to shift from the standard model of selling their creative services to clients, to a model of creating products which they own and have full control over. And they’ve been very successful at it. Coudal Partners is proof that you can indeed create your own reality. (interview, article)

get out there.

Orrick's Start-Up Tool Kit is a comprehensive set of resources designed to aid start-ups and their founders on the journey from the "garage" to the global marketplace. Use our Start-Up Tool Kit to memorialize agreements with co-founders or potential investors, understand the terms and terminology of key legal documents, and network and learn business strategy and the latest industry news.

We want this wiki to reflect the collective wisdom of you, the start-up community, regarding business resources you found useful. As such we want to avoid companies promoting their own resources (albeit free ones) because it wouldn't be in line with the purpose of this wiki. However, if you have a few startups who have happily used your resources then encourage them to contribute to the wiki!

Business Resources for Startups As startups are notoriously short on time we thought what better way to maximise their productivity than by providing them with the most relevant business resources all in one place! Even better, why not ask the teams involved in the startups themselves to share their good experiences with resources they ACTUALLY used? Us folks at Seedcamp have included each resource with a list of start-ups that have found them useful. If a startup cannot back-up a resource it should not be included here. Companies that have contributed to this wiki include: Atomico Ventures, Entrip, HyperNumbers, Speedsell, Stupelix, TAG, Toksta, TV Pixie, uberVU, Yoose, Wasabi Ventures, Zoombu

This guest post was written by Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. It is the first in a series of posts he's writing about the ...

From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

experience Entrepreneurship from Meebo founder

Focus on your immediate resources to make something plausible working as fast as you can rather than waiting for something allegedly genial to grow by itself. It never happened and it will never happen.

stanford video

"The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset. The moment you earn your keep as a public speaker is when the room isn't just right or the plane is late or the projector doesn't work or the audience is tired or distracted. The best time to engage with an employee is when everything falls apart, not when you're hitting every milestone. And everyone now knows that the best time to start a project is when the economy is lousy."

Seth Godin: "it´s difficult to improve your performance in the downhills", lección aprendida andando en bicicleta. http://bit.ly/YL30f [from http://twitter.com/dariuus/statuses/2761368400]

out being sustained by people who cared about experimentation and exploration. Sometimes these people were relatives, but sometimes they were neighbors, teachers or other influential adults. A number of the innovative entrepreneurs also went to Montessori schools, where they learned to follow their curiosity. To paraphrase the famous Apple ad campaign, innovators not only learned early on to think different, they act different (and even talk different).

How Do Innovators Think? 5:21 PM Monday September 28, 2009 by Bronwyn Fryer Tags:Creativity, Innovation, Leadership What makes visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Ebay's Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman, and P&G's A.G. Lafley tick? In a question-and-answer session with HBR contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how the "Innovators' DNA" works.This post is part of HarvardBusiness.org's Creativity at Work special package. Fryer: You conducted a six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives and conducting an additional 500 individual interviews. During this study you found five "discovery skills" that distinguish them. What are these skills? Dyer: The first skill is what we call "associating." It's a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas. The second skill is questioning - an abilit

Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing. Working hard, even, if that's what you like to do.

"Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on"

When we were building Flickr, we worked very hard. We worked all waking hours, we didn't stop. My Hunch cofounder Chris Dixon and I were talking about how hard we worked on our first startups, his being Site Advisor, acquired by McAfee -- 14-18 hours a day. We agreed that a lot of what we then considered "working hard" was actually "freaking out". Freaking out included panicking, working on things just to be working on something, not knowing what we were doing, fearing failure, worrying about things we needn't have worried about, thinking about fund raising rather than product building, building too many features, getting distracted by competitors, being at the office since just being there seemed productive even if it wasn't -- and other time-consuming activities. This time around we have eliminated a lot of freaking out time. We seem to be working less hard this time, even making it home in time for dinner.

"Edison, of the "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" quote, tried thousands of materials looking for the right filament for the electric bulb. That might have been hard work, and the fact that he persisted through many failures is key to making something work, but he was also working on the right problem. So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard."

