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    Startup with Purpose—Change the World for the Better Startup with Purpose—Change the World for the Better Startup with Purpose—Change the World for the Better Startup with Purpose—Change the World for the Better
    • Resources for Startup Founders
      • Tools for Founders
      • Insights for Founders
      • Helpful Directories
      • Reflections on Entrepreneurship
      • Founder Services
      • Startup Books
    • Ebooks for Founders
      • Founders Stay Afloat
      • Founders Are Storytellers
    • About
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    Insights

    Home » Insights
     Startup Consciously
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Reflections, Strategy
    Posted March 18, 2023

    Startup Consciously

    Startup Consciously: Startup consciously and brainstorm beyond business. Founders face knotty decisions personally, as well on the project itself.  There are many misconceptions about [...]

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     Purpose Driven Startups Challenge Accepted Wisdom
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted January 31, 2023

    Purpose Driven Startups Challenge Accepted Wisdom

    Purpose Driven Startups Challenge Accepted Wisdom, just as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, led her to exclaim, “Curiouser and curiouser!”. She explored the world conjured up [...]

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     Entrepreneur Anxiety
    By Will Keyser
    In Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted November 17, 2022

    Entrepreneur Anxiety

    Entrepreneur anxiety: Almost every founder has some anxieties, if not all, of these 20 challenges, each of which has to be confronted and dealt with positively. They can be transformed to [...]

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     Startup to Flourish
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections, Strategy
    Posted November 15, 2022

    Startup to Flourish

    Startup to Flourish—between divisive excess wealth and unjust extreme poverty. Flourishing involves commonwealth, built on tacit agreement of the people for the common good. New ventures are [...]

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     Customer Respect
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Marketing
    Posted October 31, 2022

    Customer Respect

    Customer Respect: “Due to a Higher Than Usual Call Volume…” How many times have you heard this recorded voice message when trying to contact a customer support line? I am almost [...]

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     Startup Spirit
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Female Founders, Reflections
    Posted October 18, 2022

    Startup Spirit

    Startup Spirit: The heart of a start lies within the entrepreneur. Reading novels is not normally considered the best way to learn about new venture creation. BUT I recommend two novels for [...]

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     Co-opetition
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Leadership, Marketing, Reflections, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted September 15, 2022

    Co-opetition

    Co-opetition: Co-opetition is an increasing popular behavior among both multinationals and entrepreneurial businesses alike. It is a function of competing companies that also cooperate for [...]

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     Sailing to Startup Success
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Reflections
    Posted September 14, 2022

    Sailing to Startup Success

    Sailing to Startup Success: keep your new venture on an even keel. I used to be a dinghy sailor and I can tell you that sailing requires many of the skills that an entrepreneur needs. First of [...]

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     Bootstrap Startup Finance
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted August 1, 2022

    Bootstrap Startup Finance

    Bootstrap Startup Finance is a craft that is very widely used in the creation of new ventures. In tough economic times it can be a matter of survival. For many entrepreneurs, it is a natural [...]

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     Grassroots Startup Barriers
    By Will Keyser
    In Entrepreneurship, Insights, Outside Help
    Posted July 21, 2022

    Grassroots Startup Barriers

    Grassroots Startup Barriers: Determined rural entrepreneurs will make it, whatever barriers stand in their way. More than 68 per cent of people in the US think it’s easy to start a business [...]

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     Dangers of Startup Mentors
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Outside Help, People
    Posted July 11, 2022

    Dangers of Startup Mentors

    Dangers of Startup Mentors: I was a startup mentor for many years. So, why would I warn entrepreneurs about the dangers of using mentors? My warnings are based on my understanding of how such [...]

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     Being an Entrepreneur
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Reflections
    Posted July 8, 2022

    Being an Entrepreneur

    Being an entrepreneur is a life that has some special needs. It is not for everybody, . There are all kinds of advice available, including on Venture Founders. Even though there are many courses [...]

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     Small Profits and Quick Returns
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted July 6, 2022

    Small Profits and Quick Returns

    Small Profits and Quick Returns (SPQR): Think as big as a Roman Emperor and start with small steps towards building your own empire. The reason for a big vision is to have clarity of purpose. The [...]

