Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

Successful entrepreneurs are usually hard-driving, and highly focused on some specific goals, like being the dominant player in a given domain, or the low-priced provider of their product. Yet other entrepreneurs will talk for hours about all their ideas, and how they intend to change the world, but I don’t hear any specific goals or milestones. Many people are very hesitant to set specific goals, due to lack of self-confidence or whatever.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Entrepreneurs are a notoriously stubborn (some say confident) group of people, so I see many of them making the same mistakes that predecessors have made. Thus I’m convinced that it’s useful for all of you to step back from time to time, and listen to some sage advice from people who have been there and enjoyed success. Recently, as I was perusing a book by Robert Jordan, titled “ How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights ” I saw some wisdom and inspiration that made sense.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

One of the keys to maximizing the productivity of your team, as well as yourself, is motivation. It has been estimated that the average team member at any given time works at less than 50% of his capacity. Thus mastering the art of employee motivation could double your chances of success over the average competitor. While there are many books written on this subject, most entrepreneurs I know simply assume that their own vision, motivation, and drive will be adopted and maintained by partners an

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2013

Almost every startup is a virtual team these days, since most don’t start out with dedicated office space, and some or all members of the team work part-time or out of their own home. It’s a small world, so these team members may not even be in the same town, or the same country. Outsourcing is just another extension of the virtual team concept to people you don’t even know.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

In the US, many entrepreneurs see grants as “free money,” since they are not loans and don’t have to be repaid. A grant is not an equity investment, so the entrepreneur doesn’t have to give up a stake in the company either. Typically they can be used to fund product development and commercialization that would otherwise require outside investors. A good place to start looking is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is a lifeline for high-tech startups.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Most startups are happy to find any customer, and will hang on for dear life to every one. Only later do they realize that some of these cost more than they are worth, or lead into commitments they can’t sustain, but no business wants to violate the golden rule that every customer needs to be treated as if they were the only customer. In reality, the real world is full of pragmatics.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Do you think men make better entrepreneurs than women, and why? I did some research on this subject a while back, and I found some interesting perspectives. Everyone seems to agree that women think differently than men, and run their businesses differently, but there is a lot less agreement on which styles are better or worse. First of all, it is evident that there are far fewer women entrepreneurs today than men.

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