"So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard."

So true. I can think of a few people I think need to read this.

Mark Zuckerberg

Priscilla Chan

How much money to raise and what to do with it: using mint as a case study

In order to get that seed round, you'll need to understand your competition, and come up with projections. Everyone knows this will change...but you need to show your thinking around it anyway. As an example, MINT originally projected $30/user/year for lead-gen and CPA. (Aaron noted that the company is pretty close to this today. But this is the exception rather than the rule.) Know how the business model works. People do X behavior and it turns into $Y income, add up those $Ys and it's a $Z business. If you can walk people through these assumptions convincingly, you'll get that seed round.

The straight shot: Why should you raise money, and how much? * Step 1: When you're ready with an Idea: Raise $100K from friends and family, and use it to build a prototype. * Step 2: Once the prototype is done: Raise < $1M in seed capital, and get into market with an alpha launch. * Step 3: After that initial launch has traction: Raise $5-10M, and use it to prove/scale the model.

If you’re an entrepreneur who has been seduced by social media tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, you may ...

Useful information for business owners interested in using social media for their business

Ten Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch

모든 기업가들이 꼭 읽어야 하는 열가지 책

@newsycombinator: "Chile Wants Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses, Your Tech Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/Jcm2n" (from http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/4762877839)

Looks like an awesome deal!

The world is rife with business opportunity, and nowhere more so than online. I often think of the web as something of a wild west frontier, awaiting anyone

shopping cart

The world is rife with business opportunity, and nowhere more so than online. I often think of the web as something of a wild west frontier, awaiting anyone intrepid enough to stake out a claim. But to start an online venture you first need to have an idea of what you want to do. For many would-be entrepreneurs ideas are many and easy to come by, but not everyone feels this way.

So let’s say I was setting out to start a new business tomorrow. I would sit down and think about what sorts of problems I have, both offline and on, and how I wish they could be fixed with an online solution. When thinking of solutions, I always ask myself whether I, myself would really use the solution if some other company magically brought it to market right now. It’s important to be honest and realistic with yourself because if you wouldn’t use the thing, chances are neither will others.

America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2009--via Yahoo! Finance (Congrats to @Shama!!!) http://ow.ly/uad5 [from http://twitter.com/allenmireles/statuses/4844559545]

.

An article on the difficulties and surprises in starting a startup.

Really good ideas and facts about starting a startup.

AWESOME SITE for Entrepreneurial Advancement!!!!

What I can do!

Here are 10 essential entrepreneurs from a variety of backgrounds to follow on Twitter.

I always thought that expanding my business at a steady pace was a smart move. Now I worry that it could potentially kill us

By Joel Spolsky

Interessante discussies in comments... But we do have to work closer to the limits of our abilities, we have to invest more of our profits in hiring more salespeople and software developers, and we have to focus relentlessly on winning more enterprise sales. We have to do that, because otherwise, we're going to end up being the company you've never heard of.

Stop wasting your time trying to find the right answer for your business questions. You’re not alone. We know you have business questions that need to be answered right now. That’s why we’ve put together a great team of Hosts composed of successful entrepreneurs, seasoned businesspeople, academics, advisors, and many more willing to give you a hand. Not only that, our community of users will be available to give you their best answer to any question you might have. With all these people ready to answer all your questions, it would be difficult to not find the answer to the business question that’s eating your brain. Don’t forget to give those that need help an answer, there’re plenty to go around, and more than likely you know the answer to a couple. At Startups.com you’ll find your business question answered within minutes. Useful answers, fast and free.

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fblog.scoutapp.com%2Farticles%2F2009%2F11%2F04%2Frunning-a-freemium-web-app-heres-a-big-reason-were-growing

Advanced game theory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational “players”. It’s like trying to design a real car that’s going to be driven on a theoretically frictionless surface, with no air resistance and no idiots on the road.

ory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational “players”. It’s like trying to design a real car that’s going to be driven on a theoretically frictionless surface, with no air resistance and no idiots on the road.