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     Buddhist Economics
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted June 29, 2022

    Buddhist Economics

    Buddhist Economics: is giving people a chance to use and develop their skills; enabling them to overcome their self-centeredness, joining with others in a common task; creating the goods and [...]

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     Entrepreneur Perception & Intuition
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted June 28, 2022

    Entrepreneur Perception & Intuition

    Entrepreneur Perception & Intuition: Clearly, successful entrepreneurs see things that others do not. Not surprisingly we tend to have differing perceptions of things, but the key to a [...]

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     Startup Founders Firepower
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Strategy
    Posted June 10, 2022

    Startup Founders Firepower

    Startup Founders Firepower: In 2022, the United States has more guns than people, but only 4 in 10 adults live in households with a gun, that’s 49 million of America’s 122 million households. The [...]

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     Community Round: Let Thousands Invest in Your Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finanace
    Posted May 17, 2022

    Community Round: Let Thousands Invest in Your Startup

    Let Thousands Invest in Your Startup: Use a Community Round, which lets thousands of your startup’s customers, users, and fans invest alongside VCs and angel investors. You may feel anxious [...]

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     Fast or Firm Growth
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Strategy
    Posted May 11, 2022

    Fast or Firm Growth

    Fast or Firm Growth: Most of the time founders cannot simply make a choice between a startup’s fast or firm growth, when setting the priorities of new venture development. They get the [...]

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     Startup Passion and Delight
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship
    Posted May 9, 2022

    Startup Passion and Delight

    Startup Passion and Delight: Ricky D has a passion and takes delight in its consequences. He’s a solopreneur, who has been shining shoes most of his life, but his ideas hardened into a [...]

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     Startups Change the World
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Reflections
    Posted April 26, 2022

    Startups Change the World

    Startups Change the World: Social impact is now core to how entrepreneurs set their business purpose and assess business performance. Entrepreneurial success has been primarily determined by [...]

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     Entrepreneurial Mindfulness
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted April 25, 2022

    Entrepreneurial Mindfulness

    Entrepreneurial Mindfulness: These two words are not often seen together. However, business schools that teach a startup course would do mankind a service to have them as a key component of their [...]

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     Small Town Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finanace, Insights, Strategy
    Posted March 26, 2022

    Small Town Startup

    Small town startup: People in rural communities and small towns across America are just as likely to be entrepreneurs as the geeks of Silicon Valley, or the app developers of Austin, Texas. There [...]

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     Public Contracts for Small Business
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Marketing
    Posted March 25, 2022

    Public Contracts for Small Business

    Public Contracts for Small Business: It is amazing how few startups think about going after business from Federal Government, States, Cities and other public entities. All kinds of bodies put out [...]

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     Purpose Driven Startup Coherence
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted March 22, 2022

    Purpose Driven Startup Coherence

    Purpose Driven Startup Coherence: purpose driven startups are sometimes exposed to criticism from skeptics, doubting their integrity. If you have a strong commitment of purpose to your [...]

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     Nearsourcing
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Outside Help
    Posted March 12, 2022

    Nearsourcing

    Nearsourcing: Nearsourcing is a way of outsourcing that brings subcontracted services nearer to the client company. Nearer can be in terms of distance, time, language, or culture. Nearsourcing [...]

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     Purpose Driven Tecopreneur
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Strategy
    Posted February 21, 2022

    Purpose Driven Tecopreneur

    Purpose Driven Tecopreneur: A tecopreneur (tec + eco) is how I describe technically/scientifically knowledgeable entrepreneurs, who see the need for new ventures for creative and innovative ways [...]

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     Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted February 9, 2022

    Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs

    Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs Costa Rica and Botswana In Central America & Sub-Saharan Africa full of inspiration and opportunity   Surprising Countries for Entrepreneurs: Costa [...]

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     Flourish Honorably
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership
    Posted February 5, 2022

    Flourish Honorably

    Flourish Honorably: To flourish honorably is a choice. It does not just happen, but it can be ignored. Founded as FaceMash nearly 20 years ago Facebook (now Meta) is a company that fulfills its [...]