"No amount of strategic planning will ever substitute for managing your cash flow" - "There are always more things to do than there is time to do them" - "It helps not to call people “human resources”. They’re people. And, as it turns out, people like to be treated like people. Go figure" - "There’s a lot of value to being likable" - "Advanced game theory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational “players”.

Every startup needs to pick a major among three drivers of growth. It's simply too hard to focus on more ...

It’s hard to express just how much settling those questions has galvanized Redfin to attack the monsters under our bed. Sure, we were dimly aware of those problems before, but we existed in a state of seething, unacknowledged tentativeness. Weeks of contemplating what it will take for us to win prepared Redfin to swallow the red pill, stuff the TaunTaun, hack the Kobayashi Maru. At very few moments in a company’s history does it makes its way so deliberately. Like the recovered patient who saw while sick everything she had always meant to do, we want to make the most of our new lease on life.

For me, the most important point is that whatever questions others ask about your business are worth recording, cataloguing and quantifying

" the questions VCs asked Redfin that changed how we think about our business."

Listening to Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon, is like going to startup school where you learn that failure is part of entrepreneurial growth. Whenever I have talked to Bezos in the past, the things that have stuck in my head have been his willingness to be wrong and his unflinching abhorrence of the status quo. At the Wired Business Conference in New York City, Bezos reiterated some of those points in a conversation with writer Steven Levy.

Innovation is hard for large companies because you need to be long-term oriented. And since the innovative projects are such a tiny part of a large company, there is tendency to be dismissive of the innovation. “You need a culture that high-fives small and innovative ideas and senior executives [that] encourage ideas,” he said. In order for innovative ideas to bear fruit, companies need to be willing to “wait for 5-7 years, and most companies don’t take that time horizon.”

Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the "40-30-30 Rule." During training, early on, I tried to go fast, and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness to take risks.

If you're not risking failure, you're not risking enough. Why pushing outside of your comfort zone is a crucial part of the creative process.

The 99 Percent

Critical Mistakes Freelancers Make

to read

A recession-induced need for cash, and an ever-growing infrastructure enabling individuals to act as (part-time) entrepreneurs, are fueling concepts that help ordinary consumers make money instead of just spending it.

Ads | While Google AdWords still brings in the money for bloggers, Magpie now inserts adverts into SELLSUMERS' Twitter feeds.

To give you a preview of this post, what you will learn is that there are two key parameters that drive how viral growth happens, the Viral Coefficient, and the Viral Cycle Time. To fully illustrate the arguments, I have included two spreadsheet models (embedded) that you can play with interactively to see how viral growth works. There is a risk with this level of depth, that some readers will find this too technical, and if you find yourself reacting that way, may I recommend that you jump straight to the conclusion, which is under the heading Lessons Learned towards the bottom of the article.

The Viral Coefficient (K)

Most advice to entrepreneurs focuses on what they should do: build a great product, assemble a great team, provide great service. All are “duhis

A wealth of resources for business owners — videos, articles, blogs, and expert advice to boost your business, sponsored by American Express OPEN.

Good article!

The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was how do I ...

Therapists don't tell you what to do. Rather, they ask probing questions that get you to discover for yourself what is true for you, your situation, and what you want. Similarly, these ten questions will force you to make the important decisions about your business. Ask them of yourself every month instead of writing a useless business plan.

My partner Ben Horowitz and I are delighted to announce the formation of our new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and our first fund -- $300 million in size -- aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products,...

Marc Andreessen's blog

My partner Ben Horowitz and I are delighted to announce the formation of our new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and our first fund -- $300 million in size -- aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in the technology industry.

Here are the some of the rules that evolved that seemed to work for our family.

"This life isn’t practice for the next one" "What will your epitaph say?"

Outside of building companies, reading has been one of my daily passions since I was a young child. Each year, I attempt to read more books than the previous year. This year I read 146. The following books were the five that made the most impact and immediate improvement on my performance as an entrepreneur.

Good business ideas cross over into good businesses with the following factors in place: Natural Passion and Interest + Skill and competence + Business model that delivers the life you want to live + Solid business planning with well-defined market

very good site

50 Free Sources for Business Plans, Templates and Models

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1091094

a hilarious collection of attention-grabbing essay titles

Seth Godin's Pearls of Wisdom. We love lists and Seth's list is impossibly insightful. It must be read and spread.

A great, short list of useful thoughts and tips for anyone who wants to grow a business or gain momentum for their new idea.

Random rules for ideas worth spreading

Don't plan on appearing on a reality show as the best way to launch your idea

I completely agree here with Steve's comments on what matters when measuring startups, and it's not balance sheets and income statements

Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success.

to read

アカデミーヒルズ

僕がここ1、2年で明らかに起業のスタイルが変わったと感じることがあり、起業を志している人の役に立てばと思いそのノウハウとイマドキの起業法を伝授したい。

起業を志している人の役に立てばと思いそのノウハウとイマドキの起業法を伝授したい。

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1206649

interview with linked founding ceo

Full text transcript plus link to video.

RT @jonathanfields: LinkedIn founder says, "every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not" http://bit.ly/i3MKd [from http://twitter.com/r1tz/statuses/1305251212]

Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He worked at Paypal, founded LinkedIn, and invested in dozens more. Last night, he appeared on Charlie Rose (full interview embedded above, full transcript below), where he talks about the rise of social networking in general, and LinkedIn’s success in particular (it is adding one million professionals every 17 days and is emerging as a “low cost provider of really good hiring services”).

Publishing a short run magazine used to be a rather pricey and labor-intensive process. MagCloud is an inexpensive way to bring your specialty magazine to press without hefty upfront fees.

It’s true that building a business requires plenty of time and effort. But the idea that you need to quit your job to do it right is misguided.

I don't believe in evolution.

Hanging on to your day job gives you a longer period of time to build your idea. It lets you give a sustained effort over time. There’s no get rich quick option. You build it slowly, one day at a time.

"Some have doubted our advice that you should hold on to your day job and start something on the side. They argue building a business requires such persistent effort that you need to devote all your time to it to do it right. And it’s true that building a business requires plenty of time and effort. But the idea that you need to quit your job to do it right is misguided. If you quit your job, you shift everything. You don’t gain time, you lose it. You put a shot clock on your business. You box yourself into a position where you have to profit immediately or the whole thing goes under. You’ve got to make it work now or give up forever."

Some have doubted our advice that you should hold on to your day job and start something on the side. They argue building a business requires such persistent effort that you need to devote all your time to it to do it right.

for my non-profit idea...

Reality Check #1: Do one thing well If your startup tries to do too much, you’ll lose. Guy told me, “I meet companies every day who say, ‘well we’re software services, and we’re also consulting. And we are a social networking site, but we also do white labeling in case you want to use our technology to do your own social network.’ And you know what, it’s hard to do any one of those things, try doing four.”

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What is Word of Mouth Marketing Why Word of Mouth Marketing is Important - Pitfalls of Advertising - During Product Creation Elements of Word of Mouth

Last night, I attended an inspiring talk by Nick Hanauer of Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners. The venue was Seattle University, and the topic was

—If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it probably sucks. —If people understand it, you’re too late. —If people don’t like it and don’t understand it, it probably still sucks.

How to spot breakthrough ideas

As for social disruption, Hanauer gave a quick summary of what he meant: —If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it probably sucks. —If people understand it, you’re too late. —If people don’t like it and don’t understand it, it probably still sucks. So entrepreneurship is a dangerous field, he said. “The difference between being an idiot and being a genius is very, very thin.” And keep in mind, he pointed out, “you can be very successful without being socially disruptive. Great fortunes have been made doing incremental things. Burger King, which came after McDonald’s, was not transformational, despite what they tell you…But they made a great fortune.”