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     Are CEOs Worth 351 Times the Median Pay?
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership, Strategy
    Posted December 10, 2021

    Are CEOs Worth 351 Times the Median Pay?

    Are CEOs worth 351 times the median pay? American CEOs made 351 times more than a typical worker in 2020, but in 1965 it was only 15 to one. Was life miserable back then? It’s not as though we [...]

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     Equity Crowdfunding from Friends and Family
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finanace
    Posted June 29, 2021

    Equity Crowdfunding from Friends and Family

    Equity Crowdfunding from Friends and Family: per this Founder Institute blog, “a Friends and Family round typically results in anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000 in funding that allows a startup [...]

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     Funding the Benefit Sector
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted June 24, 2021

    Funding the Benefit Sector

    Funding the Benefit Sector: The Benefit Sector is emerging to fill a gap in the ability of the three traditional sectors to produce balanced benefits for society as a whole1. Social (nonprofit) [...]

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     Startup Citizenship
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, People, Reflections, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted June 23, 2021

    Startup Citizenship

    Startup Citizenship: Entrepreneurs have plenty of concerns other than the social impact of their new venture. From Day One of the business, on the other hand, their new business will particularly [...]

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     Entrepreneurs Are Builders
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted June 19, 2021

    Entrepreneurs Are Builders

    Entrepreneurs Are Builders: The word ‘entrepreneur’ is derived from the French verb, entreprendre—to undertake in English. So, an entrepreneur is someone who undertakes things, but in English, we [...]

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     Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted June 1, 2021

    Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact

    Small Entrepreneurs Have Global Impact: If you are Don Miguel, of Fincas Familia Castro, a small family coffee plantation and roasters, in San Pedro de Poàs, about an hour north of San José, the [...]

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     Marketing for Purpose and Profit
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Deciding, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Planning
    Posted May 17, 2021

    Marketing for Purpose and Profit

    Marketing for Purpose and Profit: Most startups focus their marketing plans on survival and growth—for good reason. Founders believe passionately in their product and care for their customers. [...]

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     Stakeholder Business Thrives
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted May 13, 2021

    Stakeholder Business Thrives

    Stakeholder Business Thrives: Communities depend on willing parties enabling them to thrive or causing them to decay. This is true for both democratic or despotic systems. The parties can use [...]

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     Burn the Business Plan
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, People
    Posted May 9, 2021

    Burn the Business Plan

    Burn the Business Plan: The title is arresting and has a lot of truth. I am a retired MBA teacher of new venture creation and many of my students produced business plans. For me though a business [...]

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     Perception, Purpose and Persistence
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Stakeholder Capitalism
    Posted April 2, 2021

    Perception, Purpose and Persistence

    Perception, Purpose and Persistence: a model for purpose-driven startups Safwan Shah and PayActiv, the company he founded in 2012, are a model for purpose-driven startups today, demonstrating [...]

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     Sources of Startup Finance
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted March 6, 2021

    Sources of Startup Finance

    Sources of Startup Finance: creating a new venture is going to require money. The sources of money are almost endless. The successful entrepreneur will be financially ingenious about finding ways [...]

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     Sustainability Benefits Your Startup and the World
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted January 29, 2021

    Sustainability Benefits Your Startup and the World

    Purpose-driven Ventures Thrive Sustainability benefits your startup and the world. Purpose-driven ventures thrive, creating both shared value and profits. Successful founders set sustainable [...]

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     New Business Normal
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Deciding, Leadership, Reflections, Stakeholder Capitalism
    Posted January 23, 2021

    New Business Normal

    New Business Normal: For health reasons, most non-essential businesses closed in order to diminish the spread of Covid 19, often at the request of government. As forecasts of the healthcare [...]

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     The Interdependence of Business
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections, Stakeholder Capitalism, Strategy
    Posted January 23, 2021

    The Interdependence of Business

    The interdependence of business has not traditionally been part of business vernacular. However now, especially in post pandemic society, it is an imperative word for the survival of the [...]

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     Balanced Entrepreneurs Succeed
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Reflections
    Posted January 11, 2021

    Balanced Entrepreneurs Succeed

    Balanced entrepreneurs succeed in the new economy. While there’s no evidence that unbalanced entrepreneurs fail, my observation is that entrepreneurs who succeed, naturally strive, work [...]

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     Coworking for Entrepreneurs: 12 Benefits
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted November 23, 2020

    Coworking for Entrepreneurs: 12 Benefits

    Introduction Coworking for Entrepreneurs: Startups are booming. According to the US Census Bureau, 2020 Quarter 3 has shown a phenomenal growth over the second quarter—a 77% increase in business [...]

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     Early Stage Funding
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finanace, Insights
    Posted May 24, 2020

    Early Stage Funding

    Early Stage Funding: Most startups are not highly capitalized. Of course it varies by sector. You are unlikely to find airline startups with hundreds of thousands dollars in startup funds. On the [...]

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     Purposeful Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Strategy
    Posted April 3, 2020

    Purposeful Startup

    Purposeful Startup: David Shahan, is the founder of SunState Laboratories, based in Broomfield, Colorado, having previously worked with Jani-King, a company with 9,000 franchisees offering [...]

    Read More
     Botswana Women’s Coworking Space
    By Will Keyser
    In Entrepreneurship, Female Founders, Insights
    Posted March 4, 2020

    Botswana Women’s Coworking Space

    Botswana Women’s Coworking Space: The first coworking space for women has been opened in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, by The Institute of Entrepreneurial Development (IED). Bonang [...]

    Read More
     Equity Crowdfunding for Purposeful Startups
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace
    Posted February 21, 2020

    Equity Crowdfunding for Purposeful Startups

    Equity Crowdfunding for Purposeful Startups: Wefunder is simply the best way to raise capital from people who share your intent to change the world for the better, and with whom you want to build [...]

    Read More
     Profits and Purpose
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Strategy
    Posted February 12, 2020

    Profits and Purpose

    Profits and Purpose: It is in the founder’s interest to start the business knowing that we are all interrelated and interdependent. That is quite easy to recognize, but hard to act on. [...]

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     Family Offices and Venture Capital
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace
    Posted February 1, 2020

    Family Offices and Venture Capital

    Missed Opportunity for Startup Funding Family Offices and Venture Capital: Founders of new ventures are frequently ignorant about an excellent source of equity investment: family offices. With [...]

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     Say the Customer’s Name
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership, People
    Posted January 4, 2020

    Say the Customer’s Name

    Say the Customer’s Name: “Hello My Keyser, said Pricilla. Nothing very extraordinary about that, but Matt greets me that way, too. Both are Pharmacy Technicians at my local Walgreens, [...]

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     Opportunities for Purposeful Startups
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Leadership
    Posted December 3, 2019

    Opportunities for Purposeful Startups

    Opportunities for Purposeful Startups: there are many areas of opportunity for new ventures to address critical social issues, either directly or indirectly. Startups cannot ignore injustice [...]

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     Side Business to Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted November 19, 2019

    Side Business to Startup

    Side Business to Startup: About 57 million Americans have a side business, in addition to their regular paid employment. That amounts to nearly half of American full time workers who have a side [...]

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     Successful startup behaviors match purpose
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, People
    Posted November 11, 2019

    Successful startup behaviors match purpose

    Founders Can Learn From Corporate Deceit*: Founders can learn more from corporate mistakes than the things they appear to be doing successfully. The big boys often say one thing and do another. [...]

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     Blooming Beauty Business
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Strategy
    Posted November 2, 2019

    Blooming Beauty Business

    Blooming Beauty Business: The cosmetics and toiletries sector is about improving the appearance and health of the body and is in a period of significant growth in sales and new products, [...]

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     Mailbox Storyboard Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted October 25, 2019

    Mailbox Storyboard Startup

    Mailbox Storyboard Startup: a new personal service has been born in Houston, Texas to give stories to friends, relatives and colleagues to delight them by receiving hand drawn greetings through [...]

    Read More
     Startups Build a Better World
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted July 13, 2019

    Startups Build a Better World

    Startups Build a Better World: New ventures started with an international dimension are likely to prosper, because they will be sensitive to a wide variety of options. Those who start a business [...]