Notes from a great presentation by Nick Hanauer, early investor in founder of aQuantitve, Amazon, Insitu (AUV) ... lots of insightful thoughts on quantifying disruptive technology, entrepreneurship, etc.

The key elements of a breakthrough idea, Hanauer said, are value creation and social disruption. “Value is difficult but possible to quantify—it’s the ratio of benefits to cost, divided by those of the alternatives,” he said. Benefits are things like a product’s durability, speed, and appeal

I hate the pansies who whine that “it takes money to make money.” No it doesn’t! It takes a sense of mission. If you’re on a mission, you’ll find a way. When I didn’t have money to start my company, I called up J.Crew and asked if they’d take back the clothes I bought from them over the years and give me a refund. Believe it or not, they said, “sure.” That J.Crew refund check helped put me in business.

The chances are, you probably haven't heard of the name Andrew Warner. And if you have, all you will see ...

"Felix Dennis, publishing tycoon, has written a guide to becoming a multi-millionaire. All you need is thick skin, cunning - and a work ethic"

Good quote: "If you are unwilling to fail, sometimes publicly, and even catastrophically, you stand little chance of ever getting rich." Reminds me of this quote from Lazarus Long: "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt." As a bit of a pod who sometimes finds it all too easy to "turn off" my human concerns, and an on-again-off-again workaholic who was literally ridiculed by my friends for my study and work habits, I am very inspired by what he has to say.

excerpt from publishing tycoon Felix Dennis's book about how to get rich

Interesting: Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned; http://bit.ly/9mh00x

Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned http://slidesha.re/cToICU

Viewing: Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned http://bit.ly/duFZXu - a great presentation by founder/CEO @drewhouston

industrial zone is not a pretty place. You can’t rent a car, even if you wanted to. There is no public transportation. Pick-ups and drop-offs are pre-arranged with factories. The good news is that the factories love when I visit or, for that matter, when any Westerner visits. There’s a certain hospitality that can be found doing business in China that doesn’t exist to such a great extent in th

4hww

easy practical social marcom

fun stuff

In this new landscape, people who would never think to call themselves “entrepreneurs” are out there starting businesses, selling products, and turning profits.

It’s time to get over the idea that risk and reward are so intertwined in business. And maybe we need to come up with a better term than entrepreneur to describe this new group of people out there building businesses. Any suggestions?

I just finished a talk at Web 2.0 Expo titled From Zero to a Million Users with Drew Houston, the founder of Dropbox. It's about what we wish we had known years ago when it comes to growing your user base from 1 to 1M users. We had a lot of fun with it. The slides are below! From Zero to a Million Users - Dropbox and Xobni lessons learned View more presentations from Adam Smith.

Great stuff RT @SeanEllis @drewhouston & @asmith share keys to the kingdom for getting 1st 1m users for Dropbox & Xobni http://bit.ly/aPjMRi

scaling lessons?

web 2.0 start up challenges, dropbox and xobni

RT @ddudgeon & @andreaexpat #Freelancers The scariest pricing idea ever. Would u do it? http://bit.ly/bIAsKL RT @nona_jordan @freelancery

It goes like this. Instead of quoting a fee or negotiating a price in advance, you tell the client: “Here’s what I suggest. Let me jump in and do the work as we discussed. I’ll hit this as hard as I know how, and make it as good as can be done.” “When we’re finished, just pay whatever you feel the work was worth, based on what it contributed to your overall project.” “I’ll accept whatever you decide, no questions asked. Provided it is more than a buck sixty-five.” Scary? Absolutely. Risky? Maybe a little. Foolhardy and stupid? Not at all.

Getting clients to "fill-in-the-blank" on the invoice.

Very interesting: The scariest pricing idea ever. That works - http://bit.ly/9MXGsl - Will you try it? #smpricing – Smashing Magazine (smashingmag) http://twitter.com/smashingmag/statuses/12762457741

Compared to finding the perfect business name, a business plan can almost seem easy. How do you pin down a name that sticks in minds, doesn't tread in copycat realms, and yet sounds respectable? ReadWriteWeb has a few suggestions.