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     Startup Strategy
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Strategy
    Posted April 17, 2019

    Startup Strategy

    Startup Strategy is a subject much written about. Many business school professors and strategy consultants like Bain, BCG and McKinsey have built their reputations based on their own models of [...]

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     Smart Technology
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted March 31, 2019

    Smart Technology

    Smart Technology: How dumb can smart technology be? Many products are described as smart, without fully explaining in what way they can be smarter than the people who use them. The recent Boeing [...]

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     Re-Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, Reflections
    Posted January 24, 2019

    Re-Startup

    Re-Startup: Startups are new ventures that seek to meet a need through a viable business model for a product, service, process or channel. Chances of success or scalability are increased through [...]

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     Startups and Sockpuppets
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership
    Posted January 14, 2019

    Startups and Sockpuppets

    Startups and Sockpuppets: Founders are crazily busy and may gloss over certain risks, especially when they involve issues with which they are not familiar. The internet is a vital tool for new [...]

    Read More
     Founder Compassion
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership
    Posted November 14, 2018

    Founder Compassion

    Founder Compassion: You will have heard that having a focused passion for delivering benefit is a paramount quality for successful entrepreneurs, but you probably have not thought about doing so [...]

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     Rewriting the Rules of Business
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Leadership
    Posted November 8, 2018

    Rewriting the Rules of Business

    Rewriting the Rules of Business: Most governments support the existing unreasonable and unfair way we organize our community social and economic affairs. On the other hand many new [...]

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     Opportunity Gap
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted November 1, 2018

    Opportunity Gap

    Opportunity Gap: The Opportunity Gap concerns the arbitrary circumstances in which people are born—such as their race, gender, ethnicity, ZIP code, and socioeconomic status—that determine their [...]

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     Founder Team Balance
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted October 24, 2018

    Founder Team Balance

    Founder Team Balance: I am a male entrepreneur, who values female founders. I had a female co-founder of my main business back in 1982 and my learning from her was probably greater than anything [...]

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     Create and Build Something From Nothing
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted October 15, 2018

    Create and Build Something From Nothing

    “Entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing,” says my hero, the late Jeffry Timmons. He says that, both in the best founders’ reference book, New [...]

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     Hemp Entrepreneurs
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted September 16, 2018

    Hemp Entrepreneurs

    Hemp entrepreneurs are mostly known in the commercialization of marijuana in those States that have legalized commercial sales. But though marijuana and hemp come from the same cannabis strain, [...]

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     Entrepreneur Types
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted July 25, 2018

    Entrepreneur Types

    Entrepreneur Types: This list of entrepreneur types is partly for real and partly for fun. There is a huge raft of research about what makes a successful entrepreneur, and types of entrepreneur. [...]

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     New Venture Creation—the Timmons Model
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted July 24, 2018

    New Venture Creation—the Timmons Model

    New Venture Creation—the Timmons Model: My own conclusion about what drives startups above all else is strongly influenced by the ideas of an amazing thinker, researcher and teacher, the late [...]

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     Behaviors of Successful Founders
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Reflections
    Posted July 23, 2018

    Behaviors of Successful Founders

    Behaviors of Successful Founders: You’ll find endless ideas about what it takes to be a successful founder—and none is perfect. Internet searches will reveal all kinds of answers. The one [...]

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     Non-entrepreneurial Mind
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, People
    Posted July 19, 2018

    Non-entrepreneurial Mind

    Non-entrepreneurial Mind: So much is written about the entrepreneurial mind, including by me. Much less is written on the non-entrepreneurial mind, which can be catastrophic for a new venture. My [...]

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     Spin Out Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted July 18, 2018

    Spin Out Startup

    Spin Out Startup: the experience of three women who created their startup from the ashes of their former employer’s business seemed courageous back in 2014, when it was launched. [...]

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     Exit Strategy by ESOP or Co-op
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Finanace, Insights, Outside Help
    Posted July 12, 2018

    Exit Strategy by ESOP or Co-op

    Exit Strategy by ESOP or Co-op: An Employee Stock Ownership Plan or Co-operative Ownership are both increasingly popular options as exit strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. My [...]