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here. Google the phrase

Do you have a unique service or product? Most entrepreneurs have a pocketful of ideas, many of them viable. But they suffer from the "kid in a candy store" dilemma, not knowing which to choose. The trick is choosing the one that really is a winner and having the discipline (see item #9) to ignore all the others.

An aspiring entrepreneur recently asked, “I want to start a startup, but have no ideas. What should I do?” Here are 12 suggestions based on my interviews with entrepreneurs here on Mixergy. What are your suggestions?

A common refrain for people thinking up business ideas is that all the good ideas have already been done. Finding an established competitor is not necessarily cause to quit on the spot. Here are six potential strategies on how you might go about taking on an entrenched competitor.

"Now, I understand the use of students from elite business schools as a proxy for "talent" in the business world. But as the economy experiences the most deep-seated changes in decades, maybe it's time to change our minds about what kinds of people are best-equipped to become business leaders. Is our fascination with the comings and goings of MBAs as obsolete as our lionization of investment bankers and hedge-fund managers? Is it time to look elsewhere for the "best and the brightest" of what business has to offer?"

Good article on entrepreneurship

Brings out a great distinction between focusing on the 'cause' vs. the 'effect' -- the latter being more akin to Design Thinking. Note also in the explanation of the latter -- the message in effect is 'embrace the heuristics'.

The more Sarasvathy explains the differences in the two styles of thinking, the more obvious it becomes which style matches the times. Causal reasoning is about how much you expect to gain; effectual reasoning is about how much you can afford to lose. Causal reasoning revolves around competitive analysis and zero-sum logic; effectual reasoning embraces networks and partnerships. Causal reasoning "urges the exploitation of pre-existing knowledge"; effectual reasoning stresses the inevitability of surprises and the leveraging of options.

"Her work revolves around one big question: What makes entrepreneurs "entrepreneurial?" Specifically, is there such as thing as "entrepreneurial thinking" — and does it differ in important ways from, say, how MBAs think about problems and seize opportunities?"

Thought-provoking.

Lessons learned from 13 failed software products

Software entrepreneur culture is full of stories of the products that succeeded. But what about the products that failed? We rarely hear much about them.

Lessons learned from 13 failed software products http://bit.ly/aUboh8 - (via Instapaper) http://tumblr.com/xgib2bvir

ecommerce online shopping

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Helpful.

Long post, but good read (headline says it all).

** Posted using Viigo: Mobile RSS, Sports, Current Events and more ** Editor's note: This is a guest post by Karol Gajda of RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com and How To Live Anywhere. If your goal is

How To Become a Millionaire In Three Years | Jason L. Baptiste http://bit.ly/apxllI

forget about the headline - these advices are simple and clever

A list of strategies an entrepreneur should employ. Some of them seem to contradict each other but worthy of occasional review.

The folks at Behance and Cool Hunting asked me to talk at their 99% Conference a couple months ago. The 99% conference is aimed at creative professionals and is focused on Edison's "99% perspiration." And in the spirit of how...

You probably should watch @avc talk about 10 ways to be your own boss: http://bit.ly/aEz2jV and follow him.

HOW TO: Pick the Perfect Name for Your Startup

RT @openofficespace: RT @JasonSpector: Why did so many successful entrepreneurs & start-ups come out of PayPal? Answered by Insiders - h ...

RT @hackernewsbot: Why did so many successful startups come out of PayPal? Answered by Insiders... http://bit.ly/9uRk73

@haikalis Cameron Herold: "Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs" - Video on TED.com http://ow.ly/24GZP

Bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur, says Cameron Herold. At TEDxEdmonton, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish -- as kids and as adults.

Un excelente conjunto de consejos para los emprendedores

"10 Inspiring TED Talks for Startups" ( http://bit.ly/bdCLet )

10 Inspiring TED Talks for Startups @ http://bit.ly/9nFvgo | via @karmona – zohar urian (zoharu) http://twitter.com/zoharu/statuses/18522921522