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     Staffing a Startup
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership, Outside Help, People
    Posted June 9, 2018

    Staffing a Startup

    Staffing a Startup: What staff does a startup need? The data does not show that solo founders do any worse than those with two or more. However, my advice is that the second member of the team [...]

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     Entrepreneurial Empathy
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Leadership, People
    Posted June 6, 2018

    Entrepreneurial Empathy

    Entrepreneurial Empathy: The word ‘reveal’ sounds either like showing off, or showing private stuff. Good entrepreneurs who habitually reveal themselves by the way they behave—to show [...]

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     Entrepreneur Personality
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights, People
    Posted May 28, 2018

    Entrepreneur Personality

    Entrepreneur Personality: Everyone who starts a new venture wants the keys to startup success. Many people think there’s a special ‘entrepreneur character’ you should have for [...]

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     Creeping Disruption
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Strategy
    Posted May 25, 2018

    Creeping Disruption

    Creeping Disruption: Market disruption is presented as if it is a big bang like digital photography ending film photography. But it’s much more like a gradual change—creeping disruption, [...]

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     Startup Workshops
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Outside Help
    Posted May 25, 2018

    Startup Workshops

    Startup Workshops: The best startup workshop that I ever attended was one designed to enable a venture capital company to decide on potential startup investments. Lead entrepreneurs from about a [...]

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     Logo for Startups
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Marketing
    Posted May 21, 2018

    Logo for Startups

    Logo for Startups: Choosing a startup’s logo is hard and subjective. Sometimes it can be obvious and flows from the name itself, the place of business, or the product sold. So it was with [...]

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     Vision Statement
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Strategy
    Posted May 13, 2018

    Vision Statement

    Vision Statement: My former home city, Georgetown in Texas, is one of the first US cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants with 100% renewable energy supply—provided by its own power municipal [...]

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     Sweat Equity
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted May 13, 2018

    Sweat Equity

    Sweat Equity: You have heard the term ‘sweat equity’. It is the opposite of ‘financial equity’. Many entrepreneurs pride themselves on their sweat equity. Frequently they [...]

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     Startup Storyboarding
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Marketing
    Posted May 11, 2018

    Startup Storyboarding

    Startup Storyboarding—what is that? Why would a startup want to use the storyboard technique? And for what? Surely that is just for film producers. Telling stories is one of the most persuasive [...]

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     Expansion or Extension
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Finanace, Insights
    Posted May 11, 2018

    Expansion or Extension

    Expansion or Extension: Management ‘specialists’ talk about Stretch Goals, or even Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals, or BHAGs. Venture capitalists, with whom you are probably not [...]

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     Reducing Risk to Startup Safely
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted May 10, 2018

    Reducing Risk to Startup Safely

    Reducing Risk to Startup Safely: Strategy is tough for entrepreneurs when they love their product so. They just want to get on with it, producing and selling what they’ve got. Let’s [...]

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     Loans from Family and Friends
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Insights, Outside Help
    Posted May 9, 2018

    Loans from Family and Friends

    Loans from Family and Friends: The first port of call for borrowing money for startups is family and friends. Historically, promissory notes have acted as a form of privately issued currency. [...]

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     Customer Lifetime Model
    By Will Keyser
    In Analyzing, Benefit Venture Blog, Marketing, Tools
    Posted April 26, 2018

    Customer Lifetime Model

    Customer Lifetime Model: Here is a graphic way that will help you relate the cost of customer acquisition and support to the value of a customer’s business over the lifetime of doing [...]

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     Team Behavior Building
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, People
    Posted April 25, 2018

    Team Behavior Building

    Team Behavior Building:  Of course you know that your attitude affects your behavior. But what may surprise you is to know just how much your behavior affect the behavior of others. The image on [...]

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     Startup B-Words
    By Will Keyser
    In Benefit Venture Blog, Entrepreneurship, Insights
    Posted April 23, 2018

    Startup B-Words

    Startup B-Words: Here is my list of Startup B-Words for business building. Have productive fun thinking about how these startup b-words can contribute to your success. Treat them almost as though [...]